Degen Infrastructure Core Services

Staking is where you assign your "voting rights" to a unique Solana computer, called a validator, and earn a return of about 7-9% per year. Voting rights are simply the ability to vote on a transaction, and each Solana token has these rights. The validator uses them to vote if a transaction was a good or bad transaction. Solana is a "Proof of Stake" blockchain and allows 50,000 transactions per second. For comparison, Ethereum can do about 15 transactions per second.

More info:

Read on if you are familiar with other networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum.

A validator is a node in the Solana network that votes on which transactions to include in the blockchain. This is similar to a miner in POW (proof of work) based chains like Bitcoin & Ethereum Classic, but since Solana is POS (Proof of Stake), it depends on delegators and Stake instead of hash power.

Staking is therefore delegating your voting rights to a particular node to help keep the network secure and improve decentralization. There are over 1900 Solana validators as of Aug 2023.

Delegating means assigning your "voting rights" of your SOL to a validator. It's super simple. All staked SOL is delegated, so essentially staked and delegated mean the same thing.

Yes. The Solana software has been audited (where computer engineers check the program code) by Kudelski, a leading cybersecurity firm. (Twitter)

You can always withdraw your Stake from the validator, and a validator can't take your SOL. So even if they turn off the validator computer, you can still withdraw it. They never have your SOL, only the "voting rights" that you can withdraw at any stage.

More Info:

Can slashing take my SOL?

You may have heard of slashing. Slashing is used with some other Proof of Stake blockchains.

When a validator is malicious (approving fake transactions and double-spending), their Stake can be reduced, which is bad for investors and encourages the validator to be honest. Slashing is not live on Solana, it's likely years away, and good validators would not be affected, as they don't misbehave.

DICS is all about Solana, awesome NFTs (like Degen Apes, Degen Trash Pandas, Degen Drop Bears, etc.), communities, learning, and teaching.

DICS stands for Degen Infrastructure Core Services…. What else do you think it would be?

It would be best to delegate to validators improving Solana and helping communities. DICS is run by the DAO of the Degen Ape Academy, they call it the Degen DAOO, but it is a highly active community that is unpaid.

You would stake with DICS because you earn rewards around 7-9% per year, and DICS take a small 4% commission on the rewards, so you still get 96% of the rewards.

More info:

Stake with good validators who help, teach their community, and support questions about staking.

In the author's opinion, do not stake with large validators operating on many different blockchains. They care about profit, not about Solana, not about communities, and not about decentralization. The author avoids Everstake, Chorus One, Certus One, Bison One, etc., but you can choose who you like.

• 24/7/365 secured entrance

• Physical access pre-approved via access permissions defined by the customer

• Government issued photo ID verification

• Card-key access into data center

• Locking cages / suites

• Interior and exterior video surveillance

• Perimeter fence with security gate

Your SOL goes through a few phases. With Solana, the minimum delegation time is one epoch.

Definition of an epoch: a period in time in computing, and in Solana, it is about 2.5 days. 

eg

Delegate 1 SOL mid epoch. It will be "activating" until the end of the epoch, and not earn rewards.

When the next epoch starts, your SOL is delegated, and the rewards will be credited when the epoch ends.

The SOL rewards are automatically added to your staked SOL balance. The rewards are compounded.

Phantom only shows you your rewards for the most recent epoch in Phantom.

A more comprehensive solution is solstake.io

You can also see all your rewards at solanabeach.io, but solstake.io is the best solution. After each epoch, it will show you each reward, and your staked SOL balance will grow epoch by epoch.

As much, or as little, as you like. It is also a good idea to do it in multiple batches. eg you might have 100 SOL to delegate.

Do 5 x 20 delegations. That way, should you ever need some SOL, you can unstake 1x 20 delegation, and earn rewards on the 80 SOL still.

But before withdrawing, you may wish to use Marinade SOL: check out this YouTube video for more info.

Rent is a standard "deposit" that all delegators (you and I) pay each time a new stake is created. It is part of the Solana software, and when you eventually unstake, you get it back.

You need a little SOL for the transaction cost (called gas). 0.01 SOL is enough, and if using Phantom wallet, follow this: 

1. Click on your Solana token balance in your wallet

2. Click the "Your Stake" row

3. Choose the DICS staking account you wish to unstake

4. Click the purple "Unstake" button in the bottom right

This will deactivate the Stake, and when the epoch ends (you can check the epoch length at solanabeach.io or solstake.io), you can withdraw. 

If your DICS staking account status is "Inactive", you can withdraw your SOL back into your wallet.

1. Click on your Solana token balance in your wallet

2. Click the "Your Stake" row

3. Choose the DICS staking account you wish to withdraw from

4. Click the 3 dots "..." in the top right

5. Click "Withdraw SOL"

In other words, you need a little SOL in your main wallet for transaction fees, and it is a 2-part process to get the SOL back into your wallet.

It is covered here, with timestamps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keCvpELXkE4

You can not increase the Stake, but you can add a new stake and delegate it to DICS.

The author has multiple stakes with DICS, with different SOL amounts. When they get more SOL each week, they delegate more.

APY stands for Annual Percentage Yield and is compounded interest.

6-7% is the standard APY you'll get staking across validators across the board. However, there may be some validators where you may get higher than 7% because their commission fee is low or zero.

However, they do not offer a community, support, or create educational videos, and they are often the same company running multiple validators, so they are not improving decentralization. There are good ones, but DICS is the best.

There is a scale of safety in crypto, and staking is the safest.

Staking with audited software, with no Impermanent Loss, is very different to farming.

Farming with SOL with a DeFi dapp that is not audited and subjected to Impermanent Loss has more risk.

You can do both, but make sure you know about Impermanet Loss first.

DICS needs more staked SOL to be profitable, so please delegate to DICS. Once profitable, the DAO community will vote on how to spend it.

It will be hugely positive for Solana, so make sure you stake with DICS. That way, you are helping Solana do even better.

Whether for you or the taxman, you can get a report from solanabeach.io, or you can download all the transactions from your wallet from stake.tax

These are 3rd party tools, and no support is offered, but this is covered in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keCvpELXkE4.