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Staking and Unstaking

In Walrus, anyone can delegate stake to storage nodes and, by doing so, influence which storage nodes get selected for the committee in future epochs and how many shards these nodes hold. Shards are assigned to storage nodes every epoch, roughly proportional to the amount of stake that was delegated to them. By staking with a storage node, users also earn rewards, as they receive a share of the storage fees.

Since moving shards from one storage node to another requires transferring a lot of data, and storage nodes potentially need to expand their storage capacity, the selection of the committee for the next epoch is done ahead of time, in the middle of the previous epoch. This provides sufficient time to storage node operators to provision additional resources, if needed.

For stake to affect the shard distribution in epoch e and become active, it must be staked before the committee for the epoch has been selected, meaning that it has to be staked before the midpoint of epoch e - 1. If it is staked after that point in time, it only influences the committee selection for epoch e + 1 and thus only becomes active, and accrues rewards, in that epoch.

Unstaking has a similar delay, as unstaking funds only has an effect on the committee in the next committee selection, the stake remains active until that committee takes over. This means that, to unstake at the start of epoch e, the user needs to request withdrawal before the midpoint of epoch e - 1. Otherwise, if the user unstakes after this point, the stake remains active and continues to accrue rewards throughout epoch e, and the balance and rewards are available to withdraw at the start of epoch e + 1.

Stake with the Walrus Staking dApp​

The Walrus Staking dApp allows users to stake or unstake to any of the storage nodes of the system.

To use the dApp, visit https://stake-wal.wal.app and connect your wallet:

  • Click the Connect Wallet button at the top right corner.

  • Select a wallet. If the wallet was connected before, this and the next step are not required.

  • Approve the connection.

Exchange Testnet SUI to WAL​

You need to have Testnet WAL in your wallet. You can exchange your Testnet SUI to WAL using the dApp:

  • Click the Get WAL button.

  • Select the amount of SUI. This is exchanged to WAL at a 1:1 rate.

  • Click Exchange.

  • Follow the instructions in your wallet to approve the transaction.

Stake​

  • Find the storage node that you want to stake to.

    • Below the system stats, there is the list of the current committee of storage nodes.

    • You can select one of the nodes in that list or, if the storage node is not in the current committee, you find all the storage nodes at the bottom of the page.

  • After you select the storage node, click the Stake button.

  • Select the amount of WAL.

  • Click Stake.

  • Follow the instructions in your wallet to approve the transaction.

Unstake​

  • Find the staked WAL you want to unstake.

    • Below the current committee list you find all your Staked WAL.

    • You can expand a storage node and find all your stakes with that node.

  • Depending on the state of the staked WAL you are able to unstake or Withdraw your funds.

  • Click the Unstake or Withdraw button.

  • Click continue to confirm your action.

  • Follow the instructions in your wallet to approve the transaction.