HydraDX — Incentivised Testnet — Nomination Tutorial
Tags: Hydradx, Proof Of Stake, Kusama, Blockchain, Polkadot

Account Preparations

Login to Polkadot app — https://polkadot.js.org/apps/?rpc=wss%3A%2F%2Frpc-01.snakenet.hydradx.io#/accounts, and check if You see Your HDX balance in Your account.

If Yes, You are ready to start the nomination process.

If no, please check if You already claimed Your HDX tokens via Stakenet claiming engine if You bought xHDX on Balancer LBP. — https://docs.hydradx.io/claim

Preparing Stash Account to Nominate

Go to “Network / Staking / Account Actions” section — https://polkadot.js.org/apps/?rpc=wss%3A%2F%2Frpc-01.snakenet.hydradx.io#/staking/actions

section — https://polkadot.js.org/apps/?rpc=wss%3A%2F%2Frpc-01.snakenet.hydradx.io#/staking/actions Add stash by clicking the “+Stash” button.

After clicking the Stash button, you should see the bonding preferences with four editable fields:

stash account : the account holding the majority of your HDX tokens. HDX will be staked from this account. Make sure that you leave some HDX after staking to cover the transaction fees.

: the account holding the majority of your HDX tokens. HDX will be staked from this account. Make sure that you leave some HDX after staking to cover the transaction fees. controller account : the account holding a smaller portion of HDX needed to cover the fees associated with starting and stopping the process of nominating.

: the account holding a smaller portion of HDX needed to cover the fees associated with starting and stopping the process of nominating. value bonded : the amount of HDX you are bonding.

: the amount of HDX you are bonding. payment destination: the account to which the staking rewards will be sent.

Select Your account with HDX balance as Stash and Controller. Put in value bonded but do not bond all (leave something for transaction fees — like 100 HDX). Select payment destination as stash account and decide — if You want to auto compound — (increase the amount at stake), or do not auto compound — (do not increase the amount at stake) option. Take into consideration 28 days unbonding time and “Bond” Your funds.

!!CAUTION!! — For security reasons, it is not recommended to have the same Stash and Controller accounts. However, since transfers are disabled on Snakenet, it is currently not possible to use separate accounts. We highly recommend that you switch to separate Stash and Controller accounts as soon as this becomes possible in the future.

!!WARNING!! — Bonded HDX tokens are at stake for guaranteeing the security of the network. Improper behavior of the validator node you have nominated may be punished by slashing which can lead to an involuntary loss of your funds. We strongly recommend that you do your due diligence when selecting which validator to nominate.

Nominate a Validator

After bonding HDX, you can now nominate a validator.

Before proceeding, you should do your due diligence and decide which validators you would like to nominate based on their (past and present) performance. You can also check if Validators are active in HydraDX community, are helping in HydraDX Discord or Telegram group, so You know those are active, educated, and contributive validators, trustworthy and You can have contact with them in case of any questions or issues.

To nominate one or more validators, navigate to “Network / Staking / Account actions” and click the “Nominate” button.

After clicking on the “Nominate” button you should see a popup called “nominate validators”. Here you can select one or more validators to nominate from the list of available ones. Click on the node address on the left side and check if it was selected as a nominated account.

If You would like to support and consider nominating Stakenode Validator nodes — here are the node addresses:

STAKENODE DX: 7J4gcZRQSRkKMKsHZfN6JQXXGVrhQu3QHZBb3anqmVn94cT5

Remember that You can add many validators to Your list. Your stake will always be with only one validator but in case that Your current active validator falls out of active validators, Your stake will be automatically switched to another active one from the list.

Stakenode also supports local and community contributors nodes as listed below, feel free to support decentralization and vote also for those nodes:

Tokenswolf — telegram @tokenswolf, www.tokenswolf.com 7NMNjF4nVE5FyA9yD1dCRKKauUDF1PkHXNt8stDhG8UKp1q8

Simon — telegram @dev0_sik, www.crifferent.de 7NzHitwWA5UidhXiNJSTipSwbXgDfikKefdY9kB69sBJxPS7

MrHajsenberg — telegram @MrHajsenberg

7NxGjgNJKq5FicfPoFZKMWitkFHYKzkMHmsSgZS27YZWzWta

Hubert — telegram @hubobubo 7PLgsivMXtqsJirQvSC1jYWCntkces8uBX4KnYTFYPRakG5r

FreeStriker — telegram @freestriker00 7KedkXc9FXzKp1bm6w4oK114rhzqoF2Lz5og2xE7jpvDutSE

Checking the Nomination Status

After completing the nominating process, your nominations will be inactive for the remainder of the current era. Once the following era begins, your nominations will become active, provided that the validator nodes you have nominated are included in the active set of validators. If a given validator remains in the waiting queue, your respective nomination will remain inactive and you will not earn any rewards for this stake.

To check the status of your nominations, navigate to the “Network / Staking/ Account actions” section, where You can see your inactive nominations under “Waiting nominations”

Once a nomination becomes active, you should find it in the list of “Active nominations”

Congratulations! You just become a nominator on HydraDX Network and are staking Your precious HDX with a selected Validator.