Participate in Solana Staking

Stakers delegate Solana’s native token (SOL) to validators to increase their voting weight. This action signifies trust in the validators and their role in securing the network. Delegators ensure that validators cast honest votes, helping to maintain the network's integrity. If any network malfunction occurs, a halt will be triggered, and the responsible validators will be penalized. The specifics of slashing and penalties are currently under active exploration as part of the protocol's development.

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Key Accounts in Solana Staking

To participate in staking, it’s important to understand the two primary accounts involved in the process:

1. Stake Account: This account delegates SOL tokens to a validator’s vote address. In the stake account, tokens are stored and delegated to validators, potentially earning rewards.

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Learn how to delegate tokens to validators.

2. Validator’s Vote Account: This account is where the validator collects delegated stake. It validates the network, participates in consensus, and votes on the ledger state. When stakes delegate to a validator, they send their tokens to this account to allow the validator to gain voting weight.

Stakers may delegate tokens to any validator on the network. The more stake a validator receives, the more often they are chosen to write new transactions to the ledger, which can result in higher rewards for the delegators.

Solana Staking Cycle

Solana’s staking operates in epochs, each lasting about two days. An epoch is when a sequence of leaders is selected to append entries to the ledger.

During an epoch, there are two key periods:

1. Warm-up Period: The staked amount starts being counted as a “stakable balance.” Some portion of the stake is considered “effective,” while the rest is “activating” and not eligible for rewards until fully activated.
2. Cooldown Period: Before newly un-delegated tokens can be withdrawn, they must undergo the cooldown process. During this period, some stake continues to receive rewards and remain exposed to slashing risks but eventually becomes available for withdrawal once fully deactivated.

Requirements for Validators

In Solana, staking requires validators to provide a bond. In a Proof of Stake system, the bond functions similarly to the capital expense in Proof of Work systems. For example, miners invest in hardware and energy infrastructure in Bitcoin-run nodes.

In Solana, the bond is represented by the number of SOL tokens the validator commits as collateral while validating transactions. These tokens are moved into a bonding account within the validator's identity. The funds cannot be transferred and must remain in place until the validator chooses to remove them. Bonds remain valid only after a supermajority of stakeholders has confirmed the sequence within the blockchain.

Risks of Staking

Validator Risks

Validators face the risk of slashing for poor performance. This can occur if a validator:

• Votes on two separate sequences in the blockchain.
• Casts a vote for an invalid hash generated by the Proof of History (PoH) generator.

Slashing removes the validator’s bonded tokens, adding them back to the pool of available coins. Validators who perform malicious actions are penalized through slashing.

Delegator Risks

While delegated funds are never at risk of theft, risks are still involved. Delegators always maintain full control of their tokens, but they face risks tied to slashing events affecting validators. As long as the validator maintains good behavior, delegators should not face issues, but if the validator misbehaves, penalties can occur.

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