Staking is the process of locking up CUDOS tokens and delegating them to a selected validator to maintain the operations of the Ethereum blockchain network. In return, delegators are rewarded for their participation.
The Cudos staking portal allows you to stake with just a few clicks and this article explains how.
Staking portal sections
The staking portal includes the following sections:
Wallet
As shown below, the wallet section displays your total Cudos balance and your available rewards. It also allows you to check all recent activities and lists current exchanges that you can use to buy CUDOS tokens.
Staking
The staking section, shown below, allows you to stake your CUDOS tokens with a validator, claim the staking rewards that you have gained so far across all your selected validators and unstake/withdraw your staked tokens.
Network
As shown below, the network section allows you to check the statistics about the rewards annual percentage rate, the total amount staked, and all the current validators on the network.
Validator
As shown below, the validator section allows you to send a request if you want to be an active validator. Please note that you need to have at least 2,000,000 CUDOS and meet all the hardware requirements for the mainnet.
Note that you can click on the Help section to find all staking FAQs if you have any questions.
Step by step staking and claiming rewards
In the staking guide, we will perform stake, unstake and claim rewards operations and we will use an amount of 10 CUDOS. If you want to start delegating your stake to one or many active validators and collect all rewards from staking your token, you will need to follow these steps:
Step 1: Install MetaMask
As a first step, you need to install MetaMask, set up your wallet and select the “Ethereum Mainnet” network as your main network as shown in the picture below:
Note that if you have a Ledger connected to MetaMask then you need to:
- Connect your ledger device
- Open your Ethereum (ETH) wallet within the ledger device
- Go to the app settings
- Enable smart contract data
- When clicking any action, ensure that your ledger is on and your ETH wallet is open, and the above data is enabled
Step 2: Get ETH
It is important to note that you must have some ETH within your MetaMask account to start using the staking portal.
Step 3: Connect your MetaMask account with the staking portal
- Go to the staking portal and select a wallet:
2. Then select your account and click the “Next” button:
3. Click on the “Connect” button:
Step 4: Start staking
- On the main menu, go to the “Staking” tab (the second tab from the left):
2. Click on the “Stake” button
3. Specify the number of tokens that you want to stake
4. Select a validator from the provided list to start the process of staking:
5. Click on the “Confirm” button to confirm the total staked amount and the validator:
6. This will forward you to MetaMask to confirm the transaction. Please note that you will need to approve two transactions to stake:
7. Congrats, you have successfully staked your tokens:
Step 5: Claim your rewards
- After staking your tokens, you can go to the “Staking” tab and click on the “Claim rewards” button to start the process of collecting your rewards. Please note that to see your collected rewards you will need to wait few seconds and then refresh the webpage:
2. Click on the “Select” button and then “Confirm” to get your rewards from the selected validator:
3. Confirm the transaction on MetaMask:
4. Congrats! You have successfully got your rewards:
How to withdraw staked tokens
You can withdraw your tokens from staking at any time you want but be aware that the process of withdrawing stake will take 21 days, after this period your CUDOS Tokens will be released. So you will receive back your staked tokens only after 21 days of the withdrawal request.
Please note that if you unstake additional tokens from the same validator before withdrawing the ones you previously unstaked, the newly unstaked tokens will be added to the previously unstaked ones, and the 21-day waiting period will restart for the whole sum.
- To submit a withdrawal request, go to the Staking tab and click on the “Unstake” button:
2. Select the validator that you want to unstake from, specify the number of tokens that you want to unstake, and click on the “Select” button:
3. Click on “Confirm” to confirm your unstake request:
4. You successfully submitted the unstake request:
5. After 21 days, you can withdraw the requested tokens. To do that, go to the Staking tab and click on the arrow “Your unstaked amount is ready to withdraw”:
6. Click on the “Withdraw” button to collect your unstaked tokens:
A special case: A validator can have one of two states: active or inactive. You can delegate stake only to an active validator. At some point, however, your validator may become inactive. In this case, your tokens stop earning rewards. If this happens, you will want to collect all your tokens staked with that validator and delegate them to another active validator. To do this, simply find the associated notification in the Staking tab and click on the arrow to the right of the message.
After that select the inactive validator and click on the “Confirm” button:
Once the transaction is complete, you will immediately receive all your tokens (staked or unstaked) and pending rewards with that validator without the need to wait for 21 days for the tokens to be released.
