NEAR Staking: Delegation Guide

NEAR's mainnet launch is live! Are you ready to stake? Here's what to expect.

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Transfers and Staking Rewards

In short, transfers are currently enabled, and rewards are estimated to be enabled on October 19, 2020.

Token transfers were enabled by validators on October 13, 2020 via on-chain vote. Staking rewards we expect to be enabled after we have upgraded the network on or around October 19, 2020.

Custody

If you are an institutional investor looking for third-party custody solutions, Figment has partnerships with all of the custodians that are supporting NEAR. Contact us for more information.

If you plan to self-custody, NEAR supports Ledger hardware devices, which we recommend. This is how to install the NEAR Ledger app.

NEAR Wallet

You can use the command-line interface (CLI) if you are technically inclined. There's also the Trust Token wallet for mobile.

We recommend using the user-friendly NEAR Wallet. Head to https://wallet.near.org to access the web interface provided by the NEAR team. Here you can use your Ledger hardware device (recommended), or you can recover your account with your 12-word seed phrase, email address, or phone number. Know that your seed phrase essentially controls your funds, so take great care not to expose this unless you absolutely must.

The NEAR Wallet doesn't yet allow you to create a new wallet. If you have a NEAR token allocation of NEAR tokens, ask either CoinList or the NEAR Foundation to send you a NEAR Drop and follow this guide.

Mainnet Delegation

Now that the NEAR mainnet staking is enabled, you will be able to earn staking rewards. Use the NEAR Wallet to delegate to the Figment staking pool: figment.poolv1.near

As per the NEAR team's guide:

Staking

1. Select “Staking” from the navigation bar (or dropdown on mobile)
2. Click the “Select Validator” button
3. Choose 'Figment'
4. Confirm your choice and select “Stake with Validator”
5. Enter the amount of NEAR you would like to stake, and click “Submit Stake”
6. You will need to confirm two transactions, one to select the validator, and another to deposit and stake with the validator.

Unstaking

1. On the staking dashboard, select your current validator
2. Click “Unstake” and confirm the transaction
3. After 36 to 48 hours (3 full epochs), you will be able to withdraw your stake. To do so, return to the validator page, and click “Withdraw”.

Key Terms

• Total Amount Staked: NEAR tokens your account has currently staked with Validators. These tokens are accumulating rewards. To access these tokens once again, you must first unstake and then withdraw them from the staking pool.
• Unclaimed Rewards: Token rewards that have been earned, but not withdrawn from the staking pool. Unclaimed rewards are automatically restaked, which means your “Total Amount Staked” automatically increases over time, and your rewards are compounding.
• Tokens Available for Withdrawal: These tokens have been unstaked and are ready to be withdrawn.
• Tokens Pending Release: These tokens have been unstaked, but are not yet ready to withdraw. Tokens are ready to withdraw 36 to 48 hours after unstaking.
• Validator Fee: This is the fee paid to the validator to stake on your behalf. This fee is only charged on your rewards earned not your total token balance staked to the Validator. Each Validator can set their own fees, so take this into consideration when deciding who to stake to.

Stay Tuned!

Now that NEAR's mainnet has launched, we will update this guide as more tools, features, and information become available.