Injective – Canary Chain (Phase Two) Staking Walkthrough

July 1, 2021

Whether you’re new to Injective (“Injective”) or participated in Equinox Staking on the Injective testnet, this guide is designed to:

  • Familiarize you with the Injective staking dashboard;
  • Explain the steps necessary to transfer your ERC-20 INJ tokens to the Injective Chain to acquire native tokens (“INJ”);
  • Stake your INJ with a Validator to begin earning rewards as a Delegator; and
  • Provide you with a quick reference of important terms that apply to staking on Injective.

Background

Injective is a Decentralized Finance (DeFi) platform that enables derivatives to be created and traded on its Decentralized Exchange (DEX) protocol using assets from different blockchain networks, as well as integrated into smart contracts to facilitate new and innovative designs for financial transactions. It has a three-phase plan underway to fully deploy their mainnet. Phase One was successful, and Phase Two began on June 30, 2021. The primary goal of Phase Two is to deploy a “Canary Chain,” which is a version of the mainnet that can be released in stages and reset if any major issues are encountered.

Unlike Phase One, real funds can be used in trading on the platform in Phase Two, although some of the functionality will be unavailable or restricted until Injective completes their security and stability checks and signs off on the launch of the canonical chain in Phase Three. Injective expects Phase Two to last several weeks, and updates on their progress can be found on their website.

Key Points

  • Before you can trade on Injective in Phase Two, you will need to transfer your ERC-20 INJ tokens to the Injective Chain.
  • Staking rewards in Phase Two are different than Phase One. The baseline APY is 5%, and unstaking requests are subject to a 21-day unbonding period.
  • Phase Two will allow you to stake ERC-20 USDT to fund various insurance pools and INJ to submit governance proposals.

How to Stake on Injective

Before starting this process, you’ll need:

  • A Metamask browser wallet or a Ledger hardware wallet (“your wallet”).
  • The ERC-20 INJ tokens you want to transfer to the Injective Chain deposited in your wallet. These can be acquired on several exchanges or through a swap platform (one is integrated into Metamask).
  • A small amount of ETH (less than $20) deposited in your wallet to cover any gas fees.

Step 1. Navigate to Injective’s Staking Dashboard.

If your wallet isn’t already connected with Injective’s Staking Dashboard, you’ll need to do so before you can proceed. Click on the appropriate icon for your wallet and follow the prompts to sign any security certificates that are required to connect your Metamask browser wallet or Ledger hardware wallet. After authenticating, you’ll be able to view the homepage.

Step 2. On the navigation menu at the top of the page, click “Wallet.”

Your wallet will automatically connect and display your holdings of ERC-20 INJ tokens under My Balances > Ethereum Mainnet. You won’t be able to stake with a Validator or perform any other functions on the Injective Staking Dashboard before converting the ERC-20 INJ tokens to INJ on the Injective Chain.

To do so, under Transfer, enter the amount of ERC-20 INJ tokens you want to transfer to the Injective Chain and click the illuminated “Transfer” button underneath. Your wallet will prompt you to sign a security certificate and ask you to confirm gas fees. After the transaction is confirmed, refresh the page. Under My Balances > Injective Chain, the transferred tokens (less any gas fees) will appear.

Note: You can transfer from INJ back to ERC-20 INJ tokens anytime. To do so, under Transfer, click on the double-arrow icon, and the “from” and “to” addresses will reverse (the remainder of the process is the same as outlined above).

Step 3. You’re now ready to stake. On the navigation menu at the top of the page, click “Validators.”

Under Validators, enter “Figment” in the search bar to filter the list of Validators and click the illuminated “Delegate” button. A dialogue box will appear.

Before proceeding, confirm that the address displayed in the dialogue box is correct (Figment’s Validator Address is: injvaloper1g4d6dmvpg7w7yugy6kplndp7jpfm3krtschp). Then, enter the amount of INJ you want to delegate and click the illuminated “Delegate” button. Your wallet will prompt you to sign a security certificate and ask you to confirm gas fees. After the transaction is confirmed, refresh the page. You’re done!

To view information about your delegated INJ, click “Wallet” on the navigation menu at the top of the page. Scroll down until you see Delegations and Delegation Rewards tables.

Note: Injective does not automatically claim or delegate any staking rewards. Rewards are paid after the confirmation of every block. You will need to claim the rewards to add them to your INJ balance and repeat the process outlined above if you want to delegate them to a Validator.

Governance and Insurance Fund Participation

As previously mentioned, Phase Two enables the ability to participate in governance and stake assets to provide liquidity for insurance funds. Both of these options can be accessed by going to the navigation menu at the top of the page and clicking “Governance” or “Insurance Funds.” At the time of publication, these features are still being deployed. Separate walkthroughs will be published for both activities as they’re enabled.

Important Staking & Network Terms

As a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) network, Injective’s performance improves as a higher percentage of INJ is staked. Consequently, it offers significant rewards to encourage INJ holders to stake. By delegating your INJ to a Validator, a quasi-partnership is created. You not only receive a portion of the revenue that your chosen Validator is awarded for signing transactions and confirming blocks on the Injective Chain, but also are impacted by in slashing penalties incurred by the Validator due to unapproved activities or poor performance on the network.

Consequently, the choice of a Validator is an important one, which is why many Delegators choose Figment.

Note: The information provided on staking in this section was verified as of June 30, 2021, and there are no pending governance proposals to change these terms. Nonetheless, these terms and other protocol rules can change based on the adoption of governance proposals by the Injective community. Though we use best efforts to keep our walkthroughs updated, please visit our Injective staking page for the most up-to-date information.

 

Staking

Baseline APY – 5% of Amount Staked (APY Boosts that were a feature on the testnet will not be used on the mainnet)

Figment’s Validator Commission – 5% of Delegator Rewards per Block (Figment has the right to raise or lower by up to 5% per block, and the maximum rate permitted by Injective is 25%)

Unbonding Time – 21 Days

Example: Injective estimates that 15,778,800 blocks will be confirmed annually. Given that, if you delegated 200,000 INJ to Figment, your net delegator rewards would be 4.75% APY, providing an approximate daily return of 26.03 INJ, monthly return of 791.66 INJ, and annual return of 9,500 INJ. If you claimed these rewards and delegated them to Figment once per month, your net delegator rewards would increase to 4.85% APY.

Note: Injective has a target of 67% of all INJ minted to be staked. The network has the right to raise or lower the Baseline APY up to 10% per block to increase or decrease the incentive for INJ holders to stake, in order to maintain this target. However, the network does not allow the Baseline APY to fall below 4% or increase above 10%. The rate can be adjusted per block.

 

Slashing

Window for Being Offline (Without Slashing) – 40,000 Blocks

Minimum Percentage of Blocks Signed per Window (Without Slashing) – 50%

Jail Duration Due to Downtime – 600 Seconds

Percentage of Stake Slashed Due to Downtime – 0.01%

Percentage of Stake Slashed Due to Equivocation – 5%

 

Governance

Minimum Amount of INJ Necessary to Submit Proposal – 500

Voting Period – 2 Weeks

Quorum – 33.4%

Percentage of Cast Votes Necessary to Pass – 50%

Percentage of Cast Votes Necessary to Veto – 33.4%

 

For more resources on Injective, please visit our Injective Staking page.

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