What Is Tezos Staking and Delegating?
Staking is a process of participating in securing a blockchain network by holding funds in a wallet and participating in creating new blocks. Staking is a reward mechanism available in Proof-of-Stake coins such as Tezos. Users who participate in the process take turns in validating new blocks and receive rewards proportional to their number of staked coins.
In Tezos, staking is called baking, and the subject that does the staking is called a baker. To become a baker, you need to set up your own Tezos node, keep it up-to-date, and maintain it. Many users don’t have the skills or time to do this properly.
That is why Tezos makes it possible to delegate your baking rights to another baker who stakes the coins for you and awards you with a percentage of the baking rewards. Tezos holders who delegate their baking rights are called delegators.
Coin delegation doesn’t give a baker custody of your tezzies, which always stay in your wallet and remain under your control. You only give up your baking rights to the other party. To become a delegator, the user needs to select a fitting wallet and choose the baker he/she wants to delegate to.
Tezbox is such a wallet. Unfortunately, the delegation system isn’t problem-free, and various issues can surface. Today’s tutorial will cover the three most common problems and offer support and guidance on how to solve them.
Tezbox Delegation Issues
1. I Can’t Send Tezos From A ‘kt1’ To A ‘tz1’ Address.
Anyone who was participating in Tezos delegation before the Babylon upgrade (before October 2019), delegated their coins through their kt1 contract address. After the mechanism upgrade, delegation is now performed from tz1 addresses. When users try to move their funds back from their kt1 to their tz1 addresses, the transactions fail.
step1: go to https://wallet.tezbox.com
and import your Tezos account then replace rpc.
The reason it fails is that empty addresses are no longer visible by nodes. They need to store a minimum balance to be usable. Most users emptied their tz1 addresses entirely and delegated all their coins to a baker.
To regain control of your tz1 address, you need to deposit some Tezos coins to it. You can’t do it from your kt1 contract address, so do it from an exchange or have a friend/acquaintance send a bit your way. We recommend depositing 2 XTZ coins to your tz1 address.
When the deposit gets confirmed, your address should be revealed and visible to nodes again. You might need to perform a transaction from your tz1 to your kt1 address to reactivate it. If that is the case, send just 1 XTZ to your contract address and keep the other coin on your tz1 address to respect the minimum balance threshold.
When the address gets reconnected to the nodes, you can deposit coins from your kt1 address and re-delegate your XTZ’s to a baker.
2. I Can’t See My kt1 Address in My Tezbox Account Anymore.
If you login to your Tezbox wallet, you might notice that your kt1 account is no longer visible. Tezbox hides them by default since the Babylon upgrade because delegation is now performed with tz1 addresses. However, you can make your kt1 address visible again from within the wallet.
Ensure that you are using the web version of Tezbox and not the desktop or mobile app. After you log in to the online wallet, click on Add Account on the main menu, go to Contracts, and then on create or restore from memory. Import your kt1 address, and it will become visible again.
3. I can’t create a kt1 address in Tezbox.
step1: go to https://wallet.tezbox.com
and click create K address
Each new created Tezbox account incurs a fee of 0.26 XTZ. This fee needs to be paid after clicking on Add account and confirming your selection by clicking on the Continue button. If your main account has enough balance, you can create a new kt1 account. If not, top up the balance of the tz1 account before continuing.
If you have enough funds on your tz1 account and notice an “Unregistered_delegate” error message, switch from the software Tezbox wallet (desktop, mobile) to the online client. The software versions are no longer updated or maintained.
Create your kt1 address through the web wallet to get rid of the error.
