To make some passive income there is a great opportunity now that is by staking the crypto's.
Here we are going to talk about Solana aka their native token SOL. Unlike ethereum which requires around 32 ETH to stake or become a validator, you can stake your SOL as low as 0.05 SOL in the phantom wallet.
What is SOLANA?
Solana is an open-source blockchain platform that has the potential to solve the biggest challenges of blockchains today. This blockchain is lightning fast, scales to millions of transactions per second, and has built-in privacy. Solana will bring value to users around the world through empowering applications that can operate at high speed, at low cost, and with confidential data.
Solana is currently one of the fastest programmable blockchains in the world. It can process around 710,000 transactions per second (TPS). The developers say the transaction speed can reach much better as the network grows. This is far better than Ethereum, which currently processes between 15 to 45 TPS.
Why SOL is different than others?
The Solana blockchain uses a Proof-of-History mechanism instead of PoW/PoS to achieve high throughput and low latency. It does this by creating a hash chain, where each block has a parent block and two children blocks. Each new block depends on all the previous blocks in the chain and each miner's station is responsible for updating and maintaining its own part of the
Phantom Wallet.
Introduction: Phantom wallet is an anonymous and decentralized crypto wallet that can be downloaded as an extension on your browser.
Problem Statement: It has become a common practice today for most companies to collect users’ data (email, location, phone number, etc.) and sell them to third parties for advertising purposes without the users’ knowledge or consent. Phantom doesn't require any verification.
Hence, the Phantom wallet gives more power to our hands.
How to stake in Phantom Wallet?
Install Phantom Wallet:
Open your browser Eg: Crome and go to a web store or extension store and search phantom wallet and add an extension, or you can visit this link https://phantom.app/download follow the steps and install the wallet extension
Create Wallet:
After installation of the extension if you are a new user click on create a new wallet. Now create a new password for the wallet and get the secret phrase and store it in a safe place
I recommend to store in on cloud like google drive but its not that simple. Store in a way that no one can find. Like folder in folder and in symbolic language only you can understand. And keep your phrase in two places for backup.
Buy SOL and Transfer:
If you have SOL, cool just transfer it to the wallet. Click on add SOL token and open it, then click on deposit - then QR code
and wallet address will appear. Transfer using that address from an exchange. If you don't have SOL buy from exchanges like CoinBase, Kucoin, Binance, etc. Then transfer SOL with the same above process. You can also swap SOL for other tokens.
### Staking and Selecting Validator:
You may see your SOL deposited below that there will be a star symbol saying "Start Earning SOL" click on that and select the validator which is giving the best returns with the minimum commission fees.
Choose the amount to stake:
After choosing your required validator click on it and enter the amount you want to stake. The minimum would be 0.05 SOL and don't stake max as some amount is required to do transactions so, keep some amount in the wallet. Click on Stake and Voila! you have staked SOL.
Activation and Earning Rewards:
After clicking on stake. Your stake will be activating but it will take time 2-3 days to activate. According to their website, you can check your epoch time on Solana Beach. After activation, It should show active and you will start receiving rewards.
How to Unstake SOL:
Go to Phantom wallet - Select SOL token - Click on your stake - Select Stake and Click on Unstake. Done
Your Stake will be deactivated in a couple of days and should show inactive and you will be able to withdraw your stake.
Why we should consider Phantom Wallet.
They do not take any information from us for verification. So our data is safe and private
We can easily swap different tokens with SOL or any other and can set slippage percentage
We can stake SOL
We can store NFTs and Collectibles
We can connect our hardware wallet to it.
I hope you got basic knowledge about how to stake SOL in phantom wallet.
Thank You
CyberCrypto