Stake Polkadot (DOT) with Chorus One

We are thrilled to introduce our latest product, Chorus One SDK. This advanced toolkit is set to transform how our customers integrate staking functionalities into their applications. As the leading staking provider with the most extensive network support in the industry, robust security features, and comprehensive transaction management, our SDK (Software Development Kit) is poised to become an essential tool for institutions and developers, enabling them to leverage enterprise-grade staking solutions across all major networks including Ethereum, Solana, TON, Avalanche, Cosmos, NEAR, and Polkadot with unparalleled ease and efficiency.

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What is Chorus One SDK?

The Chorus One SDK is an all-in-one toolkit for building staking dApps or implementing programmatic native staking into your product. It supports non-custodial staking on various networks validated by Chorus One. With this SDK, our customers can build, sign, and broadcast transactions, as well as retrieve staking information and rewards for user accounts.

Supported Networks

Chorus One has the most extensive network support for staking in the industry. Currently, the Chorus One SDK provides support for the following networks, with plans to expand to even more in the future:

• Ethereum
• Solana
• TON
• Avalanche
• Cosmos (including Cosmos Hub, Osmosis, Injective, etc.)
• NEAR
• Polkadot (Substrate)

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Who is Chorus One SDK For?

The Chorus One SDK is designed for a diverse audience, including:

• Custodians: Looking to offer secure staking solutions.
• MPC Wallets: Interested in integrating staking capabilities into their wallets.
• Asset Managers and Funds: Aiming to implement staking transactions within their existing custody and risk management frameworks.
• Exchanges: Wanting to provide ETH staking options to their users without any 32 ETH minimum requirement as well as staking across other major networks.

By using the Chorus One SDK, our customers can easily integrate programmatic native staking, access detailed staking position data, and minting of osETH LST to offer flexible staking options to their end users.

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SDK vs. APIs: Why We Chose to Build an SDK

At Chorus One, we prioritize security, transparency, and user control. Our decision to develop an SDK over a traditional API was driven by the following considerations:

Enhanced Security

• Local Transaction Building and Signing: Users can generate and sign transactions locally on their devices, ensuring that private keys are not exposed to external environments.
• Reduced Risk of Exposure: Keeping private keys within the user’s environment minimizes the risk of exposure to malicious actors.

Verifiable Trust and Transparency

• Direct Verification: Users can directly specify and verify the validator addresses they interact with, ensuring transparency and control over staking activities.
• Elimination of External Dependencies: The SDK approach removes potential attack vectors associated with relying on external APIs, enhancing overall trust and security.

Open-Source and Auditable

• Open-Source Code: The Chorus One SDK is open-source, allowing users and developers to review, audit, and contribute to the codebase. This openness ensures that the SDK is transparent and trustworthy.

💡 Why does it matter?

Choosing the Chorus One SDK means prioritizing security, transparency, and user empowerment. With local transaction building and signing, and open-source transparency, users can confidently participate in staking activities across supported networks.

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How does it Work?

Our SDK offers a robust suite of tools for managing staking operations on various networks. Here’s a high-level overview of its functionality:

Comprehensive Transaction Management

• Building, Signing, and Broadcasting Transactions: Users can seamlessly manage staking, unstaking, delegation, and reward withdrawal operations.
• Flexible Custody Solutions: Supports a variety of custody options, including mobile wallets, browser extensions, hardware wallets, and custom custodial solutions like Fireblocks.

Detailed Information Retrieval

• Staking Information and Reward Data: Users can fetch detailed staking information and reward data for any account, ensuring they have all the information needed to make informed decisions.

Integrated Validator Support

• Built-in Support for Chorus One Validators: The SDK includes built-in support for Chorus One validators across all supported blockchain networks, as well as the ability to specify custom validator addresses.

Command Line Interface (CLI)

• Easy Interaction: The SDK includes a CLI for easy interaction with supported networks, simplifying operations for users who prefer command line tools.

