Staking Guide — Stake SOL (Solana) with SolFlare Wallet using Keystore File and Password
Hello SolFlare users and Solana community members,
We are happy to share with you a thorough staking guide that will help you delegate your precious SOL tokens and contribute to the security of Solana Network.
The SolFlare Wallet was created by Dokia Capital and is the very first non-custodial wallet that allows you to easily delegate your SOL tokens. The wallet currently supports two options with more hardware wallets to be added:
- Staking by using Keystore File and Password
- Staking with Ledger Nano S Hardware Wallet
In this guide we will explicitly focus on staking by using Keystore File and Password. If you are holding a significant amount of SOL we strongly recommend you to use a hardware wallet to store them. If you want to use Ledger Nano S to stake your SOL, you can use this guide.
Step 1. Create your wallet
The first step is to create and save your wallet. For this go to https://solflare.com/ and click on “Create” on the Menu or on “Create a wallet”, like shown in the picture below.
After going through a short introduction you will land on a screen where you can select which type of wallet you want to create.
As in Option 1 we are focusing on Keystore, we will proceed further with this option. Therefore you can press “Next”.
First, fill in your password and make sure to make a backup of it in the most secure way (most recommended is offline).
Once you have done this, you can press “Next” and make sure you download the Keystore File by clicking on “Download Keystore File” and store it safely.
Once you did this, please press “Next”.
On the next step it will be validated that you successfully downloaded the Keystore File and that you actually own it. Therefore press on “Upload Keystore File” and select your JSON Keystore File.
Once you uploaded your Keystore File, you will get a confirmation that everything is done. Now you can click on “Finish” to complete the wallet creation process.
Step 2. Access your wallet
Once you have a Keystore wallet, you can access it at any time by clicking on “Access” on the menu or “Access a wallet” like shown in the picture below.
On the next screen, select “Using Keystore File” and press “Access”. Then you will have to enter your password and upload your Keystore File. Once this is done, press “Access” and you will get access to the main UI of your wallet.
Once you have access to your wallet, you need to make sure that you are on “Mainnet” network. If this is not the case you can click on “Change” and select “Mainnet” from the option list. Then you will have to fund your wallet prior to the staking process.
The SolFlare wallet also offers the option to switch between light- and dark-mode.
Step 3. Staking
Once you have your wallet address funded, then you will have to create a staking account. You can either press “Get started” or select the “Staking” tab and then click on “Create Account”.
On the next screen enter how much SOL you would like to deposit from your balance and click on “Next”.
Important:
- It is important and recommended to support stake decentralization. This adds a significant contribution to the security of the network and in the end everyone will benefit, including you the delegator, as this gives indirectly more value to the token itself. In order to support this it is recommended to create multiple staking accounts, split your balance among those and then delegate to multiple validators.
- It is also important and recommended to keep some minimal funds in your wallet for transaction fees.
You will be asked to enter your wallet password and then press “Next”. Now the transaction will be confirmed. Once it is done you will receive your staking account address, and you can press “Finish”.
Now that the staking account is funded, you can proceed to the last step: delegating to a validator. For this you will have to click on “Delegate now”.
On the next screen you will have the option to choose from multiple good validators.
Then you will have to enter again your password and the delegation transaction will be completed.
In order to support stake decentralization we created and funded a new stake account by clicking on “Create Account” and repeating the steps above.
As you can see in the screenshot below, having multiple staking accounts and delegating to multiple validators is a great step towards decentralizing the stake and increasing the network security. We encourage delegators to do this as well and select multiple validators by splitting the stake among these.
Staking is complete, you can enjoy your SOL rewards once inflation gets activated!
In case you have any questions regarding the staking process, please join us on our Telegram channel. Our team will be happy to answer your questions!
SolFlare Social handles & Contact
Website: https://solflare.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/solflare_wallet
Telegram: https://t.me/SolFlare_Wallet
Solana Social handles & Contact
Website: https://solana.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/solana
Telegram: https://t.me/solanaio
Chainode Tech Social handles & Contact
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChainodeTech
Telegram: https://t.me/ChainodeTech
E-mail: contact@chainode.tech
