Become a Nominator

Nominators are one type of participant in Karmachain. They appoint their stake to validators, the second type of participant. By appointing their stake, they can elect the active set of validators and share in the rewards that are paid out to validators.

While validators are active participants in the network that engage in the block production and finality mechanisms, nominators take a slightly more passive role. Being a nominator does not require running a node of your own or worrying about online uptime. However, a good nominator performs due-diligence on the validators that they elect.

When looking for validators to nominate, a nominator should pay attention to their own reward percentage for nominating a specific validator - as well as the risk that they bear of being slashed if the validator gets slashed.

If you are a beginner, please watch the video below for detailed instructions.

Create Accounts

• To start nominating, it is recommended that you create a Stash account.
• The Stash account is where you keep most of your coins. It is the custodian of your staking funds.
• You can use any Substrate-compatible wallet to create these accounts. We recommend using the polkadot.js extension. Refer to this guide Create an Account using Polkadot JS Extension for more information about using the extension.

Request Testnet Coins

• Join the Karma Coin Testnet Telegram Channel.
• The basic accounting unit of Karmachain is Karma Coin (KCOIN). The minimum amount is one-millionth KCOIN which is 1 Karma Cent (KCENT). 1 KCENT is one Micro KCOIN.
• The minimum testnet bonding amount is 10 KCOINs for validation and 5 KCOINs for nomination. We configured it in this way to make it easy to bond and to validate.
• Share the public address of you Stash account and request testnet KCOINs for your nominator.

Nominating Validators

Go to Network > Staking > Accounts. Then press + Nominator button.

• Stash account - Select your Stash account. Make sure that your Stash account has sufficient coins to bond. You can, of course, stake more than this.
• Value bonded - How much KCOINs from the Stash account you want to bond. Note that you do not need to bond all the KCOINs in your account. Also note that you can always bond more KCOINs later. However, withdrawing any bonded amount requires the duration of the unbonding period.
• Payment destination - The account where the rewards from nominating will be sent. Payouts can go to any account. If you'd like to redirect payments to an account that is not the stash account, set one up. Note that it is extremely unsafe to set an exchange address as the recipient of your staking rewards.
• Click Next and choose validators that you want to nominate.
• Click Bond & Nominate and sign transaction with your Stash account.

Nominator management

• You can change your nominations at any time by clicking on the three dots on the right-side of your account in the staking accounts tab and then clicking Set nominees.
• You can also change the Payment destination by clicking Change reward destination.
• You can bond additional funds or unbond bonded funds from the same menu.