Learn all about Blockdaemon Polkadot Staking API.
The Polkadot Staking API provides an end-to-end staking solution that eliminates the need for running Polkadot clients or nodes. The process only requires transaction signing, introducing minimal additional dependencies to your technology stack.
Our advanced solution for managing validator nominations ensures industry-leading returns on your investments, requiring no extra effort from your end. Through advanced bookkeeping and transaction lifecycle tracking, your organization's sub-teams can prevent conflicts when creating ongoing deactivation and withdrawal operations.
Supported Networks
The Blockdaemon Staking API supports the following Polkadot networks:
- Mainnet
- Westend
Involved Account Types
Stash Account
A stash account, typically held in cold storage by the customer, securely controls a substantial amount of DOT for staking. It is associated with a proxy account responsible for making nominations on the network. This proxy account can be granted management rights over specified funds within the stash account. The association is established through a single bond transaction signed by the stash account, a process that must be created and executed by the customer. Direct staking operations with the stash account are discouraged due to the need for it to be stored in hot storage, increasing its vulnerability to compromise and potential fund loss.
Proxy Account
For optimal ROI from staking DOT, active management of validator nominations is necessary. Blockdaemon provides this service, requiring customers to authorize a Blockdaemon account as a "proxy". Authorization involves signing a single transaction with the stash account and registering a Blockdaemon-managed account as a proxy.
The proxy account possesses limited capabilities and can't directly withdraw or manage stash account funds, except for staking or unstaking them. This design ensures that even if the proxy account is compromised, the customer's stash account funds remain secure.
Important!
Note that binding a stash account to the Blockdaemon proxy account grants Blockdaemon the ability to nominate validators and perform select staking-related tasks. Customers retain the option to revoke this binding at any time, with the understanding that revocation places full responsibility on the customer for all subsequent actions and delegations to validators.
Controller Account
As of August 2023, Polkadot no longer supports creating controller accounts. While existing controller accounts remain functional, they might lose support in the future.
Before this change, Blockdaemon recommended its customers to create a controller account and nominate it alongside their stash account, also nominating the Blockdaemon proxy account (then known as the "controller proxy account"). This allowed customers to manage their nominations independently from Blockdaemon without the need to bring the stash account keys online. Currently, the Blockdaemon proxy account must be directly nominated with the stash account.
In the absence of a controller account, customers can achieve the same security and independent nomination ability by creating and nominating another account as a staking proxy, reserved for their own use.