It enables developers to build and deploy a parachain or experiment with Polkadot’s governance, staking, nomination and validation functionality in a real environment.
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Delegation InstructionsPlease be sure you have claimed your DOTs. If you need help claiming your token, follow this guide.
Tip: If you are a Coinbase Custody customer, you can delegate your DOT in one-click from your Coinbase Custody management console. Learn more.
1. IMPORT YOUR STASH*
*If you have already imported your Polkadot stash to the Polkadot UI, skip to step 2.
I have a pre-existing seed, import the accountAdd the account with the supplied seed2. IMPORT OR CREATE YOUR CONTROLLER*
* You can use your stash as your controller, however, for security reasons, we recommend you create a separate controller address. If you are importing an existing controller account, repeat step 1 with your controller mnemonic.
+Create New AccountCreate derived accountCreate derived account3. TRANSFER DOT TO YOUR CONTROLLER*
*If your controller already has funds in it, skip to step 4.
send from accountMake TransferSign and SubmitSign the transaction4. BOND YOUR DOT and NOMINATE BISON TRAILS’ VALIDATORS
STAKING in the left-hand navigationACCOUNT ACTIONS tab at the top of the screen+ NOMINATOR at the top right of the screenvalue bonded field, input the amount of DOT you’d like to bondStash account (increase the amount at stake) to compound your rewards on your Stash account (most common), orStash account (do not increase the amount at stake) to leave your rewards un-bonded and spendable in your Stash accountNEXTBond & NominateSign and SubmitSign the transactionTransaction Success banner to pop up. This process can take a while if the network is behind.Congratulations! You are now nominating the Bison Trails validators.
We offer multiple ways for DOT holders to earn Polkadot participatory rewards by securing the network:
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.
In June, Bison Trails and Web3 Foundation teamed up for an in-depth conversation on Substrate, Polkadot’s parachains, and scaling infrastructure. The conversation ranged from learnings on Kusama to the intricacies of optimizing infrastructure for Nominated Proof of Stake networks.
Bison Trails’ managed controllers allow large-scale DOT holders to run validators on the Bison Trails platform or delegate to our staking-as-a-service nodes to easily manage Polkadot delegation as network dynamics change.
An overview of validator rewards and how Polkadot token holders are incentivized to participate in the earliest days of the network
This integration combines Coinbase Custody’s institutional-grade offline storage solution with the Bison Trails infrastructure platform, allowing Coinbase Custody clients to seamlessly stake their DOT to Bison Trails’ validators.
We’re very excited to announce Bison Trails will support Polkadot at launch and we’ll continue to support node operators on Kusama!
Have tokens on other networks? Learn more about delegating to our public validators on Celo, Cosmos, Edgeware, Kusama, Livepeer, Ontology, Solana, and more. We also offer dedicated participation clusters.
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.
