We offer multiple ways for DOT holders to earn Polkadot participatory rewards:
Delegation InstructionsPlease be sure you have claimed your DOTs. If you need help claiming your token, follow this guide.
1. Bond Your DOT
STAKING in the left-hand navigationSTASH at the top right of the screenStash account (increase the amount at stake) to compound your rewards on your Stash account (most common), or Stash account (do not increase the amount at stake) to leave your rewards un-bonded and spendable in your Stash account
BondSign and Submit2. NOMINATE BISON TRAILS’ VALIDATORS
NOMINATEBison Trails/Bison Trails #. This will nominate all of the Bison Trails Polkadot validators, distributing stake among them evenly. Alternatively, you can also copy+paste the 16 validator addresses above into the modal.NOMINATESign and SubmitCongratulations! You are now nominating the Bison Trails validators.
Bison Trails Managed ControllersA controller is a 1-to-1 proxy for your stash (where your tokens live). A controller can act on behalf of the tokens in your stash to nominate validators and participate in consensus, without being able to send transactions. This helps protect your funds because your stash account will not need to be accessed often.
Managing a Polkadot controller yourself is time-consuming and difficult. It requires you to take frequent actions to maintain and properly manage your participation effort. If done incorrectly, self-management puts your funds at risk of slashing due to the liveness requirements of the protocol.
Bison Trails’ managed controllers provide increased security and convenience, while reducing the risks of slashing. You retain custody and control of your stash and nominations. Choosing to bond to another controller account is a simple 2-step process within the PolkadotUI. Keep your stash in cold storage where it’s safest and choose a Bison Trails managed controller for accessibility and security.
Follow the above instructions to bond to our validators directly or contact us if you have questions about getting started bonding to a non-custodial Bison Trails controller, managed on your behalf.
Polkadot’s inflation rate is dependent on the staking rate of the network. It increases to 10% as the staking ratio approaches 50% (for a reward rate of 20%) and then declines sharply thereafter.
Validators can be slashed for misbehavior (e.g. being offline, equivocation). The slashed amount is a fixed percentage. A validator with more stake gets slashed more total DOTs. Since rewards are evenly distributed among validators elected to the consensus group, there is no economic advantage in staking more DOTs than required to be in the active set. In fact, because slashing is proportional, staking excess DOTs increases the loss in the event of slashing.
In general, Polkadot slashing is based on security threat levels:
THREAT LEVEL |
SLASHABLE BEHAVIOR |
MAX % SLASHED |
| Level 1 | Low security threats such as isolated cases of unresponsiveness | 0.1% (or kicking the validator out of the active set) |
| Level 2 | Misconduct that occurs in good faith but is due to bad practices | 1% |
| Level 3 | Misconduct unlikely to happen in good faith or by accident, but does not lead to serious security risks or resource use | 10% |
| Level 4 | Misconduct that a) poses a serious security risk to the system, b) shows large levels of collusion among validators, and/or c) forces the system to spend a large amount of resources to deal with them | 100% |
Bison Trails charges a 10% commission on all rewards earned by tokens delegated to our validator. The commission is paid to Bison Trails automatically by the protocol. You can then withdraw your rewards from the protocol directly.
Learn more about Bison Trails and how our platform minimizes the risks of slashing. Please also review our full Digital Asset Rights Delegation Agreement.
If you have questions, or if you are interested in running a validator on the Bison Trails platform, please contact us. Our protocol specialists are happy to assist you.