Cardano (ADA) is a popular digital currency that may be staked using an on-chain wallet or cryptocurrency exchange to obtain Cardano staking incentives. In this article, we describe how to stake Cardano and where to locate the best ADA staking payouts.
How To Stake Cardano
The quickest and fastest way to stake Cardano (ADA) is utilizing a crypto exchange and following these steps:
- Create an account with a reliable crypto platform such as Binance
- Purchase or transfer ADA tokens to a Binance wallet
- Navigate to Binance Staking and pick ‘Cardano’
- Choose a staking duration (e.g. 30, 60 or 90 days) (e.g. 30, 60 or 90 days)
- Enter the number of ADA tokens to stake
- Click on ‘Stake now’ to complete and begin staking Cardano
Decide which stake pool for you is the best
More than 2500 stake pools are available. It is an important option to choose which stake pool(s) to transfer your stakes. There are considerable differences among stakeholders. These differences can be divided into two basic categories:
- In terms of the protocol
- Considerations regarding off-protocol
Help you make the best choice regarding your stake delegation
The main protocol difference is the performance of the stake pools. The Daedalus Delegation Center provides essential indicators of performance for all stake pools offered.
Let us analyze what these performance indicators represent and how they might be interpreted to help you make the best choice regarding your stake delegation.
- Saturation: measures the stake in the pool and reflects the extent to which the rewards continue to increase with increases in stake. This cap facilitates decentralization by deterring users from delegating to oversaturated pools. Delegating to a saturated pool can lead to additional rewards.
- Rank: A hierarchical ranking based on possible income will be won if you delegate to this pool the desired amount of stake, provided it is saturated. This rating reflects a predicted long-term result.
- Live Stake: Percentage of the total pool controlled system stake. Calculated as follows: the stake committed to by the pool (stake delegated to their own pool by pool owners) + the stake currently delegated to the pool divided by total stake in the system.
- Pool margin: share of the rewards received by the stakeholder before it is distributed to its delegates.
- Pledge: This is the amount the stakeholder undertakes to delegate to their stakeholders. You can anticipate operators with bigger balance delegated to their own pool to have more incentives for good performance. Stake pools that fail to fulfill their commitment may yield blocks, but not rewards.
- Cost per epoch: the epoch set fee charged by the stake pool to cover its operating costs.
- Produced blocks: the total number of blocks produced by the stake pool.
The above are the main indicators of performance. However, tools are developed to show other useful data by community members: ROI, number of delegators, active epochs, current reported heights, engagement in forks and their performance. When selecting a stake pool for delegating your stake it is a good idea to consider those additional indicators. Some resourceful tools made by the community are:
- https://adapools.org/
- https://cardanoscan.io/
- https://pool.pm/
- https://poolstats.org/
- https://pooltool.io
Some off-protocol factors before delegating your stake
You may want to consider some off-protocol factors before delegating your stake. You may want, for example, to delegate to a stakeholder pool that:
- Is operated by someone you trust
- Is operated by an NGO
- Runs on green energy
- Donates part of its benefit to a specific cause you want to support
- Is in a specific place you like?
- Is owned by more than one participant
- Provides you regular information on their performance
- Has an application to easily track your rewards
This type of information can be found on the websites of the stakeholders. Daedalus and the Explorer provide links to the stake pools websites when registered.
You now know all you should consider choosing the best stake pool to maximize your rewards.
Exchanges & Wallets For Cardano Staking
Cryptocurrency trading exchanges have grown beyond supplying digital currencies to purchase, trade and sell. The popular exchanges including as Binance, Bitfinex, Coinbase, KuCoin, Kraken and Poloniex have a wide range of features and services to retain funds on their platform while benefitting the client with possibilities to generate money passively through staking PoS tokens.
Binance
Binance launched Cardano staking on their cryptocurrency trading platform on February 10th, 2021, with payouts of up to 24.79 % APY. Since then, the expected staking payout has been reduced to 7.79 % APY when locked in for a fixed period of 60 days on the exchange. The scheme operates on a first-come, first-served basis, with crypto interest paid out daily.
The advantage of staking ADA tokens on Binance is that you can access additional features, products, and services on the platform without having to move the coins to a different wallet address. Cardano investors can choose to lock in the tokens for 60 days, 30 days, or a flexible option to keep the coins liquid and trade them on the Binance Exchange.
Although the flexible rate for staking Cardano on Binance is only 0.48 % APY, it is an excellent option for investors or traders looking for short-term gains while holding the asset on the trading platform. To begin staking on Binance, a minimum of one ADA token is required, with a maximum limit of 500,000 ADA tokens.
Overall, Binance is our top pick for the best site to stake Cardano due to the generous staking rates, flexible and lock-in options, and the ability to maximize ADA staking profits by utilizing other financial goods and services on the same platform.
Is Cardano Staking Safe?
Staking Cardano is widely regarded as completely safe, with no risk of losing ADA tokens when using a reputable wallet. The Cardano wallet can be divided into two addresses for spending and staking. To collect staking rewards, ADA coins delegated to the staking address must remain in the wallet and thus remain under the owner’s control at all times. The arrangement prevents other investors in the same staking pools from accessing the funds.