Maximize Your Earnings on Joystream: A Step-by-Step Staking Tutorial
Joystream is a blockchain-based content sharing platform built on the Substrate framework with a rich royalties and monetization options. Unlike traditional video streaming platforms, Joystream operates as a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) where users have a say in its governance.
The consumer-facing dApp, Gleev, allows creators to upload videos to their channel, gain subscribers, sell videos as NFTs, or tokenize the entire channel, providing a means for users to participate and share the revenue.
In a similar fashion to Polkadot, Joystream also allows users to stake its native token JOY. So that means users are eligible for staking rewards in exchange for a nomination to validators.
Validators are responsible for verifying the validity of new blocks, proposing new blocks, and participating in the consensus process to add blocks to the chain — in other words, they provide security to the entire Joystream blockchain. They serve a similar purpose to miners in the Bitcoin blockchain.
Polkadotters also has a Joystream validator with this address
j4TBhu4RLgAG9n3KnAdznMenPnF3Lb1qWe24eDwSNjFVNFY2G
JOY step-by-step staking tutorial
Let’s dive into the staking tutorial. Before we get started, you should have installed the Polkadot browser extension (or Talisman which is certainly more user friendly option), which will connect your wallet with the Polkadot JS web app.
1. Connect your wallet with Joystream on Polkadot JS
Go to the Polkadot JS web app and connect your wallet. Then click on the Polkadot logo in the top-left corner.
PS. You can use this direct link to go straight to the Joystream network and skip step no. 2, but to be complete, we present it here as well.
2. Select Joystream network
Select Joystream network under LIVE NETWORKS.
3. Go to the staking section
In the scrolling menu on the top of the app, go to Network and pick Staking for moving into the staking section, where all the magic happens.
4. Pick Accounts and Nominator
Now go to Accounts and click on the Nominator to go forward to setting up a nominator.
4. Choose your staking account(s)
In the setup nominator 1/2 section, just fill the tab with the following. For less experienced users, the stash and controller accounts as well as the payment destination could remain in one address.
JOY tokens are then bonded for a period of 28 days — this means that if you cancel your nomination, you will have to wait for 28 days for your tokens to be liquid again.
Value bonded — as you can see below, the actual minimum for staking JOY is 1,6666 kJOY, which is approx 1667 JOY tokens.
Important message: Don’t bond all your JOY tokens, always keep a few (at least 1 JOY) for transaction fees!
For more experienced users:
Stash account — can hold a large number of tokens (usually for staking) and ideally be completely offline in a form of the cold wallet.
Controller account — this one is kept in a hot wallet and have only limited privileges to control the stash account — like bonding more JOY or cancelling the delegation (but it can’t transfer funds from stash to other accounts). It should contain only a small number of JOY tokens to pay fees.
Payment destination — an address, where the rewards will be credited. The most favorable option could be to use the Stash account, so your profits will be increased due to the compound interest.
5. Choose a validator
In the setup nominator 2/2 section, you can choose up to 16 validators (and it’s definitely recommend to nominate more than one!). Then click Bond & Nominate to finish bonding your JOY tokens.
Finally, just click Sign and Submit to authorize the transaction. You will then just need to fill in the password and Sign the transaction and that's it.
PS. Tips on how to choose the proper validator are mentioned in the next section.
6. You are now staking your JOY tokens!
Congratulations, you have just become a nominator in the Joystream network. That also means, you successfully bonded your JOY tokens.
How to pick a validator
A nominator can nominate up to 16 validators, however, he cannot choose how his stake is going to be distributed among them. This is done by the Phragmén algorithm, but we won’t dig that deep into that.
There are several criteria you should pay attention to when selecting a validator. We will start with the basic ones which everyone should take into account and then we’ll talk about others that are a bit more advanced.
First, let’s look at the picture with an overview of the staking screen in a Polkadot JS wallet in the Network / Targets section. We will analyze the individual fields here and talk about how their values affect your nomination.
1. Commission
The Commission is a fee for validator operational costs, expressed as a percentage taken from total staking rewards. Lower commission is better for your staking profitability, but it depends on how much risk you’re willing to take. Validators with a high rating, verified identity, and enough stake may offer stable rewards with little risk of slashing, but they may charge higher fees.
Tip: 1%-5% commission fee is fair enough and profitable enough for the nominator, but you might to avoid validators with +10%.
2. Oversubscribed validators
The reward is paid only to the first 256 nominators per validator — a validator supported by more nominators is called oversubscribed. Therefore, select only those who do not have any of the brown icons next to their name.
3. Slashing
Slashing is a penalty for validators who misbehave or act maliciously on the network. The punishment rate depends on the severity of the misconduct. Keep in mind, the penalty is taken from the entire stake, including the portion you’ve nominated to the validator.
Tip: To protect your funds, it’s advisable to avoid validators that have been previously slashed, indicated by a brown “slashing sign”.
4. Return
Return measures the current APR generated by the validator — in other words, it’s saying what your early profit will be if you stick with this validator. However, you have to keep in mind that this number can change quickly (based on size of the stake on validator or if the commission changes) so you shouldn’t choose your validators solely based on this criteria.
Identity
The notion of identity for validators is not yet supported by Joystream but it’s coming soon! This should be a very important criterion for any nominator because you really want to put your trust in someone you know, who has a proven record of being a good node operator and who is there to support Joystream in the long term!
Payouts
Payout of the staking rewards has to be initiated manually in the Joystream network — however, this should be done by every well-behaved validator so don’t hesitate to move your stake over to some other validator if you have to initiate the payout manually all the time.
Also, we have started to work on a feature that will allow for an automated reward payment so this won’t be a problem in the future.
Final word
Joystream is a decentralized video platform governed by DAO that prioritizes content creators, videomakers, creatives, and consumers. Its key advantages include fairer reward distribution, censorship resistance, and protection from global entity interference.
With the help of our staking tutorial, you can now maximize your profits with JOY tokens while supporting validators that maintain the security of the Joystream blockchain.
If you like this step-by-step JOY staking tutorial, pick Polkadotters as your validator under this address
j4TBhu4RLgAG9n3KnAdznMenPnF3Lb1qWe24eDwSNjFVNFY2G
For more detailed information about Joystream, please read our previous comprehensive article 👇👇👇
