Staking KSM: How to claim & stake your Kusama tokens

Published in

Figment

4 min readSep 18, 2019

If you own DOTs, you’re entitled to KSM. Claim them to get staking now!

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Despite being a “canary network,” we think that there are good reasons to believe that Kusama’s KSM tokens will have some economic value. I wrote about that here in our ‘first look’ article.

The first part is for staking KSM, and the second part is about claiming KSM. Skip the first part if you have DOTs and no KSM. Thanks to Parity — I’ve essentially streamlined their claims guide.

Part 1: Staking KSM

Polkadot JS Staking App

Always ensure that your settings are for the correct network. In this case, that’s Kusama:

1. Click ‘staking’ in the left margin, then the ‘new stake’ button.

For those using strong security practices, Kusama allows you to use one account to store your funds (stash) and another account to control your staking (controller). It’s slightly more convenient and less secure to use the same account as stash and controller. Note that two separate accounts will require that the controller account has funds for transaction fees. Stay tuned–we will publish an article explaining the difference between stash and controller accounts.

2. Indicate how many KSM tokens you would like to bond for staking. Bonding happens before nominating validator(s) to stake with. Note that the unbonding period is currently seven (7) days.

You’ll get a popup from your browser extension to sign the transaction:

3. After entering your password, sign the transaction. Now you may nominate your validators.

4. Select up to 16 validators that you trust. Choose carefully!
Copy and paste each of these addresses to nominate Figment’s validators:

Fsspzse4QY1KqagdyrVqDt7cmVBr3HSVsfJ38WKgxsLVaXoEzR9J3Afvash2tYCk8ZZwPYyq3zy92adVUXKcYjbYN46JWL

You’ll receive a popup to sign the transaction:

Signed the transaction? At last! You should now be staking with one or more validators 😊

Part 2: Claiming KSM Tokens

Verify that you qualify

You’ll need to verify you can claim KSM. For every Polkadot DOT token you own, you are entitled to one KSM token. Verify that your original Ethereum address (with DOTs) may claim KSM: https://claim.kusama.network

https://guide.kusama.network/en/latest/start/dot-holders/

Generate your Kusama address

There are a few ways to generate a Kusama address, and its creators provided a comprehensive instruction set here.

The simplest is the polkadot{.js} browser extension, which is similar to MetaMask. Download for Chrome/Brave or Firefox

After installing the browser extension, select I want to create a new account with a new seed and copy the seed phrase somewhere secure. It could be a piece of paper kept in a safe. This is the only way to restore your account.

Then choose a name for your account and a password. Select Add the account with the generated seed.

Claim your KSM

Using the Polkadot JS claims app, select the account you created above — the address where you’ll claim your KSM tokens — and click the blue ‘continue’ button, then click to copy the sentence (“Pay KSMs to the Kusama account..”).