Delegating stake

This guide sets a validator’s commission, delegates stake to it, collects the rewards, and leaves. It needs a devnet whose epochs end, so that rewards are paid:

sion devnet --epoch-length 12 --unbonding 6

For background, see Pooled stake. The devnet’s genesis validators are operated by the deterministic wallets operator-0 to operator-3; alice, bob and carol are funded at genesis.

1. The validators and their pools

sion stake pools

epoch 0, ending after Pulse 12; stake asset USD (test stake)
validator 91fa8cbb  operator operator-1  active  own 100,000  delegated 0 (earning 0)  commission 0%  weight 100000
validator 9c813b07  operator operator-3  active  own 100,000  delegated 0 (earning 0)  commission 0%  weight 100000
validator d7c1b77d  operator operator-0  active  own 100,000  delegated 0 (earning 0)  commission 0%  weight 100000
validator f28a5456  operator operator-2  active  own 100,000  delegated 0 (earning 0)  commission 0%  weight 100000

Validators are named by a prefix of their identifier; any unique prefix works in the commands below.

2. The operator sets a commission

sion faucet operator-0 10
sion stake commission operator-0 d7c1b77d 10

operator-0 signs: Set validator d7c1b77d's commission to 10% from the epoch's end. Fee 0.0012 USD; valid until Pulse 23.
Pulse 5: Done: validator d7c1b77d's commission becomes 10% at the epoch's end; fee 0.0012 USD.

Nobody has delegated to this pool yet, so the commission may start anywhere up to 25 %. Above that the command refuses (the commission may be at most 25%), and only the operator may set it:

Pulse 8: Failed (unauthorized: only the validator's operator may do this); nothing happened except the fee of 0.0011 USD.

3. Delegate

sion faucet alice 20000
sion stake delegate alice d7c1b77d 5000

alice signs: Delegate 5,000 USD to validator d7c1b77d's pool; you keep the delegation, which earns from the epoch's end. Fee 0.0011 USD; valid until Pulse 30.
Pulse 13: Done: alice delegated 5,000 USD to validator d7c1b77d as delegation ec4d550d, earning from the epoch's end; fee 0.0011 USD.
delegation ec4d550d3ef56994839befa50558803d3d25a0090c973a45372133969c4ad79d

Below the minimum of 1 the delegation fails (a delegation must be at least 1). sion stake show alice lists alice’s delegations:

{
  "delegation": "ec4d550d3ef56994839befa50558803d3d25a0090c973a45372133969c4ad79d",
  "rewards_owed": "0",
  "shares": "5000000000",
  "since": 13,
  "stake": "5,000",
  "state": "pending: earns from the end of this epoch",
  "validator": "d7c1b77db0ae57df54351fc2e4c60d8557ec8a9ba3f01e567431a45fb8198c59"
}

After the epoch ends, the pool’s stake counts towards the validator’s weight and the commission is in force:

validator d7c1b77d  operator operator-0  active  own 100,000  delegated 5,000 (earning 5,000)  commission 10%  weight 105000

4. Collect

Rewards come from fees: each epoch, 70 % of the fees go to the validators by weight, and this validator’s part is split with its pool. On an idle devnet the fees are a few tenths of a cent, so the rewards are tiny, but they are exact. After a few epochs with some transfers:

sion stake show alice        # "rewards_owed": "0.00007", "state": "earning"
sion stake claim alice ec4d550d

Pulse 72: Done: 0.00007 USD of rewards collected from delegation ec4d550d; fee 0.0011 USD.

5. Leave

sion stake undelegate alice ec4d550d

Pulse 74: Done: delegation ec4d550d stopped earning (0.000009 USD of rewards paid) and is withdrawable from Pulse 80; fee 0.0011 USD.

Undelegating pays what the delegation is owed and starts the unbonding period, during which the stake stays in the pool and can still be slashed. Withdrawing early fails:

Pulse 77: Failed (invalid transaction: the delegation is withdrawable from Pulse 80); nothing happened except the fee of 0.0011 USD.

From Pulse 80:

sion stake withdraw alice ec4d550d

Pulse 87: Done: 5,000 USD withdrawn from delegation ec4d550d; fee 0.0011 USD.

For agents

The MCP server offers the same operations: sion_stake_pools, sion_stake_delegate, sion_stake_show, sion_stake_claim, sion_stake_undelegate and sion_stake_withdraw.