Stake & Unstake

Lido on Kusama is a liquid staking solution for KSM backed by industry-leading staking providers.

Lido lets users earn KSM staking rewards without needing to maintain infrastructure and enables them to trade staked positions, as well as participate in on-chain decentralized finance with their staked assets.

Lido on Kusama gives you:

• Liquidity through tokenization — no activation delays and the ability to sell your staked tokens or use them as collateral in decentralized finance;
• One-click staking — no complicated steps;
• Decentralized security — assets spread across the industry’s leading validators chosen by the Lido DAO.

KSM is Kusama's native token. KSM is not ERC20 token and cannot be used by Moonriver parachain users. To get around that, xcKSM comes into play. xcKSM is ERC20 compatible token on the Moonriver network, which can be received by users in exchange for KSM. A KSM holder locks their KSM on Kusama and gets the same amount of xcKSM on their Moonriver account using the Transfer tab.

The amount of stKSM that you will receive is calculated based on the ownership share. The reason you get slightly less stKSM than xcKSM is due to rounding when dividing:

*_shares_amount = amount_of_xcKSM getTotalShares()

            / getTotalPooledKSM();_**

*_stKSM_amount = shares_amount getTotalPooledKSM()

            / getTotalShares();_**

Where:

• amount_of_xcKSM is a given xcKSM you want to exchange
• getTotalShares() is a call to Lido contract
• getTotalPooledKSM is a call to Lido contract

You can use bridges or exchanges to deposit ERC20 and withdraw native KSM tokens.

An xcKSM token holder connects their wallet and deposits their tokens into the Lido program. They immediately receive stKSM tokens that represent a share of the total pool, and the Lido program delegates KSM to Lido-controlled validators on the Kusama network. When these delegations accrue rewards on the allotted stake, the total KSM under management grows and this increases the value of stKSM tokens.

Liquid staking protocols allow users to earn staking rewards without locking assets or maintaining staking infrastructure. Users can deposit tokens and receive tradable liquid tokens in return. Liquid staking combines the benefits of staking (earning rewards) and brings liquidity, as well as additional possibilities to increase your assets or hedge your positions by participating in DeFi.

Furthermore, the Lido program stakes these tokens with DAO-elected staking providers. As users' funds are controlled by the program, staking providers never have direct access to the users' assets. Additionally, by involving different staking providers, Lido diversifies risks across multiple validators.

stKSM is a liquid token that represents your share of the total xcKSM pool deposited with Lido. As soon as you delegate to the pool, you receive the newly minted stKSM. Over time, as your KSM delegation accrues rewards, the amount of your stKSM increases. Interestingly, there is no waiting time for receiving stKSM tokens. When a user delegates their KSM tokens, they do not need to perform or wait for the completion of any delegation or activation steps, as is the norm in traditional staking. The user can instantly exchange stKSM for xcKSM at any time in the open market.

LDO is a token granting governance rights in the Lido DAO. The Lido DAO decides on the key parameters (e.g., fees) and executes protocol upgrades to ensure efficiency and stability. By holding the LDO token, one is granted voting rights within the Lido DAO. The more LDO a user holds, the greater decision-making power they have when voting.

As of now, we support only Metamask. We are working on the adoption of other commonly used wallets.

In traditional Kusama staking a user has to perform several steps manually:

• Create a Stash Account and bond KSM to it;
• Nominate validators;
• Monitor validator's yield to maximize profit.

Staking on Kusama requires expert knowledge, the main being the fact that slashing can get very severe if the staking is managed improperly.

Staking KSM through Lido will come with a variety of benefits:

• One-step process — just deposit into the pool with a single click.
• The pool takes care of validator diversification.
• Immediate appreciation — you start earning from the pool from the moment of deposit.

Withdrawals of xcKSM from the Lido program can be done through the Unstake tab. However, unstaking directly from the Lido program will incur the Kusama stake unbonding period, which is roughly 7-8 days. Immediate withdrawal options will be available in the open market through liquidity pools on AMM protocols and other DEXes where one will be able to immediately exchange stKSM for xcKSM. If you wish to instantly receive xcKSM, we recommend trading stKSM directly on an exchange.

xcKSM can be instantly exchanged for KSM through the Transfer tab.

MOVR is Moonriver’s native token. As on Ethereum, the Moonriver network charges some fee to execute a transaction. When you perform Stake, Unstake, Claim, or Transfer, you have to pay a transactional cost, so you should hold MOVR on your Moonriver balance to cover it.

These fees are relatively small and substantially lower than 0.001 MOVR.

Learn more on Moonbeam official site

Your current stKSM balance also indicates the number of KSM it is worth. This means that if you were to redeem all of your stKSM tokens today, you would receive the indicated number of KSM tokens. If you subtract this KSM amount from the amount of KSM invested in the Lido program, you get your lifetime earnings. You can also see the annualized APR for staking with Lido on the Moonriver network.

• Downtime risk:

  Kusama validators can go offline, in which case they do not earn staking rewards. To minimize this risk, Lido stakes across multiple professional and reputable node operators with heterogeneous setups. This will also serve to mitigate potential slashing risks.

• stKSM price risk:

  As mentioned above, withdrawals from the Lido program take some time to deactivate. Liquidity pools in the open market will be available for instantly redeeming stKSM for KSM. On such pools, users risk an exchange price of stKSM, which is lower than the inherent value due to withdrawal restrictions on Lido, making arbitrage and risk-free market-making impossible. The Lido DAO is driven to mitigate the above risks and eliminate them to the extent possible. Despite this, they may still exist, and hence it is our duty to communicate them.

Lido applies a 10% fee on a user's staking rewards. This fee is split between node operators, the DAO treasury, and Lido on Kusama developers. This fee cut is applied to incentivize Lido maintainers.

In the Kusama network unbonding period usually takes 7-8 days.

When unbonding period is over, you can claim your xcKSM tokens, that your request for redeem, simply by clicking on the "Claim" button on the "Unstake" page.