How to Delegate (Pooled Staking)
Staking on Anemos does not require you to run a validator. Through pooled delegation you can put your coins to work behind an existing validator, earn a share of its block rewards, and keep your rewards safe even if that validator is penalised. This page explains how delegation works and how to delegate from any Anemos wallet.
What a pool is
In Anemos every validator is a pool run by an operator. The operator holds the validator’s consensus key, puts up its own stake (the self-bond), and sets a commission — the slice of block rewards it keeps in return for running the node. Everyone else who delegates into that pool is a delegator.
A pool’s total stake is simply the operator’s self-bond plus the sum of every delegator’s principal. The pool’s stake — and therefore its chance of being chosen to produce blocks — grows as more people delegate, up to a per-pool maximum. There is no separate “delegated power”: a delegated coin counts toward consensus exactly like a coin the operator staked itself.
What you get as a delegator
Each delegation you make is a position in one pool, and a position holds two separate balances:
- Principal — the coins you staked. This is part of the pool’s stake and is what earns rewards. It is slashable: if the operator is penalised, the loss is shared across every delegator and the operator in proportion to their stake. To get your principal back you must unbond it, which takes the full unbonding period.
- Claimable rewards — your share of the block rewards the pool has earned, after the operator’s commission. Rewards accrue into a separate reward balance that slashing can never touch, and you can claim them to your spendable balance at any time.
This split is the key safety property of Anemos staking: a penalty can only ever reduce your staked principal, never the rewards you have already earned.
Before you delegate
- Pick an operator. Use the explorer’s operator marketplace to compare commission, capacity, availability and penalty history, and to find a healthy pool.
- Have enough ANM. A new position must deposit at least the minimum delegation (100 ANM). You can top up an existing position by any amount afterwards. You also need a little extra ANM to cover the transaction fee.
Delegating, step by step
- Open your wallet (web, desktop GTK, or Android) and go to Staking.
- Choose the pool you want to delegate to — or paste its validator address. Wallets can deep-link to a pool straight from the explorer marketplace, pre-filling this step.
- Enter the amount of ANM to delegate (at least 100 ANM for a new position).
- Confirm. The wallet builds and signs a Delegate transaction (type 9) and broadcasts it.
Once the transaction is committed, your position appears under My Delegations in your wallet, showing your principal, your claimable rewards, the operator’s commission, and the status of any pending unbond.
When your validator is in the committee
Anemos committees use live stake — the consensus weight of a seated validator is not snapshotted at the start of its term. To avoid changing a committee member’s weight mid-term, a delegate (or undelegate) aimed at a pool whose validator is currently serving in the committee is accepted right away, but held in escrow until that validator next rotates out of the committee — and then takes effect. Your delegation is committed immediately: the moment you confirm it, your funds are locked into a pending-delegation record, even though the shares are minted (and the pool’s stake grows) only at rotation. If the pool no longer exists by then, your escrowed deposit is refunded. In practice your delegation simply activates a little later when the target pool happens to be seated; most pools rotate out within a committee term.
Things to know
- One position per pool. Delegating again to the same pool tops up your existing position. To diversify, delegate to several different pools.
- Pool capacity. A pool has a maximum stake. If a deposit would push the pool over its cap, it is rejected — pick another pool or a smaller amount. The marketplace shows each pool’s fill level.
- Rewards are not auto-compounded. They sit in your claimable balance until you claim them; you can then re-delegate them if you wish.