Video tutorial on staking HEX on go.hex.win frontend to the HEX smart contract. This frontend requires Metamask wallet. For other wallets you can use other contract frontends.

Staked HEX is bound to the Ethereum address used for staking, so make sure you have the private key and/or the seed phrase saved, well hidden and safe for the duration of the stake.

When HEX is staked, it is burned (removed from circulation) and transformed into shares (internal accounting unit of the smart contract). All income (interest, rewards, and redistributed penalties) is distributed in accordance to the proportion of shares owned. Shares are therefore the most important element of the contract and share price is what determines the future success of your stake.

Longer and bigger stakes get bonus amounts of shares. The share price goes up each time a staker with the highest return on investment ends his stake. In addition, on BigPayDay (November 19th) all unclaimable HEX will be added as interest to active stakes and this will strongly increase their return on investment. One consequence is that the share price will increase possibly several-fold in a single day. For this reason, it is best to accumulate shares before the BigPayDay.

Share price going only up is a measure against interest compounding. This way you can never achieve a higher return on investment by restaking compared to staking for an equal total length. However, for this same reason, share price allows for compounding of stake time. Long stakes get shares at current price for the entire length of the stake! This is possibly one of the most remarkable features of HEX staking.

Once the stake matures, you have a 2 weeks grace period to end stake, and mint your principal and accrued interest. After that period your stake gets penalised by 1% for each additional week of negligence. Make sure you remember the maturation date. Put it on your calendar. If you have numerous stakes open, the hexinfo.io website has a tool to export stake maturation dates into your Google calendar.

You or anyone else can also use the Good accounting function to freeze the mature stake from being penalised from neglect (e.g., anotherhex.win has a list of expiring stakes). This contract call is public and thus anyone can do it for you. It allows you to mint all your HEX at any later time. In some jurisdictions it may be useful for tax purposes.

Make sure you never ever use the Emergency endstake function unless you know exactly what you are doing. Be aware of the consequences and loses you can incur. When you break your contract obligations, the contract penalises you so heavily that you can lose all accrued interest, or even the entire principle, depending on the stage at which you emergency endstake. See HEX Contract in Layman’s Terms for the equations determining the penalisation.

If you are unsure about your ability to keep long term contract obligations, rather set shorter stakes. This way your risk of losing your principal due to impulsive emergency endstaking is lower. You can be your own worst enemy, if you are unable to contain excitement when seeing the price going up or down. Consider also that other stakers may be motivated to FUD you, as they profit from others emergency endstaking. Shorter stakes get much less shares and thus deliver a much lower return on investment, but they present less risk for emotionally unstable stakers.

Stake till you make it!

By @Benzenoid

Disclaimer: None of the above is meant to be a financial advice. Never rely on a single source of information and do your own research before any investment. Don’t trust, verify!

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