Announcing Neblio Cold Staking
Cold Staking, Explained: What it is, how it works, and when it will be activated
Note: At the time of publication, Neblio Cold Staking is currently active and undergoing testing on the Neblio Testnet. M̶a̶i̶n̶n̶e̶t̶ ̶a̶c̶t̶i̶v̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶o̶c̶c̶u̶r̶ ̶a̶t̶ ̶b̶l̶o̶c̶k̶ ̶h̶e̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶2̶7̶3̶0̶4̶5̶0̶.̶ Mainnet activation occurred successfully at block height 2730450 on 15 Feb 2021. Cold staking is now active on testnet and mainnet.
13 April 2021 Update: MyCointainer.com via Partnership with the Neblio Team now offers Neblio Cold-Staking to all users for free with no staking fees. Learn more here.
Before you begin: Cold staking requires 2 wallets. A staking wallet and an owner wallet. The staking wallet can stake the NEBL, but never spend them. The owner wallet can spend the NEBL, but can be offline. Cold Staking = Staking Cold Storage.
- Examples of staking wallets: A staking service from a company, a friend running Neblio Core, your own Neblio Core wallet.
- Examples of owner wallets: A Neblio Core wallet that may not always be online, Neblio Orion, a Paper Wallet, a hardware wallet (future).
What is Neblio Cold Staking?
With normal “hot” staking, your wallet must be online & unlocked in order to stake the NEBL in that wallet. With Neblio Cold Staking, you delegate your NEBL via a new type of Neblio Smart Contract to a staking node that stakes them on your behalf. Since staking nodes are actively staking new blocks on the Neblio Blockchain, Cold Staking offers the same network security benefits as regular staking and therefore the same rewards. These staking nodes can never spend your NEBL and do not get any portion of your stake rewards. If a staking node is compromised or hacked, your NEBL is never at risk as that node cannot spend them. Your wallet can be offline or online and will receive all of its stake rewards for the NEBL it has delegated for Cold Staking!
We anticipate this feature will create new 3rd-party services around Neblio Staking. Staking Node providers will now be able to offer trust-less and secure NEBL staking to their customers, likely for a small monthly fee. Also, exchanges will be able to securely stake their cold wallet balances and distribute those stake rewards back to their users. If you are interested in partnering with Neblio to offer staking services or other services related to Cold Staking, we’d love to help, contact us.
How Do I Set Up Cold Staking?
Note: Neblio Cold Staking is supported by Neblio Core (neblio-Qt & nebliod) and the Neblio Orion web wallet.
This section will focus on setting up Neblio Cold Staking with neblio-Qt & nebliod, a separate tutorial for Neblio Orion is available here.
Neblio Cold Staking requires two wallets. One “Staking Wallet” will need to be always online actively cold staking while the other “Owner Wallet” can be offline or online and will delegate NEBL to the “Staking Wallet”.
Step 1: Create a Staker Address on the Staking Wallet
It is recommended to create a new “Staker Address” in the Staking Wallet. Note: A “Staker Address” is the same as any other Neblio address, but having a separate address just for receiving cold staking delegations helps keep things organized. This address can be re-used for receiving all future cold staking delegations, if desired.
neblio-Qt:
nebliod Command Line (RPC):
- Generate a new Neblio Address with:
./nebliod getnewaddress
- List previously received cold stake delegations to reuse a staker address with:
./nebliod listcoldutxos
Step 2: Create a Cold Stake Delegation From The Owner Wallet
From the Owner wallet we will now create a Neblio Smart Contract transaction that delegates NEBL to a Cold Staking Address. This Smart Contract will have 2 important inputs: An “Owner Address” and the “Staker Address” from Step 1.
