Staking Menu Overview
Overview of the Staking UI on azero.dev
If you would like to start staking right away, please jump to How to Start Staking With the Developer Wallet. The section below presents more detailed information about various tabs and menus available on https://azero.dev/#/staking.
Most of the staking related functionalities can be accessed by the Staking menu present in the Network tab:
Note that screenshots provided in this guide are from Aleph Zero Testnet (test.azero.dev), but the Mainnet interface (azero.dev) is exactly the same.
The staking menu has the following tabs: Overview, Accounts, Payouts, Pools, Targets, Slashes, Validator stats, Performance and Suspensions. Below, we explain the contents and purpose of each of them.
Overview
This tab presents a handful of global staking-related data:
The number of validators elected in the current era;
Number of nominators in the current era (and in the next era);
The total percentage of staked AZERO, as a fraction of all AZERO in existence;
Current yearly inflation (this started at 10% on mainnet launch and is dropping towards 0%);
Current session number and current era number.
The table contains a list of all current validators, together with their stake (split into their own stake and stake coming from nominators), lists of nominators and current commission value.
Accounts
This tab presents a list of all your accounts involved in staking. Please mind the fact that an account will be visible here only if it is added to your accounts in the Accounts tab (or injected by a browser extension). Here you can perform all actions related to staking: bond or unbond coins, choose and change a validator to nominate etc. The list of actions available for each account can be seen by clicking the 3 dots button at the end of the corresponding account line.
In the Stashed view, you can perform actions related to the direct nomination (and also being a validator).
In the Pooled view, you can perform actions related to nomination pools: see the pools you are a member of, claim rewards, etc.
Payouts
This tab presents a list of rewards that are awarded (the era for which the rewards were due has ended), but not yet claimed (distributed to the validator and their nominators). The tab is currently not very useful, as the Foundation runs an automated service to trigger payouts to all nominators/validators whenever they are available (note that this does not apply to pools, though). Hence, the contents of this tab will almost always be empty. This is expected, and seeing this tab empty does not mean you have never received any rewards. If you would like to see your historic payouts, we recommend using Subscan—simply paste your Account in the search bar to display the details of your account, including staking rewards.
Pools
You can view the list of Nomination pools. SeeHow to Start Staking With the Developer Wallet to learn more about what they are. On top of the list, on the left-hand side, you can select Own pools, All pools, or Foundation pools. The last option will display nomination pools associated with validators operated by the Aleph Zero Foundation.
Targets
In this tab, you can conveniently analyze all available validators. The ones with a blue arrow next to them are currently part of the era committee. You can sort the list by "return," "total stake," or other parameters.
Slashes
One of the defense mechanisms to guard the Aleph Zero blockchain against malevolent agents involves a slashing mechanism, which penalizes users financially for disrupting the workings of the network. The tab called Slashes is a way for you to check out which users have been behaving dishonestly and, consequently, had their funds slashed. We note, though, that there is no automatic slashing currently on Aleph Zero. Also, at the moment of writing, there were no cases of malicious behavior from any of the validators, so you will most likely find this tab empty.
Validator stats
Here you can query an Account ID of any validator in order to see their basic statistics. This is useful mostly to validators. But, as a nominator, you can use it to check how your chosen validator is performing, in particular if there are any recent sessions during which your validator has underperformed. Below that you can see diagrams showing:
rewards received in a given era and the average reward till that era;
input total stake for a given era;
validator commission in a given era.
The history accessible by this tab goes back 84 eras.
Performance
The performance tab allows you to track in real-time the current session and research past sessions to see how many blocks each particular validator created. This is of interest mostly to validators, as the numbers are not readily convertible to how many rewards the validator or their nominators will receive. If you are interested in this subject, please check Elections and Rewards Math.
Suspensions
Suspensions is a mechanism to penalize validators for insufficient performance that is less severe than slashing. A validator can be automatically suspended for underperforming a certain number of sessions in a short time period. In such a case, a validator is removed from the era committee and cannot join back until the suspension period is over. The above screenshot comes from the Testnet, where suspensions happen quite often, as there are no financial incentives to keep the nodes in good condition.
Last updated