Chapter 23:
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Contents
Can you get slashed, how long locked, not liquid like ADA etc
The minimum stake is 1 EGLD. In return for staking and therefore securing the network, stakers are paid a portion of the transaction fees. According to the MultiversX website, at the time of writing 12th February 2024, there are 135 thousand individual stakers, staking 17 million EGLD. The average return is around 7% and there is an unstaking period where your staked funds remain locked od 10 days. MultiversX refers to staking as delegating. You would be a delegator. Stakers are the people and businesses running the nodes, delegators delegate to those nodes. Delegating also grants you the ability to vote on proposals for the network.
Getting a MultiversX wallet
There are several options for MultiversX. You can use multichain wallets like Atomic and Exodus but to get all the cool MultiversX functionality built-in we should use the official wallet. There are several options for the MultiversX wallet. You can have what they call a web wallet which is where you generate your seed phrase and choose a password on their website save it and download a keystore file. Then, every time you interact with a dApp you will have the option to browse to the keystore file and entre your password. There is also a mobile app for Android and Apple and the screenshots look neat and feature packed – but it doesn’t work on any Apple or Google device I own. Furthermore, the Play store has loads of one-star reviews criticising it for poor user experience. I think MultiversX has some work to do. What we will do is the best of both options. We will install what they call the DeFi wallet which is a browser extension. The DeFi wallet doesn’t have all the interesting functionality, but it allows you to connect with a couple of clicks to any of the dApps and it allows you to connect to the MultiversX wallet dApp to use all the cool stuff.
- To get started open your favourite web browser and visit: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/multiversx-defi-wallet/dngmlblcodfobpdpecaadgfbcggfjfnm or to a web search for “multiversx defi extension”. Be sure to check that the extension you install is made by multiversx.com.
- Install the extension.
- When the extension is ready, click on its icon in the top-right of your browser to open it. You will be greeted with the following screen.
MultiversX browser extension
- Click on Create new wallet.
- Write down the 24-word mnemonic seed phrase and click the checkbox to confirm you have written down your seed phrase.
- The app will ask you to verify a selection of words. Mine asked me to verify words 16, 15, and three. Enter the words asked for.
- Enter and confirm a password.
- Click Done and your wallet is ready.
If you explore your new wallet, you will notice there aren’t any staking options. This isn’t a problem because as mentioned previously, we will use the wallet to connect to the MultiversX explorer dApp and that will provide us with a load more functionality.
Getting some EGLD tokens
Do some research to find the best place to buy EGLD or just follow along with me if you don’t want to spend any money.
I found that Kucoin had a USDT pair with EGLD, they allow you to buy as little as a dollar, and you can withdraw as little as 0.01 EGLD for a fee of 0.005 EGLD. Remember however that the minimum stake is 1 EGLD. However, the tiny withdrawal amount is good for testing the withdrawal or if you do not intend to stake and just want to play around with MultiversX.
- Check which base currency you need on your preferred exchange and purchase if necessary.
- Purchase EGLD with the base currency
- GO to the Withdraw screen on your preferred exchange.
- Click Deposit in the MultiversX wallet and copy and paste the wallet address from your MultiversX wallet into the Wallet address field on the exchange withdrawal form.
- Select the MultiversX network. Note that some exchanges, including Kucoin, still show Elrond as the network name. Remember from chapter 7, Elrond is what MultiversX used to be called. This next image shows what my withdrawal screen looks like once it is completed.
Kucoin EGLD withdrawal
- Double check the withdrawal details and remember to do a test transaction for large amounts.
- Click the Withdraw button and answer the security questions and your EGLD will be in your app promptly. In the next image you can see that I sent myself 0.1 EGLD worth about $4 at the time of writing.
EGLD in my MultiversX wallet
Now we have some EGLD in our MultiversX wallet we can see how to stake. Remember you need 1 EGLD minimum plus a small fraction for gas.
Staking EGLD
What we need to do is connect our DeFi wallet to the MultiversX explorer dApp/website. Then we will have access to all the MultiversX functionality.
- Vist https://wallet.multiversx.com/ in your web browser
- Click on I already have a wallet. You will see the following options.
MultiversX connection options
- Select the Defi Wallet option and your MultiversX Defi wallet browser extension will open and ask you to approve the connection. This is shown in the next image.
Connecting to wallet.multiversx.com
- To connect, click Continue. Then select the Main wallet. You will now see your MultiversX dashboard. Here is mine.
MultiversX dashboard
I case you were wondering about the 1 EGLD minimum, I have transferred some more EGLD I had in another wallet to make my total above 1.
Most interesting is probably all the options down the left-hand side. You can see your NFTs, mint some new ones, stake, sign messages, and even create your own token on the network. Also note the menu icon on the top-right next to the wallet address which will revela multiple different dApps like swapping, NFTs and more besides. We want to stake. So in the left-hand menu click the Stake option and you will see the following screen.
MultiversX staking screen
We can see that currently we have nothing staked. So let’s change that by clicking on the Stake Now button on the upper-right.
Next we will see the Choose Staking Provider screen.
Choose staking provider
Scroll through and look at the different validators who you can stake with. Also note that some of them have a small link icon that you can click to go to their website and find out more about them. I can’t advise who to stake to. However, all these validators must stake their own EGLD and have the competence to have their node functioning -at least. Therefore picking “the best” or “the safest” would probably be a long lonely task. I chose Everstake because I know they specialize in running nodes for many blockchains, I have used them before and so-far-so-good.
Everstake
On the next screen we will choose how much to stake. I have selected 1 EGLD which leaves me a tiny amount of crypto left over for gas fees. This is shown in the next image.
I staked 0.094 EGLD
When you are ready to commit to staking, click Continue. You will be asked to check the details once more, click Confirm and check your app, then click Confirm in the MulversX wallet as shown next.
Click Confirm to complete
Soon you will get an prompt in your web browser that staking was successful as shown in the next image.
Staking successful
If you observe the Dashboard page you can confirm you are now staking and that the next staking reward is in about 1hr 30 mins
Staking 1 EGLD
Why not explore some of the apps in the right-hand menu of the dashboard and some of the dApps in the ecosystem.
Summary
Congratulations, you are now earning EGLD for securing the network.
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