The Guide to staking CRO on the Cronos PoS (formerly Crypto.org) Chain

Hi there !

As explained in the official Crypto.com announcement, staking CRO on the chain rewards your stake.

To help you take advantage of those rewards, we have written this guide to understand all the steps required to stake CRO on the Cronos PoS (formerly Crypto.org) chain.

In order to secure your desktop wallet, the application will ask you to set a password. It will be required to send transactions and delegate your funds.

If you have forgotten it, the only solution is to reset your desktop wallet (see the FAQ below).

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Choose a secure password, and do not forget it !

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Staking is available in the Mobile Defi Wallet, but you cannot yet choose your validator.

If you have already delegated your funds in the Defi Mobile wallet, you will need to restore your wallet from the Crypto.com Defi Mobile App.
This will allow you to manage your wallet both from your mobile and your desktop wallets. Therefore you will be able to redelegate your previously delegated CRO to another validator.

Otherwise, you may jump to the section explaining how to delegate CRO to setup a new wallet

Increasing your stake by delegating additional funds is exactly the same as delegating for the first time.
Go to Staking > Delegate Funds, input the validator address and the additional amount that you wish to delegate

Undelegating vs Redelegating vs Increasing your CRO stake

• Unbonding, which is also known as undelegating, means to stop delegating your CRO stake on a specific validator, so that you can spend/send them again.
• Redelegating, means to change validator. You reallocate your already-delegated CRO, towards another validator.
• Increasing stake should not be mistaken with redelegating. It means delegating additional CRO to a validator that you already delegate to.

What is unbonding and the cooldown period ?

Unbonding CRO is the process that enables you to stop delegating to a validator, and withdraw your staked CRO.

It's important to understand that this process is not immediate. During a 28-day cooldown period, your unbonded CRO will be in unbonded state.

This process effectively increase the security of the chain, as well as encouraging long term commitment from delegators.

Unbonding your CRO using the Desktop Client

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The Cronos PoS desktop wallet warns you of the 28 day period when you request to undelegate CRO

When you delegate CRO, they are in the bonded state and accumulate rewards.

When you send an undelegation request, your CRO will transition from the bonded state, to the undelegating state. They will stay in this state for 28 days, not earning rewards. Once this period is elapsed, they will be automatically available again in your wallet to spend.

You may send as many un-delegation requests as you want, and select the exact amount of CRO that you wish to undelegate for each request.

What does jailing mean ?

Validators are servers who process the transactions happening on the Cronos PoS chain, by signing the blocks storing those transactions. It's their duty to do so once they join the network.
Because of failing hardware or internet connection, validators may go offline. In order to keep the network running, validators who fail to sign more than 2500 blocks out of the 5000 last blocks are jailed.
This means that the validator stops signing, and therefore the funds delegated to it no longer earn staking rewards.

When a validator is jailed, it is for a duration of 24 hours. Then, the owner must unjail its validator manually for it to become online again.

What should you do if your validator becomes jailed ?

1. Confirm that your validator is jailed

Search for your validator by its name in the Official Cronos PoS explorer. If your validator is jailed, then the header will read "jailed" :

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This validator has been temporarily jailed for being offline for too long.

2. Wait 24 hours for the validator to resume operations

Sometimes things go bad, even for good, reputable validators. Having your validator jailed, even if it makes you lose precious rewards, is only temporary.

If you are delegating with a reliable validator, chances are good that it will become online very soon. When it does so, there is no action required on your part to resume earning your rewards.

Those are positive signals that your validator will become online soon :

• Your validator has never been jailed before
• Your validator uptime is > 99.9%
• The owner of the validator has communicated an ETA on their website, Twitter or Telegram groups

In this case, it's usually better to wait it out.

3. Redelegate your funds to another validator

Some validators, however, are poorly maintained, and some are plain scams. In this case, it's better for you to redelegate to another validator. Note that re-delegation follows strict rules, and is not always possible.

To do so, you will need to choose another, better validator. The good news is that you have a wide selection of validators to choose from.

We constantly monitor validator activity and display the results in our validator leaderboard. It's a fantastic resource to identify validators who have a track record of securing the network without issues.

Alternatively, you may stake with us ! 🤗 (we' ve never been jailed !)