How to stake Tezos (XTZ) using Kukai Wallet

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Everstake

7 min readJan 26, 2021

Kukai is an open-source client for Tezos (XTZ) tokens. The wallet has a straightforward and user-friendly UI with a bunch of handy features. In this guide, we will have a look at two ways to create a Kukai wallet: the traditional way and using your social media. We will also go into the specifics of the Kukai wallet and explain the staking process.

How to create a wallet

Let’s start and create your first Kukai wallet. There are several options to do so. You may either sign in with your social account or create a regular web wallet, and, of course, you may connect your Ledger device. This guide will cover all the ways of creating a Kukai wallet.

The first, traditional way is to click Create New Wallet in the upper right corner.

While creating the wallet, you will be presented with a passphrase, aka seed phrase. You have to keep it secure and carefully write it down in the correct order. Click to reveal the words and write them down.

N.B. Do not take a screenshot of your seed as it may cause security problems. It’s better to store those words on a device with no internet connection. A perfect solution would be to just write them down on paper. Please remember, however, that your seed phrase is the master key to your wallet, and if a bad actor somehow accesses the passphrase, they will access your funds. Please be careful and never share the passphrase.

Once you’ve written the words down, make sure you have them in the correct order and click Next.

On the next screen, you have to verify your seed. The purpose of this step is to make sure you’ve written your seed phrase down correctly.

As soon as you have verified your seed, click Next.

Now you have to come up with a complex password that will be used to create an encrypted keystore file. You will need it to perform operations that use your private key.

Note: The password must be 8 to 12 digits and include upper and lower case numbers and special symbols. You must store your password somewhere safe and never reveal it to anyone.

Please wait until the wallet is created.

Voilà! Your Kukai wallet is created and ready to be used. The screen displays the public account address that you can share with others.

The last step is to download your encrypted keystore file. This file is essential when you want to log into your wallet. Press Download.

Your file is downloaded. Never share it, and remember to keep it safe.

To open the wallet and see what you have there, click Open Wallet.

Wallet interface and features

Here is your wallet. The UI is extremely intuitive and simple, but it may be useful to describe the functionalities it has. You can see your balance and recent activity. You can’t see the details because the wallet is empty. You can purchase tez inside the wallet or just transfer your coins from the exchange.

In addition, the Kukai wallet has recently added two sections: Discover where you can browse various collectibles, exchanges, and marketplaces, and NFT/Collectibles where you can store your NFTs.

An awesome feature is the ability to create multiple addresses inside the wallet, as you can’t distribute your funds on Tezos using the same tz address. Click the plus sign as shown on the screenshot below.

Enter your previously created password and press Confirm.

Now you have two Tezos accounts in the same wallet. You can create even more addresses if you wish. Click Show all to see the details.

Now you can now copy one of the addresses and see each address’s balance.

Copy an address and send some funds there.

Staking process

Your wallet is now topped up. The transaction is already in the Recent Activity, and a Send button has appeared. There is another needed feature now: Staking. You can see your current status under your address bar, which says, ‘NOT STAKED.’ How about changing it? Click your staking status as shown on the screenshot.

Now you can see a list of all Tezos bakers. You can either find a baker on the list or enter a custom baker’s address.

To enter a custom baker’s address, you have to click the highlighted Enter Custom Baker button and enter the address in the bar. Click Stake and that’s it.

The other option is to choose from the list of bakers.

In this example, we’ll be staking our tez with Everstake, one of the biggest bakers. Everstake is a team of experienced engineers and blockchain experts, boasting a strong track record in more than 50 blockchains since 2018. Over 625,000 stakers have already chosen Everstake as their staking provider. Everstake’s infrastructure and expertise ensure a 99 percent level of reliability.

Click the Stake button on the left and you will see the menu as shown below. The advanced option lets you set a higher fee, or you may just leave it untouched. Then enter your password to verify your transaction and simply press Confirm.

Done! In the Recent Activity section, you will see the last delegation transaction confirmed, and the status under your address bar has changed to ‘Staked: Everstake’.

N.B. The staking process on Tezos takes some time to be completed. You have to wait 23 days to receive your first XTZ reward as the network needs time to process your staking transaction. Your transaction gets the pending status after initiation, and it takes 2 cycles (or ~6 days) to complete. The next stage — Confirmation — takes 5 cycles (or ~14 days). When your delegation is confirmed, it means the baker received future baking rights (to produce and endorse future blocks). Finally, you should wait for a cycle to end for your first payout. So, it looks like this: 2 cycles (pending period) + 5 cycles (confirmation period) + 1 cycle = ~23 days.

Signing in with social media

In addition, let’s have a look at the other way of creating a Kukai wallet. This option is way easier. You have to connect your social media or Gmail account. Click what you prefer: Gmail, Twitter, Facebook, or Reddit.