Staking Guide

Summary

This guide describes the steps required to:

1. Register a cluster on the smart contract registry
2. Delegate POND and MPond to clusters
3. Update marlinctl and associate their instances with the cluster registered in Step 1

Points 1 and 3 are only meant for cluster operators. Token holders who do not operate their own cluster and only wish to delegate to other clusters can skip to the section associated with Point 2. This guide is best suited for folks with experience working directly with smart contracts. If you are not adept in the same, please wait for the frontend interface.

Addresses required

The steps below are going to make references to a number of addresses. They are summarized below.

1. Controller address: This is the account that's registered in the Cluster Registry smart contracts, changes key parameters wrt the cluster (commission, commission address) and also the address to which POND/MPond holders delegate. This address need not have POND, MPond or any other tokens other than ETH to pay for gas.
2. Delegation address: This is the account that has POND and/or MPond tokens which are to be delegated to one or more Controller addresses. Cluster operators can use the address as the controller address as well as the one that holds tokens via which they delegate though this isn't recommended for privacy/security reasons.
3. Reward Address: Cluster operators can charge a commission from those who delegate to it on the fees that it generates. Such commissions are deposited into the reward address. This address may or may not be the same as controller or delegation address (no restriction).
4. Client key: This is an address whose keystore needs to be accessible on the client to sign receipts in the network. The controller address uses the client key as a parameter during registration to link the smart contract entry to the physical instances.

Only cluster operators need to generate a controller address, reward address and client key. They may or may not have a delegation address (you can operate a cluster solely via others' delegations without owning any POND/MPond yourself).

POND/MPond holders need to have a delegation address (the address which holds their tokens). They need to know the controller address they wish to delegate to even if they do not own it.

Note that for a cluster operator there's no difference between a self-delegation and external delegation.

Cluster Registration

1. Go to the Cluster Registry address on Etherscan: 0x5B7B5632149653B974e75b18F7B02dEeEac38E47

2. Click on the Connect to Web3 button and connect to your ledger/metamask account using the address you want to be the Cluster controller.
   

3. Call the function register with parameters:

   • networkid (hash of network ticker – listed in the table below)
   • commission (fee – integer between 0 to 100)
     • The fee the cluster operator wishes to receive from its delegators
   • reward address (for commissions)
     • Address to which commissions from delegators are deposited
   • client key
     • Address on the Marlin node that will be signing receipts etc
     • Needs to be a hot wallet available as a keystore file (can be generated using geth or MEW for example)

   Network	NetworkId
   ETH	0xaaaebeba3810b1e6b70781f14b2d72c1cb89c0b2b320c43bb67ff79f562f5ff4

Steps to delegate POND or MPond

1. Users can currently delegate POND and/or MPond on Ethereum to a cluster registered above.

2. Go to the POND or MPond token address on Etherscan depending on the token you wish to delegate.

   | Token | Address |
   | –––– | –––– | –––- |
   | POND | 0x57B946008913B82E4dF85f501cbAeD910e58D26C |
   | MPOND | 0x1C77d15857646687005dbbAfFf5873F4495a9731 |

3. Connect your metamask/WalletConnect account with POND or MPond tokens by clicking on Connect to Web3 button and click on the Contract and Write as Proxy tabs.

4. Send an approve transaction with the amount you wish to delegate.

   • Spender - 0xCBB94D13fB90C28368E4358f3EccE248ae4B6c82 (StakeManager contract)
   • Amount - number of tokens to be delegated (remember to add 18 zeroes)

5. Once approved, go to the StakeManager contract (0xCBB94D13fB90C28368E4358f3EccE248ae4B6c82) to create a stash and delegate to a cluster. Below are the 2 ways to do that. Go with any one.
   a) Create stash and delegate in 2 different steps:

   • Call the createStash function with parameters:

     • Array of tokenids
       • Hash of token addresses – Refer from table below
     • Array of amounts
       • Corresponding tokens amounts to be added to stash

     Note: This tx returns the stashId as part of the event emitted on creation of the Stash. Please refer below to know how to lookup stashId from Etherscan with transactionId.

     Token	TokenId
     POND	0x5802add45f8ec0a524470683e7295faacc853f97cf4a8d3ffbaaf25ce0fd87c4
     MPOND	0x1635815984abab0dbb9afd77984dad69c24bf3d711bc0ddb1e2d53ef2d523e5e

   • Call the delegateStash function with parameters:

     • stashId
       • Received from stash creation step above
     • cluster address to delegate to
       • The Controller address registered in the section above

   b) Make a createStashAndDelegate call with

   • Array of tokenids

     • Hash of token addresses – Refer from the table above

   • Array of amounts

     • Corresponding tokens amounts to be added to stash

   • Cluster address to delegate to

     • The Controller address registered in the section above

     Note: This tx returns the stashId as part of the event emitted on creation of the Stash. Please refer below to know how to lookup stashId from Etherscan with transactionId.

6. Tokens can be added to an existing stash by calling the addToStash function with parameters:

   • stashId

     • Received from stash creation step above

   • Array of tokenids

     • Hash of token address – Refer to the table above

   • Array of amounts

     • Corresponding tokens amounts to be added to stash

   Note: Any additions to the stash will auto delegate to the cluster chosen in the previous step. If only the createStash function was called and delegateStash was never called, the tokens that existed in the stash with the ones added later remain undelegated.

Figuring the stashId from the stash creation TxHash

1. Once stash creation transaction is completed, find the tx hash and open the page of the transaction by searching the txhash in Etherscan.
2. In the tx page, go to the Logs tab
   
3. Select the log with topic 0 as 0x614d6f8319493a3bb5dd50287615457dd869414d3d6b96136f80ac1c1ef2428d
   
4. The first element in the data is the stashId of the created stash. In the above screenshot it is "0x277b2c05a202fecfc5164a3c3d1fc58cdf27b384a84e371cf62b5d30197830f7"

Linking the cluster registered above to the clients

Cluster operators need to link their clusters (specifically, the beacon) to their client key.

Only for existing clusters:

• Destroy the old beacon using the old marlinctl
  • Important: Needs to be done for sure and only with old marlinctl
  ​​​​$ sudo marlinctl beacon destroy
  

For all clusters:

• Download and install the new marlinctl
• Have the keystore file locally on disk
• Create a new text file with the passphrase used for the keystore above
• Run beacon with proper args as follows
  ​​​​$ sudo marlinctl beacon create --discovery-addr "0.0.0.0:8002" --heartbeat-addr "0.0.0.0:8003" --bootstrap-addr "34.82.79.68:8003" --keystore-path /path/to/keystore --keystore-pass-path /path/to/passphrase
  

• Run relays as given in Instructions
  • Existing clusters don't need to change existing relays

Post-link checks

• See beacon logs using
  ​​​​$ sudo marlinctl beacon logs
  

• Look for a line saying Beacon: Identity is 0x<addr>
• Check if the address matches the client key used while registering