In How to stake Solana SOL: a beginner’s guide we explore the main aspects of Solana staking. This guide provides step-by-step instructions for the process of Solana using the Trustee wallet. The Everstake team does its best in the aspect of creating the newest learning material for the SOL community. This is one of the best ways to support developing and improving the ecosystem and give a chance to the interested parties to take one step forward in the aspect of creating a brighter and better future.
About Trustee Wallet
Trustee Wallet is an innovative non-custodial multi-currency crypto-wallet with an inbuilt exchange. With it, you can send and receive virtual assets with your Visa/MasterCard.
Trustee Wallet offers cryptocurrency adepts a wide set of functions and removes obstacles in the use of cryptocurrency to newbies.
What is Solana
Solana is an innovative, open, and fully decentralized platform for building effective blockchain applications (DApps) and marketplaces in the Web3 environment.
The Solana blockchain provides high scalability and bandwidth, and in terms of transaction processing speed, it can outperform the well-known payment giants. The platform can process up to 50,000 transactions per second against 1,700 on average and 4,000 at its peak for Visa. The average price of the trx at the moment of writing an article is $0.00025 only and the total transactions count in the network has surpassed 24.5 B!
Solana is actively developing, offering many solutions in the field of DeFi, and displaying impressive SOL token growth rates (at the time of writing).
So, let’s say you decided to join the Solana ecosystem and you are now an owner of SOL tokens — it’s time to stake them and take advantage of the opportunity to earn up to 7% extra per annum!
How to stake SOL
Before delegating Solana, you need to create (or import) a crypto wallet, and then add tokens to it.
Install Trustee Wallet on your SmartPhone
In order to be able to use Trustee Wallet, firstly you have to download it on your Android phone or iPhone. In order to proceed with the given process follow the below-mentioned links:
- Download App – From Google Play
- Download App – From App Store
Create/Import Wallet
After finishing the installation process, open the Trustee Wallet app. After that, you will be asked to agree with the terms of use and privacy policy. If you have not created a Trustee Wallet Account before, press the Create Wallet button.
After that, you will be asked to save the recovery phrase (Mostly it consists of 12/24 words). In order to guarantee the highest level of security make sure to save the above-mentioned phrase in your notebook, or somewhere on paper.
After that again, agree with additional terms and conditions and press the NEXT button.
Add Solana Assets to the wallet
Congratulations! Your Trustee wallet has been created and is ready to be used. On the main page check if the Solana account has been activated on your wallet. If not, press the ADD ASSET button.
In the search field write Solana and press the activation button.
After that, return to the main menu of the wallet and click the Solana button.
This is the most important page, where you will be able to get all the important data in the aspect of receiving/sending funds and at the same time take a look at the transaction history. In order to receive funds, one of the ways that can be used is to press the Receive button.
After that, a public key will be shown to you which could be used in order to transfer funds from one wallet to another or to receive additional funds from someone else.
After receiving funds, you are ready to proceed with the process of staking. In order to do so, press the button located at the right side of the screen of the Solana menu (four black dots in the form of the square).
Via pressing the mentioned button you will be transferred to the Staking menu. Firstly, one of the most important steps is to choose your Validator. To do so, press the Validator button located in the middle of the UI.
Choose a validator. In the list of validators, you can see how many tokens are staked with each of them and the commission they charge. In this Guide we stake with Everstake for a reference — you are free to choose any validator.
Why stake with Everstake?
It’s profitable: the validator charges a low commission (7% at the time of writing) and ensures ≈100% uptime.
It’s reliable: Everstake is a large, high-performance validator constantly improving its services and performance and running the best hardware/software with the highly professional specialion board. We have vast validating experience in more than 45 PoS blockchains.
It’s convenient: we provide services for staked assets monitoring. We support users in our channels and assist with staking-related issues.
It’s simple: we regularly issue staking guides in our blog to help newbies quickly figure out how to delegate assets across different wallets. We have dedicated Blockchain Managers for each of the networks to manage the operational most efficient way.
Specify the number of SOL tokens you want to stake, and then click Stake.
Note: Before staking coins, make sure to keep at least 0.05 SOL in your wallet to pay for transactions!
Wait while the transaction is validated by the Solana network. After just waiting for a few minutes you have successfully staked Solana and will receive staking rewards! Currently, the profitability from the SOL delegation is about 7% per annum.
Your stake is activated and you will start receiving rewards as soon as the current epoch ends.
You can track the epoch length in the Solana blockchain explorer.
How to track staking rewards
In order to track your staking rewards and the whole process, from the main Staking menu just choose the staked amount and transaction, which is generally located under the sub-menu named staked.
In this section, you will find information about the state of the delegation and the rewards generated. The rewards are being compounded — added to an active stake each epoch.
Here you can also undelegate tokens by clicking Unstake.
How to unstake tokens
To do so, in the Staking menu find the Deactivate button and press it. The app will ask you for confirmation of the given transaction.
After pressing the Yes button, your funds will be unstaked yet must be withdrawn after the stake will be deactivated at the end of the epoch.
Note: Wait until the epoch ends: your stake is deactivating. Then withdraw tokens. Only after that, you will be able to use the tokens freely. More information can be found in the FAQ section of this Guide.
Please note that rewards will no longer be generated from the moment of unstaking.
After the end of the above-mentioned processes, the staking transaction menu will have 2 buttons: Withdraw and Withdraw all. Choose the amount you would like to withdraw, press any of the buttons and confirm the mentioned transactions again.
Done, your SOL tokens are now unstaked and available for transferring and other operations.
Solana Staking FAQ
What is an Epoch?
An epoch is a unit of time in computing. It varies slightly but is normally around 2–3 days. When you start staking, the epoch you are in will not accumulate rewards. Check the epoch length at https://solanabeach.io/.
What does activating/deactivating stake status mean?
When you delegate or un-delegate a stake account, the tokens do not change state immediately. Newly delegated tokens are considered “activating” or “warming up”, and are not eligible to earn rewards until they are fully activated. Newly un-delegated tokens are considered “deactivating” or “cooling down” and are not able to be withdrawn until deactivated.
The Solana protocol only allows staked tokens to finish changing state at the beginning of a new epoch.
I just staked all my SOL, but I can’t see my stake
You need to transfer a small amount of SOL to the wallet, so you can still see the stake. Solana’s recommendation is to keep 0.05 SOL in your wallet for future gas fees.
How long to unstake, and do I have to do any extra steps?
It takes an epoch for the stake to get deactivated. After that, you will need to withdraw tokens.
Find more answers on our SOL dedicated page: https://everstake.one/solana.
About Everstake
Everstake is one of the top validators in the world and its platform reflects this with a simple design that allows users to focus on its actual functionalities instead of getting lost in the aesthetics.
It is not only the numbers that are great, but the variety of staking options that a user gets on the platform is also unrivaled. You can stake on almost all the reputable PoS networks through Everstake as it is active on more than 70 blockchains. Everstake’s platform is quite informative, as you can easily know how much a pool pays and find answers to some of your questions by clicking on the network. You will find all the stats needed to make the right decision on the platform, and when it comes to calculating your earnings, there is a reward calculator that will show you how much you will earn if you use a particular strategy.
The Everstake team selects only promising PoS projects. Delegating with Everstake is safe and profitable — our team performs thorough project research before joining the network as a validator.
Check Everstake Twitter and Discord for the latest updates.
And If you have any questions you can always contact our Solana Blockchain Manager on Twitter.
