The Crypto.com DeFi wallet brings a whole new experience to staking your CRO, leaving you with all the freedom you need when staking. The DeFi wallet provides a higher APR on CRO staking when compared to the Crypto.com wallet. However, unlike the Crypto.com wallet, where the wallet provider is responsible for the safety of your wallet and assets, you are solely responsible for the whole process. As much as this can be considered more secure, it can also go the other way. To avoid this, we recommend you take a quick look at our article on protecting your DeFi wallet.
Staking your CRO on your DeFi wallet requires you to select validators. Before you can stake with a DeFi validator, they will provide you with their conditions for staking. As a result of this, leaving you with the choice to select one with a good reputation and APR. This article will take you on a step-by-step guide on all you need to select a good validator for your CRO staking.
What are DeFi Validators?
Crypto.org works with a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism that requires validators to manage transactions on the blockchain. Validators serve the sole purpose of validating transactions on the crypto.org chain network and getting rewards in CRO in return. Validators afterward distribute the rewards to delegators from the earned commission.
Anyone on the Crypto.org network can choose to be a validator. However, not all validators on the network will earn a reward. How so? As much as all users on the Crypto.org network can set up a validator server, only the top 100 validators will earn commissions for validating transactions.
Let’s get to the interesting part; we divided this article into two CRO staking stages; planting and nurturing. Each section provides information on all you need to know about CRO DeFi staking.
Planting stage
The planting stage is where you put your CRO to work (stake your CRO). To do that, follow the listed process below, and you should be done in no time.
Which CRO will you stake?
There are two versions of crypto.com native token, CRO; Crypto.org Chain CRO and the EVM CRO network (Cronos). For staking purposes, you need Crypto.org Chain CRO. The CRO in the crypto.com wallet is the native CRO when selecting “Crypto.org Chain” when withdrawing, and it is easier to move around and cheaper.
How can you move your CRO to your DeFi wallet?
To move your CRO from an external wallet to your DeFi wallet, you only need to provide your wallet address. Now, since your DeFi wallet is a non-custodian wallet, you are responsible for protecting and always providing the right wallet address and network.
Moving your CRO from your Crypto.com wallet to your DeFi wallet is easier. Since your CRO is already in the Crypto.org chain format as long as you select “Crypto.org Chain” when withdrawing your CRO, you will only need to connect both wallets. (Keep in mind that connecting the defi wallet to your Crypto.com app will connect your identity to the wallet, you are not required to connect the defi wallet to your Crypto.com app to move CRO onto it but it does make it easier)
How to connect your DeFi wallet to Crypto.com wallet?
- In your DeFi wallet, go to settings
- You will find an option to “connect to Crypto.com app”
- Follow the prompt to link the accounts
Once both accounts are linked, it is time to move your CRO to the DeFi wallet.
- In your crypto.com app, go to “accounts”
- Select “crypto wallet” and choose “CRO.” Make sure you select “Crypto.org” chain.
- Select the option to Transfer followed by the prompt to withdraw to your DeFi wallet
How to stake your native CRO on the DeFi wallet?
- On your DeFi wallet app, click the “Earn” icon at the bottom.
- Select “start earning” to view to list of supported tokens.
- Select CRO and enter your desired stake amount. This page will display your projected annual earning based on the staked amount.
- Select the “to validator” option to view a dropdown of the validator list (we advise you don’t choose a validator with an existing voting power of >15%).
- Review the details, and once you are satisfied, tap on “confirm stake.”
- Input your passcode and 2FA to authorize your staking request
- Wait for the network confirmation of your staking request
- You can now view your staked CRO on your DeFi earn screen.
How to choose a good validator when staking?
To stake your CRO in your DeFi wallet, you need to select a validator from the list of many that would be provided. There is no stable list for validators to choose from; however, only the top 100 validators get rewarded. Therefore, you can be certain if you are selecting any validator from this list, then you are getting the best offer.
When you are selecting a validator, you should lookout for a validator that does the following:
- Charge 0% commission
- Have 0 missed blocks
- Have a high score
- Offers the highest APR
- Fewer numbers of delegators
- Voting power
(Note: You can go to https://crypto.org/explorer/validators and click on different validators to see its current commission rate, commission Max Rate (the highest they can charge you), and Commission Max Change (The highest they can change the commission on you at a time). Also you can see its self-delegation which is how much CRO they have delegated themselves which in return would technically tell you how serious they are and how bullish they are on CRO, which would help reduce any chances of it becoming jailed or doing anything malicious)
Now, to ensure you select among the top 100 validators, take a look at the list here. Also, regardless of the validator you select, all staking actions (delegating, redelegating, voting, and others) need a small gas fee (0.0002 CRO). So, we advise you to keep at least 0.1 CRO in your DeFi wallet to never worry about the transaction fee.
Nurturing stage
At this stage, you are done with the staking process. However, you need to monitor your stakes. Some validators change their commission rate after delegating your CRO to them; you have to decide whether to continue taking with them or re-delegate your CRO.
There are two reasons why you might need to change your validator; liveness and double sign. For both of these offenses, a validator will be jailed. When a validator fails to sign at least 50% of the blocks out of a 5000 block sliding window, the liveness issue happens. The penalty for liveness issue is a 24-hour jail time; the guilty validator will not earn rewards during this period.
The double sign is a greater offense than attracts endless jail time. A validator is guilty of a double sign if the validator attempts to provide multiple signatures to the same block. Coupled with the forever jail time, the validator will also lose 5 % of their total stake.
How to keep watch on your validator?
Check on your validators every few days to ensure they are still on the list of 100 CRO validators, they still have the highest APR, have a high voting score, have 0 missed blocks, and still charge 0% commission.
How to move your stake from one validator to another?
If you have any reason to change your validator, you need or re-delegate your staked CRO to another validator. To unbound your staked CRO from your validator, a 28-day unbounding period is attached. However, you don’t need to observe the 28-days unbounding period to re-delegate your staked CRO. To redelegate your CRO, follow the steps below:
- Tap on the “Earn” icon at the bottom of the DeFi earn app
- Click on the “switch validator” button
- Input the amount you want to re-delegate to the new validator
- Tap on “to validator” to view the list of validators.
- Review and confirm the redelegation process by selecting “confirm switch validator” (Note that you will not be able to re-delegate your CRO for 28 days to prevent redelegation hopping).
- Input your passcode and 2FA code to authorize the transaction
- Wait for the network confirmation of your request.
In conclusion, we have highlighted all you have to do to have the smoothest experience when staking CRO on your DeFi wallet. If you follow all the steps listed above, you will always have the best staking experience, and you also have the idea of things to avoid when staking.