Overview of Staking on Kraken

In order to participate in onchain staking on Kraken, you must meet certain eligibility criteria. Among other requirements outlined in our Terms of Service:

1. You must have an account with Kraken that is verified.

2. You may not use onchain staking if you are a resident or a citizen of a prohibited location.

DISCLAIMER: Kraken is not a bank or other depository institution. Your Kraken account is not a deposit account or a bank account. The onchain staking program is not a depository or bank program. Neither your Kraken account nor staked assets are covered by insurance against losses or subject to Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) protections or the protections of any comparable organization anywhere in the world. You should inform yourself of any legal or tax consequences of participating in the onchain staking program. Kraken is not responsible for any such consequences to you.

For further information read our Terms of Service.

Staking utilizes blockchain Proof-of-Stake protocol to generate rewards through a process typically called “staking”.

Benefits of Onchain staking on Kraken versus staking on other platforms:

✓ Start earning rewards instantly — no waiting or bonding periods 

✓ Some of the highest returns in the industry

✓ Stake your assets in just a few clicks from your Kraken balances

✓ Instant unstaking when using Flexible terms

Kraken offers two types of staking products: Bonded and Flexible.

Note: Geographic restrictions apply for asset and program availability - see here for more information.

For asset tickers, please refer to our API documentation.

Kraken offers onchain bonded terms when staking certain assets, such as DOT and ATOM. Staking rewards will typically be paid out to your staking balance each payout interval. If you choose Bonded staking, your assets will be subject to a wait time after you unstake them before you can use them for other purposes. The wait time (known as the onchain unbonding period) can last 3 or more days, depending on the asset.

While your assets are staked via our Bonded staking services, they are not available for trading and cannot be transferred to your external (non-Kraken) account.

Staking also impacts your equity for margin trading (where available). Staking in bonded products will remove them from your trading and equity balances. Your equity balances affect your free margin and margin level for margin trading.

Flexible staking allows you to unstake your assets at any time without being subjected to an unbonding period. This allows for immediate access to assets once unstaked, to be used for other purposes.

Staking also impacts your equity for margin trading. Staking in flexible products will remove them from your trading and equity balances. Your equity balances affect your free margin and margin level for margin trading.

Staking rewards are paid out once per week. There may be variance in payout timing due to platform upgrades.

Each asset will earn rewards at its own Annual Percentage Yield (APY). The reward rate is different per asset. Rewards will only be paid if the reward is greater than the smallest decimal precision supported.

All rewards that have been earned will appear in the total rewards column on the Earn page.

* Assets with no onchain unbonding period.

** As of the Shapella upgrade rewards will be issued to your account as unstaked ETH, fully unlocked and able to stake, trade or withdraw in your account. Kraken will continue to distribute weekly rewards on a variable rate that reflects what we’ve earned onchain minus our fee. Rewards will vary according to the rules of the Ethereum protocol. ETH staking rewards are auto-compounded and will be added to your staking balance.

See country specific restrictions.

Geographical restrictions can be found here. If Staking is not showing as an option on your account, you may not be eligible.

There are currently no transaction fees for staking or unstaking. Kraken takes a commission based on the rewards you receive from the network.

The APY rates shown above are an estimate of the rewards you could earn on the assets you hold, before our commission, and are based on the average staking rewards accrued over the past period. In cases where we are subject to a validator commission, the APY rates shown are after such commissions.

Bonded staking commission:

Bonded staking commissions are based on your total balance across all bonded staking assets, plus your flexible staking balance in Cardano (ADA), Mina Protocol (MINA) and Bittensor (TAO). Included in your total balance are assets that are bonding and/or bonded (actively earning rewards). Unbonding and exit-queue assets are excluded.

Your fee tier is calculated at the time of your weekly reward payout. This means that if market conditions move around the payout date, your fee tier could change.

Example:
If you hold 80 ETH and 1,000 SOL in bonded staking (illustrative combined asset value of $1.5M at payout), your total balance puts you in the 20% fee tier. Assuming that week you earn 0.08 ETH and 1.0 SOL in network rewards (worth approximately $1,450 at payout), Kraken retains 20% of each asset’s reward, 0.016 ETH and 0.2 SOL (worth $290 total), and you receive 0.064 ETH and 0.8 SOL (worth $1,160 total).

Flexible staking & Auto Earn commission:

Kraken applies a 30% commission on rewards earned through both Flexible Staking and the Auto Earn program.

For assets with an unbonding period, you’ll earn rewards on up to 50% of the assets you stake (less Kraken’s commission), with the remainder kept unstaked for liquidity purposes. For certain assets such as Cardano (ADA), Mina (MINA), and Bittensor (TAO), commissions are based on the above Bonded staking commission.

The APYs shown in-app are estimates and do not include Kraken’s commission. For additional information, please refer to our Terms of Service.

You can use Bonded and Flexible staking on the Kraken Pro. Only Bonded and Auto Earn features are available on the Kraken app.

Participating in staking is not a risk-free endeavor. Individuals should be aware of the following risks.

You retain ownership of each eligible asset that is staked, and such assets remain your property while staked.

We will compensate you for any slashing penalty or nonpayment of staking rewards, unless this nonpayment results from your actions, network maintenance, a bug, a hack, or in certain other rare situations. For a full list of circumstances, please refer to our Terms of Service.

You retain ownership of each eligible asset that is staked, and such assets remain your property while Staked. However, you may be affected by bonding periods if you want to unstake assets you have staked using our bonded staking option.

No. While similar in design on our client interface, Staking and Opt-In Rewards are separate products. Staking utilizes assets “onchain” in Proof-of-Stake protocols such as Tezos. Opt-In Rewards utilizes assets as further described in our Terms of Service. Both Staking and Opt-In Rewards have 3 programs available: Bonded, Flexible and Auto Earn.