Figment – Staking demystified

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Ok, so we all know that Staking MINA can seem confusing. The reality is that once you get a grasp of the basic concept it isn’t that difficult. The secret is knowing who the best validators are and the best time to move your MINA. Whenever you move MINA to a new staking service you will lose some rewards, so always weigh up the pro’s and con’s of moving to a service with a lower % rate as it’s possible you will still miss out on more rewards than you would if you kept them where they are.

We got in touch with Figment to ask them some basic questions around Staking and to explain exactly what everything means on their Mina Validators information page https://bit.ly/3jBjV7s.

Please note we do not endorse any single Mina validator and recommend you do your own research before making any commitments. 

Understanding the jargon – https://bit.ly/3jBjV7s (opens a new window)

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  1. Staking Balance:
    This number represents the total MINA staking balance delegated under the Figment validator. 
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2: Blocks
Here is a visual representation of the last 50 blocks produced on MINA. The black blocks represent blocks that the Figment validator produced.

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3. Delegations
This number represents the total number of unique delegations to the MINA Figment validator.

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4. Amount
The amount number to the right shows the amount of MINA under each individual delegator. 

5. Share
This percentage represents the percent share they hold on the validator.

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6. First Seen
This date and time represents when the Figment MINA validator began.

7.Last Seen
This date and time represents when the Figment team is seen online last.

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8. Blocks Produced
This number represents the total number of blocks the Figment validator has produced.

9. Staking Balance History
This chart is a visual representation of the MINA staking balance over the last 30 days on the Figment validator.

10. Blocks Produced (chart)
This chart is a visual representation of the total blocks produced by the Figment validator over the past 30 days. 

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 I asked Brady Turner from  Figment some questions about their service and to see if he had any staking tips.  

How did figment come about? How long have you been together? 

Our founders Matt Harrop, Lorien Gabel, and Andrew Cronk have 30+ years of successfully starting and scaling internet infrastructure companies. This deep background in infrastructure and security, combined with a passion for decentralized technologies, led to the launch of Figment in 2018. Now, we are a globally distributed team with over 70 employees.

How many different coins do Figment offer staking services with? Which one has the highest APR? 

At Figment we offer Staking services on a wide variety of Web 3 protocols, currently including over 35 mainnets. As of August 2021, the coin with the highest APR is Osmosis (OSMO) at 320%. 

If someone transfers their MINA over to you mid epoch, will they still receive the rewards from the previous validator until the end of that epoch? 

Yes, that is correct

When is the optimum time to move your coins to a new validator? 

You have to wait anywhere between 1-2 epochs before your coins are considered delegated to the validator of your choice. One epoch is approximately 14.875 hours.

Here is an example: let’s say we’re on epoch 10 currently.  If you delegated at the beginning of epoch 10 then you will need to wait for all of epoch 10 and 11 to complete, meaning your new delegation would occur at epoch 12. This is essentially the worst time to delegate as you’d need to wait for two full epochs.

However, if you are able to get your delegation in before epoch 10 begins (-2 blocks or earlier), then you would only need to wait until epoch 10 finishes and your delegation would take place at the beginning of epoch 11 instead of epoch 12.

How often do you pay out rewards? What are supercharged rewards? 

We pay out MINA rewards on a weekly basis. Supercharged rewards are a way to incentivise staking tokens that are not time-locked. When an unlocked account wins a block, the account is considered supercharged, resulting in a reward of 1440 mina, as opposed to the current fixed normal reward of 720 mina. 

What is your commission rate for someone to stake Mina with Figment?

Our commission rate is 10%. 

Are rewards automatically re-staked? If I staked 2000 MINA with figment for 12 months ( in Aug 21) approx how much interest would I expect to receive? Does this include some supercharged rewards? 

Rewards are automatically restaked.  It is important to keep in mind that this is a reward prediction, and many factors can change including the market, rewards, etc. Using the calculator on Staking Rewards, staking 2000 MINA for 12 months would yield roughly 228 MINA in yearly earnings. This does not include any supercharged rewards. 

There is a lot of confusion around rewards, can you explain in a simple way…. Are the rewards an exact figure every month, if not how is the rewards amount decided? 

There are two kinds of rewards: Regular rewards and supercharged.

Regular rewards are 720 mina and the simplest way to put it is that you get the same % of the reward based on how much your % contribution to the total delegations on the block producer.

Supercharged rewards are similar, but instead of 720 the reward is 1440. Note that supercharged rewards only apply to accounts that are unlocked. See https://docs.minaprotocol.com/en/architecture/timelock for more details. 

Are there any security risks to sending Mina to staking service? Do you have any good crypto security tips? What wallet do you recommend people use to store their Mina in? 

Please check out our full MINA Staking and Delegation guide for step by step staking instructions, wallet recommendations, security tips, and more. 

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We asked Figment to provide a few sentences about their service (see below)

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Figment is one of the world’s largest blockchain and staking infrastructure providers. Our mission is to build a better Internet using blockchain technology.

Simply put: We know Staking. We provide Staking resources such as our Hubble Web 3.0 explorer and our Prime dashboard that allows token holders to research and stake tokens on various protocols.

We also offer developers robust tools to build on protocols, such as Learn and DataHub. By providing tools to help holders and developers build the infrastructure, middleware, and application layers, we focus on building and improving Web 3.0 technologies.

For more info visit https://figment.io

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