Solana Staking Overview

This feature is currently available only on demand. Please contact your Technical Account Manager for more information.

Introduction

Solana is a permissionless, decentralized, and secure smart contract blockchain platform offering to solve the scalability problem.

Since it encodes the passage of time as data, called Proof of History (PoH), staking on this network enables you to contribute to the security of the network and to earn rewards.

There are many benefits of staking Solana with Ledger Enterprise. The process is:

  • Simple, yet rewarding: Staking Solana on Ledger Enterprise only requires a few clicks to generate up to 5.5% APY. You will be able to manage all of your staking positions in one place without needing prior knowledge of the network and with no extra cost.
  • Secured & Low risk: Protect against mismanagement of funds by having staking transaction checks at a hardware level before signing. This will enforce that only your Vault account retains control and receives the rewards. Additionally, slashing risks are fully mitigated by our validator partners, thus enabling institutional staking with security and peace of mind.
  • Flexible and scalable: You can manage as many on-chain staking positions as you need from just one account on the LE platform. This allows you to stake more without undelegating your previous staking position and partially withdraw staking positions so you don’t lose time or rewards. It also lets you manage with ease new restrictive regulations, by tracking precisely all your end-user stakes as one on chain address. This implementation is even possible via API, if you are looking for scaling solana staking as user demand grows.

Solana_Overview

Learn everything about Solana Staking

“Stake” and “Deactivate” operations on solana get processed at the end of the current epoch, on average it is 3 days. This is referred to as the warm-up and cool-down period. You can check the status of an epoch here.

This means that if you perform an operation just before the end of the current epoch, at the start of the next epoch your funds will be staked without waiting 3 days.

After performing an operation your stake will be in one of the following status :

Status Possible action Generating rewards
Activating Deactivate, Split, Merge NO
Delegated Deactivate YES
Deactivating Delegate YES
Undelegated Delegate, Withdraw, Split, Merge NO
  1. Stake

    In the Solana blockchain, staking is the process of holding and validating tokens to participate in the network and help secure it. By staking your tokens, institutions can earn rewards for their participation in the network.

    To stake Solana tokens, you must click on “Start Staking” or “Stake more” and choose a validator to delegate your funds. Validators are nodes in the network that are responsible for verifying and including transactions in new blocks. When a user delegates their stake to a validator, they are entrusting their tokens to that validator to use for validating transactions and participating in the network.

    The rewards for staking are distributed on the solana network to both the validator and the user who delegated their stake to that validator. The amount of the reward is based on the number of tokens staked and the overall performance of the validator.

  2. Deactivate and Partial Deactivating of Stake

    In the Solana blockchain, staked tokens can be deactivated to allow the owner to take them off of the validator they are currently delegated to.

    To withdraw your stake you first need to deactivate your stake.

    Deactivating tokens can be useful in a number of situations:

    • Changing Validators: If a user wants to switch the validator they are delegating their stake to, they will need to deactivate their stake on the current validator before they can delegate it to the new one.
    • Taking a Break: If a user wants to take a break from staking, they can deactivate their stake and take their tokens off of the validator. This will stop them from earning rewards, but they can re-delegate their stake at a later time to start earning rewards again.
    • Reducing Exposure: If a user has a large stake and wants to reduce their exposure to a particular validator or the Solana network in general, they can deactivate part of their stake to do so.

    To deactivate a stake, just click the “deactivate” button on a stake. They will then need to specify the amount of their stake that they want to deactivate and confirm the transaction. Once the stake has been deactivated, the tokens will no longer be delegated to the validator, the stake status will be “undelegated” and the user will be free to delegate them to a different validator or withdraw them.

  3. Delegate Stake

    If you have some funds deactivating or undelegated, you can click on “delegate” to re-stake/reactivate the amount of sol in this stake and start earning rewards again.

  4. Withdraw Stake

    If you have some funds undelegated, you can click on “withdraw” to withdraw your funds and rewards from this stake. Funds will be transferred in your available balance of the current account.

  5. Split Stake

    Solana's split stake feature allows a user to split their stake into two or more parts and delegate those parts to different validators.

    This feature is only available via API.

  6. This can be useful for several reasons:
    • Diversification: By splitting your stake and delegating it to multiple validators, you can reduce the risk of losing your stake if a single validator becomes unavailable or goes offline.
    • Increased Participation: If you have a large stake, you may not be able to fully participate in the network due to the maximum stake per validator limit. By splitting your stake, you can delegate parts of it to different validators and increase your participation in the network.
    • Better Rewards: If you delegate your stake to a single validator that is not performing well, you may not earn as many rewards as you could if you split your stake and delegated it to multiple validators that are performing better.

    To split your stake, please refer to the developer portal guide.

  7. Merge Stake

    In the Solana blockchain, the merge stake feature allows a user to combine two stakes into a single stake. The main benefit of merging is simplification: If a user has multiple stakes with different validators, they may find it easier to manage their holdings if they merge those stakes into a single stake.

    To merge your stake, please refer to the developer portal guide