It is possible to delegate your ada coins within Cardano Shelley test-net to a pool of your preferences. Thus, you will help to decentralize the network and you will be rewarded for that. Ada coins earned in the test-net will be transferred to the main-net once it is launched.
UIX of the Daedalus wallet is great so delegation of coins is easy for everyone. It is not necessary to write a step-by-step guide for you. However, you will find a link to such a guide below in the text if you need it.
What do you need for delegation?
You need just two things:
- SEED of main-net wallet where you have stored ada coins at the moment of the second snapshot, that happened on the 29 of September 2019.
- Test-net Daedalus wallet. You can download it here:
Delegate your stake
What Is Delegation? Delegation is the process by which ada holders delegate the stake associated with their ada to a…
staking.cardano.org
For the operating system Windows click on the picture that is shown below:
Download the wallet only from the official source. Check URL:
“ https://staking.cardano.org/en/delegation/”
Verify that you have downloaded the correct installation package after the download. You can do it via the Windows CertUtil tool and the command-line interface of Windows. CertUtil tool allows you to verify the hash of the downloaded package. You have to compare it with the hash that is present on the official web page. They both must be the same. The correct one is this one:
9095911ac5781fef93ec6088a558d7f2c7bd485fd1458eee2f655d8c32e70813
If you click to VERIFY CHECKSUM you will find detailed instructions on how to do it on your computer. CertUtil needs two parameters: Binary for verification, what is the downloaded package, and hashing function, what is SHA256. The tool produces the hash. You can see it on the screen below:
If the package is correct then you can start to install it as a common Windows application. Read and confirm all dialogs you will see on the way.
You can find a step-by-step guide of the delegation process here:
Daedalus Rewards Wallet Instructions
To participate in the Shelley Incentivized Testnet program, you need to have a wallet recovery phrase for a Cardano…
iohk.zendesk.com
What is needed to do to delegate ada coins to a pool
Once the wallet gets synced (it should be fast) you need to do the following a few steps:
- Restore balance wallet via SEED.
- Create a new reward wallet.
- Send ada coins from the restored balance wallet to the reward wallet.
- Delegate ada coins to a pool you wish.
The first step is very easy and it is very similar, if not the same, as restoration of a wallet from the SEED. Click to Restore button and insert your SEED of the main-net wallet where you had ada coins during the second snapshot. To increase your safety insert spending password. You will have to provide the password always when you want to spend ada coins from the wallet. Once you restore the wallet you should see your balance.
As you can see, there are 779 ada coins and a few Lovelace in the balance wallet with the name WALLET_1.
Once the balance is restored you will see the following screen suggesting you Create a new Reward wallet. Click at that button.
The process of the reward wallet creation is again very simple and straightforward. It is the common wallet creation. You will have to store the SEED of the reward wallet and provide spending password.
Be careful. You will need the SEED of the test-net reward wallet to be able to restore earned ada coins in the main-net once it is launched.
We have created the reward wallet and gave it a name REWARD_WALLET_1. The wallet is empty and your ada coins are still in the balance wallet. It is necessary to move ada coins from the balance wallet to the reward wallet. From WALLET_1 to REWARD_WALLET_1. Only the reward wallet allows you to delegate coins to a pool.
Click on Move test-net ada button and send coins to the reward wallet. It is done via a transaction so it takes a while.
Once you will see ada coins in the reward wallet you can go to the delegation.
Delegation to a pool
Before the delegation of ADA to a pool, you have to find one that offers a solid ROI. Read our article about the topic:
How Cardano pool operator fees work
The Cardano Shelley incentivized test-net has been launched and people can delegate their ada coins to the selected…
medium.com
There is a delegation center that you have to use for the delegation. Click on the second icon from the top in the left-side menu.
In the bottom-right corner, you can see that coins are not still delegated in REWARD_WALLET_1.
You can see in the delegation screen what is a current epoch (3) and slot (9351 of 43200 slots). The epoch in the test-net is only 1 day long. It will be 5 days in the main-net.
Notice that changes in delegation preferences will take effect after both the current and next epochs have completed. So in our case, we have to wait 1 day and 18 hours.
In the bottom-right corner, there is Delegate your stake button. Click on it.
You will see a list of all pools in the Stake pools screen.
Pools have different colors and ranking will change based on different parameters. For example, based on the staked amount of coins, a number of successfully produced blocks, etc. The order is not so important at the beginning since the test-net runs only a while.
To find a pool quickly you can type a ticker into the search box. For example, CRDNS for Cardanians pool.
If you click on the icon you will see details.
From this point, you can start the delegation by clicking to Delegate to this pool button.
Delegation contains three steps:
- A wallet selection.
- A pool selection.
- Confirmation of the delegation.
In the next step, you have to select a reward wallet. In our case, it is REWARD_WALLET_1.
The next step is the pool selection. In our case, CRDNS is pre-selected, so you can continue.
The confirmation requires to provide the spending password for the reward wallet REWARD_WALLET_1.
As we have said, now it is necessary to wait. In our case 1 day and 18 hours when a new epoch starts and takes into account our delegation. So you can exit the wallet if you want.
Troubleshooting
In case of any troubles do not hesitate to use Help in the main menu. There is a link to known issues in Help / Known issues. To recognize what problem you might have there is a diagnostic tool. Go to Help / Daedalus Diagnostic (Ctrl + D).
Tools
The Cardanians team created a tool for you that you can use to see all available pools and their stats. It is under development and you can provide us with feedback or wishes.
Cardano staking pools
Independent cardano staking pool toplist.
adapools.org
Summary
Thank you to IOHK, Cardano Foundation and Emurgo teams for their effort on the Cardano project. We believe that the project succeeds and will be mass adopted.
Happy staking!
Source: Guide for Delegation of ada coins in Shelley test-net for Daedalus wallet version V1
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