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- Director of Marketing and Communications, Tim Harrison, answered the most relevant questions from the Cardano community regarding Shelley.
- Users will be able to start delegating ADA in epoch 0, the first rewards will be distributed at the end of epoch 3 on August 18th.
The launch of the Shelley mainnet will be a game changer for Cardano. In a few hours, at 21:44:51 UTC, the hard fork that will activate Shelley will be deployed. The Director of Marketing and Communications for IOHK, Tim Harrison, made a publication addressing the most relevant questions from the community regarding Shelley.
Details about stake pools and ADA staking
As Harrison explained, immediately after the hard fork users will be able to register their stake pool. A few hours after the registration, the pools will be shown in the Daedalus wallet and the users will be able to select the pool of their preference to stake their ADA.
Harrison further informed that the ADA delegation system takes a snapshot of the stake distribution at the beginning of every epoch. After Shelley is activated, epoch 0 will have a snapshot, which will be empty. However, users can start staking ADA already in epoch 0 (29 July to 3 August), their delegation will be recorded in a snapshot taken between epoch 0 and epoch 1.
This means that after stake is delegated, it will be recorded in the next snapshot, and that a snapshot will determine the leader schedule and rewards not for the epoch that is just starting, but for the one after that. The image below provides a detailed overview.
Harrison noted that the rewards users will receive for staking their ADA will vary. However, the IOHK team has created a “staking calculator” that can be used to get an estimate of individual rewards. The calculator can be accessed via this link. Users will be able to begin receiving their rewards on August 18th if everything remains on schedule:
People will be able to delegate during epoch 0 (July 29 – Aug 3). Please note that ITN rewards will not be available for delegation during epoch 0.
The first stake distribution snapshot will be taken on Aug 3 (at the transition to epoch 1) Blocks will be produced by pools during epoch 2 (Aug 8 – 13).
The rewards will be calculated during epoch 3 (Aug 14 – 18).
Rewards will be distributed at the end of epoch 3 (Aug 18).
Harrison also clarified that August 18th marks the “first-day staking rewards” will be distributed so that users who “get in early” will receive rewards for the first epochs. However, it doesn’t matter when users choose to delegate/re-delegate within an epoch. ADA owner just need to have delegated before the end of the particular epoch to be included in the next snapshot.
In addition, Harrison emphasized that ADA’s staking maintains the security of the network. Users will never lose funds by staking, but their funds will increase as a result of successful delegation, IOHK Director of Marketing and Communications clarified.
For the users who want to withdraw their rewards from the ITN, they will be able to do it with the Daedalus wallet. The new version will include a feature called “Redeem Incentivized Testnet rewards”. The feature will allow to claim the rewards for the ITN and transfer them to the Cardano mainnet on August 3, starting at epoch 1.