The Smart Contract will ONLY allow the “Owner Address” to spend the NEBL and this Address should be in the Owner Wallet. The Smart Contract will allow the “Staker Address” to stake the NEBL on behalf of the Owner, but the “Staker Address” can never spend or move the NEBL. Note: The “Staker Address” in this step is either an address from your own Staking Wallet (Step 1), or it is the address given to you by a 3rd-party Staking Service.
neblio-Qt:
Navigate to the new “Cold-Staking” tab on the Owner Wallet. This tab will show all active Cold Staking delegations. To create a new Cold Staking Delegation, click on the “Snowflake+” button in the top-right of this tab.
- Insert the “Staker Address” from Step 1
- Insert the Amount of NEBL you would like to delegate to the Staking Wallet. This is the amount of NEBL that will Cold Stake.
- For Advanced Users: You can specify the specific “Owner Address”, if you leave this blank a new address from your wallet will be used (recommended). You can also allow previously delegated coins to be used for this new delegation, can pick the exact coins you want to delegate via Coin Control, and can also specify a change address. Most users will only fill in the “Staker Address” and Amount of NEBL.
- Click “Create” and accept the Neblio Blockchain fees to create the Cold Staking Delegation Smart Contract.
nebliod Command Line (RPC):
- Specify the Staker Address, amount of NEBL to Cold Stake, and Owner Address (optional): ./nebliod delegatestake TL6gijsDuvM8YDao9jG3QA4aYjqFyWKi6a 1000
OR./nebliod delegatestake TL6gijsDuvM8YDao9jG3QA4aYjqFyWKi6a 1000 OwnerAddressHere
Step 3: Enable Cold Staking Delegation on Staking Wallet
To prevent bad actors, spammers, free loaders, and others from abusing Cold Staking, Staking Wallets must approve Cold Staking Delegations from new Owner Addresses. A Staking Wallet will not begin staking NEBL delegated from an Owner Address until the delegation has been approved by enabling cold staking for that Owner Address. Once an Owner Address has an approved delegation, all future delegations from that same Owner Address will be approved automatically.
neblio-Qt:
Navigate to the new “Cold-Staking” tab on the Staking Wallet. Find the Cold Staking Delegation in the list, you will notice the status says “Staking disabled.” Right Click on the Delegation and then click “Enable staking for this address.”
nebliod Command Line (RPC):
- Approve Cold Staking Delegations from a New Owner Address:
./nebliod delegatoradd TX4XKTQUk6SeWHz3WpwjW9HYvek1ua1xvB
- Disable Cold Staking Delegations from an Owner Address: ./nebliod delegatorremove OwnerAddressHere
- List all Approved Cold Staking Delegation Owner Addresses: ./nebliod listdelegators
That’s it!
3 simple steps to get started with Neblio Cold Staking!
Stake Rewards earned by Cold Staking will show up in the transaction tab of both the Owner Wallet & Staking Wallet, but can ONLY be spent by the Owner Wallet.
An Owner can spend the NEBL in a Cold Staking Delegation at any time, breaking the relationship with the “Staking Wallet” and stopping the staking of those NEBL until a new Cold Staking Delegation is created.
Remember, Cold Staking is very similar to normal Staking and many of the same rules apply:
- New delegations take 24 Hours to mature before they begin staking
- Staking rewards will be the same amount whether Cold Staking or staking normally
- For more details on normal Neblio Staking, see here
When Will Cold Staking Be Available?
Cold Staking is live now on Neblio Testnet for all users, service providers, exchanges, and other integrators to begin testing and developing for. We expect Cold Staking to be activated on Neblio Mainnet soon. Stay connected with Neblio on our social channels & community chats for news and information regarding all Neblio features & releases!
About Neblio
Neblio is an Enterprise Blockchain Platform focussed on simplifying blockchain technology for business. Neblio’s lightning fast & scalable blockchain, APIs, NTP1 Token Protocol, and unique services offerings allow clients to easily and quickly utilize blockchain and distributed ledger technology to radically improve efficiency, reduce go-to-market time, and dominate their competition.
Learn about Neblio at the Neblio website or join the community on Discord, Telegram, and Twitter.
