How to Stake Cardano and Earn 5% Yield (Step-by-Step)

Staking Cardano (ADA) involves locking your Cardano into the Cardano blockchain.  By doing so, you are signaling that you want the Cardano ecosystem to succeed.

This article will get into the practical steps you need to take to start staking Cardano, but if you are more interested in the technical aspects of what staking involves, I recommend this article from adapools.com.

Here is a step-by-step guide on how to stake Cardano.

Important: Staking is a bit more complicated than earning interest.  If you just want to earn interest on your Cardano, you can do that at Voyager ($25 Bonus and 5% yield) or Celsius ($50 Bonus and 4% yield).  Note, however, that while with staking Cardano you hold your own keys and support the Cardano ecosystem.  This is not the case with merely earning interest on you Cardano.

Where	Yield	Type	Sign Up
$25 Bonus If You Trade $100 Within 30 Days	5.00%	Interest	Get $25 Bonus
$40 Bonus If You Deposit $400 Within 30 Days	4.00%	Interest	Get $40 Bonus
Must connect wallet	Depends on Staking Pool	Staking	Get Started

Staking Cardano is not difficult, but you will need to follow the steps below to get set up correctly.  If you have any questions about staking Cardano, leave them in the comments at the bottom of this article.

Step 1: Buy Cardano.

Obviously, in order to stake Cardano, you will need to purchase some Cardano.

This can be done on a cryptocurrency exchange such as Binance, Celsius, or Gemini.

While some of these cryptocurrency exchanges such as Celsius and Gemini offer a signup bonus, you will likely have lower fees on your Cardano purchase using Binance.

Step 2: Create a Cardano wallet.

Now, after you’ve purchased Cardano on a cryptocurrency exchange, you could very well just leave it there.  But if you leave your crypto on an exchange:

1. You don’t hold your own keys to your crypto.
2. You can’t stake your crypto (though you can earn interest, as I mentioned previously).

I personally use Yoroi as my Cardano wallet.

Step 3: Transfer Cardano to your Cardano wallet.

After you’ve set up your wallet, the next step is to transfer your Cardano from the exchange where you purchased it to your wallet.

This involves copying your Cardano wallet address in your Cardano wallet and then pasting it in the “send” area of the exchange where you purchased your Cardano.

Make absolutely sure that you copy and paste your wallet address and that in your exchange you select Cardano as the coin you want to send.

If you don’t get this right, you could lose your Cardano.

Sometimes people like to do a test transaction first with just a little bit of cryptocurrency to make sure that they are doing things correctly.

Step 4: Delegate the Cardano in your wallet to a Cardano staking pool.

Transferring your Cardano into your Cardano wallet is not enough to start staking; you must additionally delegate your Cardano into a staking pool.

If you’re using Yoroi like I do, click “Delegation List” in Yoroi.  Generally speaking, I look for staking pools that meet these qualifications:

• Have a stake of at least 20 million ADA but significantly less than the 64 million saturation point
• Have a high pledge of at least 100,000
• Have a low marginal fee of 2% or less
• Have a fixed cost of the smallest possible i.e. 340 ADA per epoch
• Have a lifetime ROA of around 5%

Then, when you’ve selected the staking pool you want to delegate your Cardano to, click “Delegate” and input how much Cardano you want to delegate to this pool.

And that’s it!  You’ve officially starting staking Cardano.