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Staking FAQ

Table of Contents

I don't see the $ZKP token in my wallet. What do I do?

Please see this page:

How do I stake my tokens?

You can read about this in the How to stake $ZKP section.

Where do I find information on staking?

Please see Staking for a full explanation. The technical details and smart contract parameters are listed in two places:

Why can't locked tokens be staked?

This would not make economic sense for the protocol. Tokens are generally offered at a lower price in return for agreeing to some lockup/vesting schedule, since this helps stabilize the protocol. The same principle is true of staking: rewards are distributed in return for helping stabilize the protocol. If it was possible to obtain rewards by staking locked tokens, this would be a "double dip" reward.
For example, the public sale had two options: fully unlocked at $0.60, and partially unlocked vesting over 6 months at $0.40. If it was possible to stake locked tokens, then this would negate the value of paying the higher price, which would be unfair to those who elected to do so.

Is there a minimum or maximum limit to how much I can stake?

The minimum stake size is 100 $ZKP. There is no maximum. A larger stake will entitle you to a larger share of the reward pool.

When can I stake, and how many times?

You can create multiple stakes at different times, e.g. you could stake 100 $ZKP initially, and then 200 $ZKP later. Each stake accrues rewards while it is active. There is no limit to the number of stakes you can create (subject, of course, to your available $ZKP balance); however, you will have to pay for the gas costs of creating each one.
It is recommended to read Staking for a full explanation, including the timeline of dates at which the "Classic" staking rewards program starts and ends.

When can I unstake?

Each stake can be optionally unstaked any time after the minimum lockup period of 7 days, but again this transaction costs gas.

How do I receive rewards from "Classic" staking?

Staking rewards are automatically redeemed to the same wallet in the same transaction when you unstake. If you have made multiple stakes, each one will need to be unstaked separately to redeem the rewards.
There is no need to claim regularly, or unstake before the end of the 91 day reward - although you are free to do so, bear in mind that staking and unstaking incurs gas fees, so it is generally better to minimize the number of times you do it.

I think I found an error or bug. How can I report it?

First of all, thanks for letting us know about it! Users like you are exemplary members of our community.
Second, although we greatly appreciate the intention to generate a report, we need you to do it the right way, so that our tech team can work on issues as efficiently as possible.
So before submitting a report, please first carefully read the rest of our FAQ to see if there is already a way to solve it directly.
If there isn't, to create a great report, please try and reproduce the error while recording your screen (ideally) or taking screenshots. Then obtain diagnostics as follows:
  • Ensure that the Console tab is selected.
  • Type -/zkp-staking/ into the Filter box, to filter out all the failed to load source map warnings.
  • Make sure all logging levels are enabled, including Verbose:
  • Scroll to the bottom, to locate the more detailed errors.
  • Make sure the window is a decent size, so that it captures a good amount of detail from the errors.
  • Take one or more screenshots of the window to capture any log messages which might be relevant to the problem in question.
  • Ensure that the screenshot does not show other sensitive data which should be kept private. (If necessary, use an image editor to blur out any sensitive data.)
Finally, send an email to [email protected] with all of the following:
  • an explanation of what you were trying to do,
  • how the behavior you experienced was different to what you expected,
  • any screenshots you captured, and
  • any wallet addresses involved in the issue which you are comfortable sharing.
Thank you for helping improve Panther!

Why are the mainnet gas fees so high for staking?

Why are the gas fees for staking so high on the Ethereum mainnet? Any Ethereum transaction requires users to pay a gas fee. How much this costs depends on how complex and resource-intensive it is for the network, especially storage-wise. Gas prices also fluctuate on account of network congestion. Consequently, gas prices have consistent daily and weekly peaks and bottoms, which savvy users can take advantage of.
While ETH transactions are the cheapest and ERC-20 token transfers can be a bit steeper, staking is a much more expensive type of transaction, because it needs to perform all the accounting calculations (including rewards) on-chain, and in particular needs to store the results on-chain. Storing a single number on the Ethereum Mainnet costs over 20,000 gwei, which could easily be $10 or more at current prices. For you to visualize the complexity of staking, imagine how many numbers you would have to use to track the whole staking rewards program if you did it in a spreadsheet!
Of course, Panther has heavily optimized its contracts to keep gas to an absolute minimum, using mathematical tricks, and many best practice techniques with the Solidity smart contract language and EVM bytecode, without compromising usability and security. But, even so, there is no avoiding that life on Mainnet is expensive.

