We joined the Mina Protocol as a block producer coinciding with the protocol’s mainnet launch. MINA delegators stand to earn up to 24% APR on their tokens for helping to secure the network. In this post, we are detailing why we joined the Mina community and what you need to know about staking on Mina.
Mina is the first protocol to use recursive zero-knowledge proofs to track the entire state of a blockchain. Anyone in the world on any device can sync up and verify the chain at any point in time and act as a full computing node. Using zero-knowledge proofs to track states rather than a full ledger of transactions, Mina is able to keep their blockchain to a fixed size of ~22kb. As a result, Mina truly exemplifies a decentralised blockchain, as anyone in the world, even with limited access to resources, is able to participate and verify transactions. Not only is Mina well-decentralised, it is also privacy-oriented, as zero-knowledge proofs prove a statement to a verifier without revealing the exact specifics of that statement. The benefits of using zero-knowledge proofs are three-fold, ensuring scalability and decentralisation by keeping the blockchain small and accessible, as well as private, because those verifying transactions are unable to see specific details of a transaction.
The groundbreaking use of zero-knowledge proofs of zero-knowledge proofs (recursive) to track the entire state of a blockchain is a truly innovative approach that differs greatly from existing blockchains. We are particularly eager to see how Mina will integrate with web2 and believe that Mina can be the basis for interacting with websites that would traditionally require our personal data. In the future, we envision ourselves using Mina to prove information about ourselves to services that require it off-chain (such as banks) without giving away the specific details of what we are proving. An immediate use-case building on Mina is Teller, a protocol advancing unsecured lending in DeFi. In Teller, a user can prove their credit score is over a limit without revealing the exact number of their score over that limit thanks to zero-knowledge proof technology. We are eager to see how permissionless oracles in Mina will be incorporated by Snapps in the future too.
Mina is a lightweight, succinct blockchain. Each block contains state ‘proofs’, rather than the entire state. The size of Mina’s blockchain is always fixed ~22kb, allowing anyone on any device to quickly sync and verify the chain at any point in time. Mina is a Proof-of-Stake blockchain that uses Ouroboros Samasika for consensus, a provably secure consensus mechanism that chooses block producers ahead of time.
MINA token holders can delegate their tokens to validators such as Chorus One to earn staking rewards for helping to secure Mina and the snark powered decentralised apps (Snapps) it hosts. We are currently the sixth largest validator by assets staked on Mina with almost 15m MINA tokens staked. If you are interested in staking, you are able to stake with us through our custodian partner Finoa, or through non-custodial wallets listed further below. The following factors need to be taken into account when considering to stake on the Mina Protocol:
Epochs: Mina uses epochs to account for time. There are 7,140 slots per epoch and each slot is 3 minutes long (so an epoch lasts ~14–15 days).
Payout: Mina does not automatically payout rewards to delegators, Chorus will manually pay out rewards to delegators. Our payout schedule will initially be once per epoch shortly after epochs rolled over (i.e. every two weeks). We might update that to a more frequent schedule as we improve our payout mechanism. Payouts for the initial epoch already took place.
Validating rights: The stake distribution that is sampled when determining the VRF threshold is contained on another special ledger called the “staking ledger” (main ledger is called “staged ledger”). Using two separate ledgers means that validators are only able to see when they have the opportunity to publish a block 2 epochs into the future.
Reward rate: ~12% APR, for token holders with only liquid tokens this will be double (i.e. 24% APR at the moment).
Slashing: There is no slashing in Mina.
Latency period: There is a latency period of around a month before a new stake delegation comes into effect and starts to earn rewards (since the staking ledger is always decided 2 epochs in advance).
Minimum delegation: There is no minimum delegation.
Supercharged rewards: Mina token holders that do not have locked tokens receive higher rewards. At Chorus One, we take this into account for our reward payouts meaning delegators without vesting accounts will receive higher staking rewards!
Address: B62qmFf6UZn2sg3j8bYLGmMinzS2FHX6hDM71nFxAfMhvh4hnGBtkBD
Commission Rate:
10%
Payout Frequency:
Every epoch (i.e. every two weeks)
Learn more about staking Mina with us on our website.
Token Sale (April 13–16, 2021):
Coinlist
Staking Guides:
Delegating Mina using Clorio wallet
Delegating Mina using Finoa’s platform (Figment guide)
Delegating Mina using Clorio & Ledger
Delegating Mina using Ledger Nano S
Validator Dashboards:
Mina Validator Dashboard
Block Explorers:
Mina Explorer
Hubble
Mina Fees:
Mina Protocol Gas Station
