Kusama / KSM Guide

Put your KSM to work today!

4 min readNov 22, 2019

The Kusama network officially launched on August 23, 2019.

To delegate your KSM to Staked, please use the following validator addresses:

           EicrAEbyauqktQpp4CdvsF2CQy3Ju7tGGMohj3h5sAPnKHL
           HqGhgHg6YvnhaXSnaAUvyTDiR4FirB6Ssh2XNDedTzwCDv2
           GC8hwHbQ4TdbYJJPDS96G7Uj9bivnW5z56UEkqujjwhQPp5

Make sure you nominate all of the Staked addresses. This will ensure your stake is distributed in an optimal way to maximize your yield.

There is a 7 day unbonding process for staked KSM.

Staked receives 0.1 KSM per cycle for each validator as compensation, paying ~ 90% of block rewards to stakers.

Key Risks

Slashing will happen if a validator misbehaves (e.g. goes offline, attacks the network, or runs modified software) in the network. They and their nominators will get slashed by losing a percentage of their bonded/staked KSM. Validator pools with larger total stake backing them will get slashed more harshly than less popular ones.

Summary

Kusama is an early, unaudited and unrefined release of Polkadot presenting real economic conditions. Kusama will serve as a proving ground, allowing teams and developers to build and deploy a parachain or try out Polkadot’s governance, staking, nomination and validation functionality in a real environment. Kusama is meant to be Polkadot’s canary network, warning us of issues to keep things safe for the developers downchain.

Network Economics: (11/22/19)

There are currently 115 Kusama validators. Validators are rewarded from the block reward of the relay chain. Block rewards consists of transaction fees (and tips) and block production rewards.

Nominating is a process where KSM holders publish a list of validator candidates that they trust, and put down an amount of KSM at stake to support them with. If some of these candidates are elected as validators, KSM holders share with them the payments, or the sanctions, on a per-staked-KSM basis. Unlike validators, an unlimited number of parties can participate as nominators. As long as a nominator is diligent in their choice and only supports validator candidates with good security practices, their role carries low risk and provides a continuous source of revenue. KSM holders can nominate between one and 16 validators.

Nomination Instructions

Visit the Polkadot UI and create a new account.

2. Navigate to the “Staking” tab, click on the “Account Actions” button at the top-left of the screen, and select the blue “New Stake” button.

3. Choose the same account for both controller and stash, select a “value bonded” that is less than the total amount of KSM you have, and select the payment destination of your preference.

4. After your tokens are bonded, visit the “Staking Overview” tab, select Staked as the validator to nominate on the right-hand column in the list that’s labelled “next up”, and star all three addresses.

5. Return to the “Account Actions” screen, click the “Nominate” button, toggle the Staked validator (see screenshot), and sign and submit the transaction.

Congratulations! You have now successfully nominated your KSM.

Have questions? Find time to speak here.

About Staked

Staked helps institutional investors reliably and securely compound their crypto by 5% — 100% annually through staking and lending. Staked runs validation nodes for proof-of-stake currencies and offers access to on- and off-chain lending options that provide an annualized yield of in-kind currency. Staked’s investors include Pantera Capital, Digital Currency Group, Coinbase Ventures, Winklevoss Capital, Fabric Ventures, Global Brain, and other leading crypto investors.