Harmony Brings Multisig Staking For Added Security And Features

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Harmony

4 min readJun 9, 2022

To ensure complete decentralization and a rewarding staking process at Harmony, we introduced the Effective Proof-of-Stake (EPoS) staking mechanism. EPoS is designed to solve the issues posed by standard PoS while still maintaining the decentralization aspect of the blockchain.

Staking at Harmony is upheld by validators and delegators, who can stake their ONE tokens and earn rewards. Each shard at Harmony contains a large group of validators, which validate new blocks and vote to reach a consensus. To vote, each validator requires voting shares, where one bonded voting share grants one vote for a validator to cast in the FBFT consensus. A 2/3 quorum of votes is needed for consensus, and a share remains bonded to a validator for a period of 7 epochs.

On the other hand, delegators can participate in staking without running a validator and instead delegate their tokens to an existing validator through the Staking Explorer. If the tokens are delegated to an elected validator, a portion of the block reward earned by the validator will be credited to the delegator, which is immediately redeemable.

While the current system works faultlessly, we want to provide additional security layers to the transactions within the Harmony ecosystem. This is where Harmony makes an impact with Gnosis Multisig.

About Gnosis Multisig

As we extended support to Gnosis Safe, we enabled developers and users to partake in the ecosystem with additional decentralization and security. Gnosis Safe operates using smart contracts and is entirely non-custodial, and Harmony has forked this Multisig implementation.

With Gnosis Safe, developers and users can:

Create a Multisig wallet, otherwise known as a safe;
Create and manage the multiple wallet addresses inside the safe;
Set the minimum required signers for each transaction;
Track and manage all activity in the safe;
Set spending limits.

Multisig Staking At Harmony

Since the launch of open staking in May 2020, we have witnessed exponential growth in the number of validators, delegators, and ONE tokens staked in the ecosystem. To stake their ONE tokens, users had to send a special staking transaction which is supported by a limited number of wallets. Building a better system, Harmony launched support for staking at the smart contract level earlier this year.

Since Gnosis Safe does not support staking, the assets kept in safes remain idle without earning any yield or rewards. Therefore, by utilizing the smart contract staking feature, Harmony can now easily support staking for Multisig wallets (or safes), making it one of the first, if not the first blockchain to do so. With this feature, ONE tokens in the Multisig wallets can also be staked to earn the staking rewards. This creates a huge impact for users with Multisig wallets, especially DAOs, which can utilize Multisig staking to stake their funds and have self-sustaining income generation.

Setting Up A Gnosis Safe At Harmony

At Harmony, we continually educate our users on the best practices to keep their funds safe. This is why we created specific guidelines for setting up a Gnosis safe. Here are some things to keep in mind when using Gnosis Safe:

Use Gnosis Safe with multiple people using different wallets and separate devices with all security measures activated (2FA).
While using a hardware wallet is the safest option, combining a Gnosis Safe with Google Authenticator is the minimum recommendation.
Use non-overlapping passwords or authenticators.
Use freshly-created passwords and brand-new addresses without any history.

While keeping these recommendations in mind, here’s a definitive guide on how to set up your Gnosis Safe at Harmony using Metamask and 1Wallet.

How To Get Started

Before you can stake your ONE assets through Multisig, you need to be a part of a safe. Here’s how you can get started.

Go to the official Harmony Multisiig Wallet platform.
Harmony Multisig supports a wide range of wallets, and you can connect any supportive wallet.
Now, you can either create a new safe or choose to load a safe that already exists.
Once you have the safe ready, ensure that it has enough funds to stake.
Now, you are ready to stake with Multisig at Harmony.

Here’s the official documentation on how to stake via your Multisig Safe at Harmony.

In Conclusion

At Harmony, we have always taken user security as our top priority. With Multisig staking, we ensure that users keep the control in their hands with total decentralization. Currently, the Harmony team is focusing on updating the Harmony Multisig version to be in sync with the latest Gnosis repo to ensure maximum security.

The new update aims to simplify the process for new users to join in and create their own safes. As of May 2022, we have over 1300 safes created and 137M ONE staked. You, too, can join them and start staking!

About Harmony

Build on Harmony, Bridge to All Chains.

Harmony is an open and fast blockchain. Our mainnet runs Ethereum applications with 2-second transaction finality and 100 times lower fees.

Harmony is your open platform for assets, collectibles, identity, governance. Our secure bridges offer cross-chain asset transfers with Ethereum, Binance and 3 other chains.

We ❤️ Developers.