Unbonding

Unbonding is how you get your staked principal back out of a pool. Unlike rewards, which you can claim at any time, principal is part of the network’s security and can only be released after a fixed waiting period.

The two steps: undelegate, then withdraw

Getting principal back is a deliberate two-step process:

1. Undelegate. Your wallet builds and signs an Undelegate transaction (type 10) for the pool. This burns the corresponding share of your position, reduces the pool’s stake, and moves your principal into a pending unbond that is locked for the full unbonding period. At the same time, any rewards your position had accrued are settled and paid to your spendable balance.
2. Withdraw. Once the unbonding period has elapsed, the matured principal can be released to your account with a Withdraw transaction. Your wallet surfaces this as a single action once the countdown reaches zero.

The unbonding period is the network’s unbond interval — a 21-day window. You can see the remaining time as a countdown on the position in Staking → My Delegations.

Full or partial

• Full undelegate releases your entire position and removes it.
• Partial undelegate releases part of your principal and keeps the rest staked. A partial undelegate must leave at least the minimum delegation (100 ANM) in the position — if you want to exit completely, undelegate the whole amount instead.

Important properties

• Pending principal is still slashable. While your principal sits in its unbonding period it remains part of the slashable base. This is by design: it stops anyone from side-stepping a penalty by unbonding the moment trouble appears. Once it matures and is withdrawn, it is no longer at risk.
• Rewards are not delayed. Undelegating settles and pays your accrued rewards immediately — only principal waits out the period. You can also claim rewards separately without unbonding anything.
• Seated validators. As with delegating, an undelegate aimed at a pool whose validator is currently serving in the committee is accepted and escrowed right away (only the fee is taken up front), then takes effect when that validator next rotates out — at which point the shares are burned, the stake reduced, and your principal parked in the slashable pending-unbond entry to begin its unbonding countdown.

If you run the pool

An operator cannot undelegate its own self-bond below the operator minimum while other delegators are still in the pool — the self-bond is the operator’s skin in the game. See the operator guide for how to wind a pool down.

Next steps

• How to delegate
• Claiming rewards