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How do I stake ATOM?
Stake your ATOM with Atomic Wallet to earn interest on your deposit! Here, we'll guide you through everything you need to know to stake your ATOM and earn rewards.
Contents
- ATOM 101: the things you need to know
- How to stake ATOM in your Atomic Wallet app
- ATOM staking rewards
- How to unstake your ATOM
- When will the 21 day waiting period be over?
Getting started with staking
Staking looks pretty straightforward—instead of just keeping your ATOM deposit on your balance, you're choosing to stake it and earn interest. Where does the interest come from, though?
By delegating your ATOM to a validator of your choice, you're expressing your trust in them, which makes them more powerful on the Cosmos blockchain. As validators get paid for confirming blockchain transactions, they in turn pay back to those who supported them. That's how you earn your rewards!
By staking your ATOM in Atomic Wallet, you're choosing us as your validator.
ATOM 101: the things you need to know before staking your coins
- You’ll have to pay a network fee every time you want to stake, claim some rewards, or unstake your ATOM. Make sure to leave some small ATOM amount (that is, at least 0.005) on your available balance, so that you can pay the fees. Otherwise, you won’t be able to either claim your rewards or unstake your coins. For more details about the network fees, see Does Atomic Wallet charge any additional transaction fees?
- 0.0125 ATOM will be reserved on your address for future fees for claiming/unstaking transactions when you stake. That means that these funds are still on your address and are available to send away or swap, but are not available for staking. It is done in order to avoid a situation in which you accidentally stake all of your funds and are unable to unstake your coins or claim your rewards.
- Your ATOM deposit will be frozen throughout the staking period. Your ATOM will be delegated to a staking pool, which means that these coins won’t be counted towards your total balance. Also, you won’t be able to transfer or swap them.
- Unstaking takes 21 full days. Once you click or tap the Unstake button, your deposit will be frozen for 21 more days. After the unstaking period is over, your coins will be deposited to your address. Your ATOM won’t be earning any interest over the waiting period.
- Beware of the risks. The main caveat to ATOM staking is the ‘Hard Slashing’ model used by the COSMOS blockchain. If the validator goes down, gets hacked, or turns out to be guilty of fraud, the entire staking fund gets slashed. For you, that means a risk of losing all your staked coins. We take great care to only offer trusted & highly reliable ATOM validators for staking in Atomic Wallet, so your funds are safe by us. Still, it's important to keep the risk in mind.
- Staking additional ATOM will automatically claim your unclaimed rewards. Keep in mind that it will incur the transaction fee.
How to stake ATOM in your Atomic Wallet app
- Click Staking on the left sidebar.
- Select ATOM.
- Click Stake.
Note: You'll need to leave a tiny part of your ATOM unstaked on your address to be able to claim your rewards.
- Browse through the list of available validators and pick the one you want to trust your ATOM with. Once you make the decision, click the Stake button.
Before proceeding, please note that there's no way to cancel the staking transaction, and unstaking takes 21 full days in case of ATOM. That's the way the blockchain itself operates, which means we won't be able to speed the process up for you.
- Success! Your ATOM deposit is now staked, so relax and wait for your first rewards to arrive. You can click the hash of your staking transaction to track it on the block explorer.
- Select theStaking tab in the bottom panel and tap ATOM.
- Tap the Stake button.
- Set the amount of ATOM you want to stake and decide which validator you want to trust your coins with. Tap the Stake button to proceed.
- Take note of the waiting period disclaimer before tapping the Confirm button.
- Voila, your ATOM deposit is now staked! Relax and wait for your first rewards to arrive.
Rewards
Note: claiming rewards is available when your stake has accumulated at least 0.01 ATOM of rewards.
You'll need to claim your ATOM staking rewards manually. Since claiming is a regular transaction on the blockchain, the Cosmos blockchain will charge you a network fee for it every time. The fee will be taken from your available balance, not the staking deposit.
Click the Claim button to claim your rewards. The button will get highlighted once there are any rewards available.
How to unstake your ATOM
Note: Unstaking takes 21 days on the COSMOS blockchain.
Select the Unstake button to initiate unstaking.
When will the 21 day waiting period be over?
If you're growing impatient wondering when your ATOM will be done unbonding, you can just check how much time has passed since the day you decided to unstake your deposit. Here's how to do that:
- Go to the Wallet tab and pick ATOM from the coin list. Select the Receive button and copy your ATOM address.
- Use the address to check up on your account on the block explorer here.
- Your ATOM should be displayed under Unbonding in the dashboard.
Scroll down to see your transaction history and browse through it to find the most recent transaction of the Undelegate type. Once the counter on the right hits 21, your ATOM will automatically get deposited to your address.
Scroll down to see your transaction history and browse through it to find the most recent transaction of the Undelegate type. Once the counter on the right hits 21, your ATOM will automatically get deposited to your address. 