Guide 02/ Nominator Guide — How To Stake Kusama & Polkadot On-Chain
In this tutorial we will show how to stake your DOT or KSM on-chain using Polkadot.{js} extension.
Prerequisites
The account setup on Polkadot-JS UI — covered in the Guide 01
Nominate a validator
Polkadot-JS UI navigate to the “Staking” tab.
The “Staking Overview” subsection will show you all the active validators and their information — their identities, the amount of KSM that are staking for them, amount that is their own provided stake, how much they charge in commission, the era points they’ve earned in the current era, and the last block number that they produced.
The “Account actions” subsection (link) allows you to stake and nominate.
Pick “Account actions” underneath “Network” > “Staking”, then click the “+ Nominator” button.
Select a “value bonded” that is less than the total amount of KSM you have, so you have some left over to pay transaction fees. Choose whatever payment destination that makes sense to you. If you’re unsure, you can choose “Stash account (increase amount at stake)” to simply accrue the rewards into the amount you’re staking and earn compound interest.
Click on “Next” on an account you’ve bonded and you will be presented with another popup asking you to select some validators.
Select them, confirm the transaction, and you’re done — you are now nominating. Your nominations will become active in the next era. Eras last six hours on Kusama — depending on when you do this, your nominations may become active almost immediately, or you may have to wait almost the entire six hours before your nominations are active.
Extras (optional)
There are services helping you with selection of validators. e.g. you could look at https://validatorsv2.kusama.polkastats.io/validator/EygmNkGy9vnTsM3wkHLYBt212TJPLDDptVQxuhfihggdkTY where you could easily find additional information about validators, such as how they perform over time, what commission they charge for their service etc.
If you would like to find out more details or interested in more technical explanation, please do not hesitate to visit the official polkadot.network wiki page where you can find additional information and more technical approach to setting up the account. https://guide.kusama.network/docs/maintain-guides-how-to-nominate-kusama/
We are also running validators, feel free to stake with us or support us directly. More information on pressburglabs.com
Our Kusama Validators
