How to Stake Solana on Ledger Nano X

What do you need?

To delegate coins and start staking, you will need:
– Download and install the latest version of the Ledger Live client
– A Ledger Nano X / S / S Plus device with updated firmware
– Solana (SOL) coins on the balance of your hardware crypto wallet
– The latest version of the Solana app

How does coin delegation work?

You are probably already familiar with this term if you have dealt with investments before. In the world of fiat money, this term means physically handing your funds over to a trader or an investment company. In this case, however, things are set up in a much safer way for the investor.

Here, you don’t hand over your funds — you simply assign them to a validator.
The validator cannot withdraw them or exchange them for other assets. Only you can manage those assets.

The coins you delegate act as your vote for a validator in the Solana network. The validator with the most votes has the right to add the next block to the Solana network.

Which validator should I choose?

At the moment, there is a huge number of validators on the Solana network, but not all of them are trustworthy. When choosing a validator, there are several factors to consider:

1) The validator’s reputation
2) The number of coins already delegated to the validator

We can recommend validators such as:

Everstake — A validator company from Ukraine. At the moment, the company operates a large number of nodes across various networks. It also has a high level of trust.

Ledger By Figment — A validator operated by the French company Ledger SAS, the manufacturer of hardware wallets.

Coinbase Cloud — The validator with the largest active stake at the moment. A publicly traded U.S. company with a high level of trust, whose shares are listed on a U.S. stock exchange.

What happens if a validator adds a modified block to the Solana network — will I lose my coins?

This risk does exist. The procedure is called slashing, and it involves destroying coins if a validator modifies a block in any way, creates fake transactions, or attempts to censor the network.

However, at this time, slashing is not implemented on the Solana network. In theory, if something like that were detected, the network would be halted manually and the decision would be made by the community. That’s exactly why it’s so important to choose a reliable validator with a solid reputation.

As an option, you can choose several validators and delegate part of your funds to each of them. That way, if one of the validators breaks the network rules, you won’t lose all of your delegated funds.

In practice, this has never happened yet.

How much will I earn if I delegate my funds?

The amount of profit depends on many factors, primarily on the validator: the more often a validator produces a new block, the more rewards it receives. If you choose a popular validator, you can expect around 5.3% APY in SOL.

The current approximate rate can be found on StakingRewards.com.
A staking calculator is also available there.