Resources

For more detailed information on how our SDK works and technical guides, explore the following resources:

• Chorus One SDK
• GitHub Repository

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Final word

The launch of Chorus One SDK marks our commitment to simplifying staking. By equipping our customers with all the necessary tools, we enable them to effortlessly integrate and deliver an exceptional staking experience to their end users.

If you’re an institution, wallet provider, asset manager, or developer looking to integrate staking into your product or would like to learn more, reach out to us at staking@chorus.one.

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About Chorus One

Chorus One is one of the biggest institutional staking providers globally, operating infrastructure for 60+ Proof-of-Stake networks, including Ethereum, Cosmos, Solana, Avalanche, and Near, amongst others. Since 2018, we have been at the forefront of the PoS industry and now offer easy enterprise-grade staking solutions, industry-leading research, and also invest in some of the most cutting-edge protocols through Chorus Ventures. We are a team of over 50 passionate individuals spread throughout the globe who believe in the transformative power of blockchain technology.

Overview

Validator Addresses

12C9U6zSSoZ6pgwR2ksFyBLgQH6v7dkqqPCRyHceoP8MJRo2

16XF84j2wQ9wjkqRM2Y8ceCaw8dQu7t3ve9P9XbBj5kaRZxY

How to stake using Polkadot UI

You can nominate validators (also known as staking) on Polkadot-JS UI using the following steps

1. Create an account

Create a Polkadot account if you don’t have one already. Get the browser extension by visiting Polkadot.js.org/extension

Click on the extension card and add it to your browser.

After adding to your browser it will appear as a P icon in the toolbar

Please note it is recommended to create two accounts: one to use as the controller account and one to use as your stash account. Learn more about this here

If you want to know more details about how to create an account you can visit the official docs here.Also, make sure you leave a small amount of DOT transferrable in your stash account and that your controller has more than 1 DOT in it. This is in order to have enough liquid funds for paying transaction fees when bonding and unbonding funds.

2. Bonding the DOTs

In this step, we will actually go through the process of staking which is comprised of bonding the tokens and nominating the validators.

• Nominating currently requires a minimum of 120 DOT staked funds on Polkadot (0.1 KSM on Kusama). Please make sure you are above that minimum, otherwise you won't be able to nominate with your staked funds.

• There is also a maximum of 22,500 nominators in place at the moment. That means, if there are already 22,500 nominators, you will not be able to nominate, even if you have more than the minimum of 120 DOT staked. You can double-check the current number of nominators on the Staking Overview page.  

Go to the Polkadot-JS UI main page. Click the Staking link under the Network tab at the top. Click “Account actions” (on top). It may take a while to load. If you're using a Ledger, skip the following steps and check the section below.

You need to bond funds to nominate a validator. So go ahead and click  the + Nominator button(top right).

Choose your Stash and Controller accounts. It is more secure to choose separate stash and controller accounts. So make sure you create a separate controller account first in the same manner as you created your stash account. Again, make sure you have funds in your controller account.

Then select the amount you want to bond and the rewards destination and click "Next"

3. Select validator and nominate

In the next screen select Chorus One as the validator. Finally, click Bond and Nominate.

Enter the password for your account and click Sign & submit.

Sign the transaction using your stash account

Additionally, if you need to change the nominated validators or unbond your balance you just need the controller account to perform the transaction.

Before you begin staking, please pay close attention to these important points:

• Do not bond ALL your funds. Leave a small amount transferable in your account, so that you can pay transaction fees from that (changing validators, bonding more or unbonding your tokens are all transactions that will cost a small fee).

• Any changes you make will take affect in the next era (which lasts 24 hours on Polkadot), provided you made the changes at least 4 hours before the era ended (whether it's setting up staking for the first time, or changing your validators, bonding more funds, etc), and rewards are distributed after an era ends. So, when you first stake, your rewards will begin to come at the soonest after 1 day and 4 hours, and at the latest after 2 days.

How to stake using Ledger

1. Create a Polkadot account on Ledger Live

Make sure both the ledger live app and device are up to date

Go to manager in the left panel and install Polkadot app if you haven't already

Add your account by going to the Accounts tab in the left panel and clicking on the Add Account

Choose Polkadot in the popup that appears upon clicking Add Account

Follow the instructions to create the new account

2. Send/Receive DOTs

Once you have an account you can buy DOTs directly from the Ledger Live app.

