Staking Your Coins?When you buy coins, what do you normally do with them? Do you actively trade them in an exchange, hold them in a wallet to gain some nice interests perhaps, or do you stake them?I still consider myself a complete crypto n00b. Most of my crypto exposure is on Hive which is very straight-forward in many ways. Funds transfers are almost instant, no fees, and yes, even staking or powering up is very easy.But then again, as we always say, "do not hold your eggs in just one basket", hence I also started exploring other coins. So came, Cardano ADA.I had a few ADA sometime back when it was trading at around $0.11. I didn't know what to do with it and from my post about staking on Ledger Nano @katerinaramm was kind to contact me and gave me a few ideas she had as feedback from friends too, and one of them was about staking ADA.Staking ADAThe process seemed too technical and that put me off so I ended up selling those ADA I initially held. Then ADA kept on popping up in many crypto convos and I decided to get on the train again, but still just held them in a wallet.It was only at the end of January this year when I decided to explore more about the staking process. From the Cardano website, they recommend the Yoroi wallet for ADA holdings. Yoroi can be downloaded as a mobile app or as a Chrome extension and supports staking on Ledger.Once I connected my Ledger wallet to Yoroi, I transferred my ADA and started the staking process. I was almost biting my nails the whole time, but I tried to keep my focus and just let a sigh of relief when I got the confirmation.
Key Points To Note:
There will be a 2 ADA fee to activate the staking wallet. This will be returned should you wish to undelegate to the staking pool.
0.174433 ADA transaction fee
Your ADA funds are not locked when staking, instead they take a snapshot of your wallet at each epoch.
Cardano epoch takes approximately 5 days. You can check last epoch date here - https://cardanoscan.io/epochs
Your first reward will be paid after 3 epochs, which means after 15 days (or 20 days, depending on when you deposited your stake).
The rewards will be automatically added to the staked amount unless you decide to withdraw it.
So Far, So Good
I would say this is a good option for me, instead of just keeping the coins lying idly in my wallet. Since I do not have any immediate plans of selling them, so it is much better to put them to work. Again, these are my personal preferences and not by any means a "financial advice" (not that you'd take any from me, LOL!)
How about you? How do you make your crypto work for you? Have you also tried staking ADA coins? I would love to hear from you.