So, why did we put the $ZKP token on Mainnet Ethereum first?

While Panther’s vision is to be a multi-chain protocol, we believe that the Ethereum Layer-1 Mainnet is currently unbeatable in terms of economic security, credible neutrality, and decentralization. We consider these factors crucial since they are aligned with the governance and long-term goals of Panther Protocol. Therefore, it made sense to deploy $ZKP on Ethereum Mainnet. Unfortunately, the Panther Protocol team can't do anything to change the fee scheme the Ethereum Mainnet uses.
However, there are techniques we can use to make this process more cost-efficient for users.

Going beyond the Ethereum Mainnet

$ZKP is now available on Polygon:
In the future, our private staking solution within multi-asset shielded pools (MASPs) will operate not just on Polygon but many other places outside the Ethereum Mainnet, resulting in lower gas prices. See our staking announcement to learn more about the phases of staking and the road to Private Staking.

Introducing EIP-2612

Additionally, for Classic Staking on Ethereum, Panther has implemented what’s called permit operations. During this kind of operation, enabled by EIP-2612, staking executes in two steps: First the dApp asks the user to create a signature off-chain (i.e. with no gas costs), which authorizes the staking contract to transfer a set amount of tokens from your wallet to the contract itself – this is called a permit operation (EIP-2612). This signature is then sent along with the staking request to the staking contract, which executes the approval for the staking contract to stake your tokens, and then it stakes them, all within the same transaction. This will write all the necessary data to the blockchain, which is still a considerably gas-intensive transaction, but relatively cheaper as it only involves paying miners once.
Permit operations, although they’re not a new thing, are surprisingly underused in DeFi. We have designed our token to be able to support EIP-2612.

I've been waiting a while for my tokens to stake, but the transaction is still pending. What do I do?

If your transaction was correctly sent but hasn't been processed yet, this means it's still in the queue of the Ethereum Network.
Transactions in Ethereum are processed by miners depending on the tips users assign to them, processing the highest-tipping transactions first. In certain cases, this causes tipping wars to occur, as users compete to have their transactions pushed to the front of the line.
Transactions with low tips, in general, are likely to take longer than usual to be processed. Users can always add more gas to their transaction to increase their tip and increase the likelihood that a miner will process it faster. However, amidst a tipping war, the most cost-efficient alternative might just be to try at a different time.
As a general good practice, we advise you to try and stake at times of low network congestion, which are easy to eyeball based on the initial gas suggestion of your wallet.
Other tools you can use to find out what the gas price is at any given time are:

What is Advanced Staking?

Advanced Staking (previously referred to as Experimental Staking) is the evolution of Panther’s native staking solution, both on Polygon and the Ethereum Mainnet. Through it, users can govern the protocol, earn rewards, and become part of the first set of contributors to Multi-Asset Shielded Pools (MASPs). Advanced Staking is an intermediate step towards Panther’s v1 (or Panther Core).
To learn more about Advanced Staking, read Current: Advanced Staking (Panther v0.5).

Is Advanced Staking the same thing as Private Staking?

Although Advanced Staking relies on some of the underlying mechanisms that make Multi-Asset Shielded Pools possible, Advanced Staking is not fully private yet. On the other hand, in the Private Staking phase, $ZKP will be staked directly inside MASPs, in a fully private way.
To better understand the characteristics of each, go to Current: Advanced Staking (Panther v0.5) and Phase 3: Private Staking.
Last modified 1yr ago