In case you are unable to buy DOTs directly from Ledger Live you may use an exchange to do so.

3. Stake/Unstake DOTs

To stake go to the Accounts tab in the left panel and click on the account for which you want to perform the staking operation

Once you have your account opened click on Manage on the top-right and under it select Earn Rewards

Then enter the amount of DOTs you want to bond

To compound your rewards you can select the Bonded Balance tab instead of the Available Balance tab. Click Continue and confirm the bonding transaction on your device. Finally Nominate a validator in the next step

Polkadot allows Nominated proof of staking where you are allowed to nominate up to 16 validators. By clicking on the Nominate byou will be able to select the validator. Search for Chorus One and click Continue.

Congratulations!! You are now staking your Polkadot! You may see your rewards in the portfolio section

You can also see the video tutorial on the official Polkadot youtube channel

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Chorus One has received a grant by the Web3 Foundation to develop parts of a bridge that will enable Substrate and Cosmos SDK-based blockchains to interoperate as part of the fifth grant cohort.

Such interoperability will allow, for example, a user on a Cosmos SDK blockchain to move TerraUSD coins to Substrate chains to take advantage of applications in the Polkadot ecosystem.

Connecting Two Vibrant Ecosystems

A core piece of Chorus One’s vision is the ability to freely transfer value and information across sovereign blockchain networks and applications. The Polkadot and Cosmos ecosystems have both been at the forefront of cross-chain interoperability.

We are excited to contribute to bridging these two ecosystems with this initial project that will enable Cosmos SDK blockchains to keep track of consensus updates on Substrate-based networks.

Polkadot combines the versatility of heterogeneous blockchains with the security and convenience of a single security pool and validator set. This is one of the most daring and promising visions of the blockchain space and could unleash unparalleled innovation. The Polkadot ecosystem is consistently shipping great software to advance that vision. We are incredibly excited to help bridge the flourishing Polkadot and Cosmos communities.

Brian Fabian Crain, CEO of Chorus One

A Substrate light client that’s compatible with the Cosmos SDK is a great first step towards bridging the Polkadot and Cosmos ecosystems. We’re excited to see the results of this work and eventually a complete bridge between both networks.

Dieter Fishbein, Head of Ecosystem Development at Web3 Foundation

What We Are Building

This grant-funded project lays the groundwork for a bridge between Polkadot and Cosmos. The current project code consists of three parts: a relayer implementation that allows necessary information to pass between two blockchains, a Substrate-IBC module for the Cosmos SDK that is geared towards handling Substrate data, and a Substrate client consisting of WebAssembly bytecode to verify BABE and GRANDPA consensus information on Cosmos chains. In order to have a fully functional bridge, a second follow-on project that allows Substrate chains to validate Tendermint messages is required.

Our WebAssembly Light Client design for Substrate on Cosmos SDK can be extended to support any other blockchains whose light client logic is compile-able to Wasm. One key advantage of the design is the ability to upgrade the Substrate light client, which is derived from the canonical Rust implementation, on Cosmos SDK chains without requiring a full governance process and hard fork for each upgrade. Additionally, the design may be able to easily handle consensus algorithms and allow them to interoperate with the Cosmos ecosystem via IBC. Find the full details and technical description of our approach here.

We are excited to contribute to realizing a world of interconnected blockchains. If you are interested in working with us on this, reach out to us via the channels linked below.

About Chorus One

Chorus One is operating validation infrastructure and building tools to advance the Proof-of-Stake ecosystem.

We will offer staking on Polkadot when the network goes live. You will be able to support our work and earn staking rewards by nominating our validators with your DOTs.

Website: https://chorus.one
Anthem Staking Platform: https://anthem.chorus.one
Twitter: https://twitter.com/chorusone
Telegram: https://t.me/chorusone

Image on cover art by Aaron Burden on Unsplash.

Originally published at https://blog.chorus.one on May 5, 2020.