The only way to stake on Gnosis network is to run your own validator, hence you are not choosing a validator but rather setting up one of your own.

The Staking Rewards on GNO are generated by:

Block Rewards – Gnosis’ rewards curve was proposed in a Nov 2021 in a Gnosis Forum. The higher the total amount of GNO staked, the higher the inflation per annum.

GNO staked % of circ. GNO validating reward for validators Total GNO rewards Overall inflation p.a. 4096 0.23% 83.85% 3434.496 0.19% 50000 2.78% 23.01% 11505 0.64% 100000 5.56% 16.65% 16650 0.93% 200000 11.11% 11.89% 23780 1.32% 400000 22.22% 8.45% 33800 1.88% 800000 44.44% 5.99% 47920 2.66% 1800000 100.00% 4.00% 72000 4.00% Please note that the total annual rewards are divided by all active stakers; hence, as the amount of staked tokens goes up, the reward rate goes down. 

You are welcome to play around with our Staking Calculator to get a better feel of how these metrics can influence your rewards.

Whilst we want to ensure staking is as safe and transparent as possible, there are still things to consider regarding whether a specific staking option is right for you.

Slashing risk: Your GNO can be partially slashed if the validator misbehaves. 1/32 of a validator’s staked GNO is immediately burned, and the validator enters a removal process from the chain. This penalty is incurred for double signing, double voting by attesting to two candidates for the same block, and attesting to a block that “surrounds” another one (i.e. changing history)

Unbonding risk: There is currently no concrete date for withdrawals of staked GNO. Crypto markets are highly volatile, and investors need to be aware that they cannot sell their tokens immediately once they have staked them. Please note that validator deposits are a non-reversible, one-way transaction. Gnosis will likely follow a similar timeline to Ethereum in enabling withdrawals on a post-merge hard-fork. Please take note of this lockup before you decide to stake. Consider keeping funds liquid if you do not intend to hold GNO long-term. 

Protocol security risks: There is an inherent risk that the protocol could contain unknown bugs. This not only applies to staking but your GNO investment in general.

Please note that this is not an exhaustive list of all the risks related to staking.

GNO is is the native token of the Gnosis network that is used to carry out the key functions of the platform as detailed below:

Token Utilities

Staking: Users can lock GNO up to contribute to the security of the Gnosis Network.

Gas: xDai tokens are transactional tokens on Gnosis and also used to pay for execution of smart contracts and gas fees. These fees are currently sent to the validator who seals the block in which the transactions take place (transaction fees are not split among pool participants, they are only received by the validator).

Governance: GNO is used to vote on governance proposals on the network. Users wishing to participate in guiding the products and development of the Gnosis ecosystem must first purchase and hold GNO tokens. A minimum of 1 GNO token is required to join. However, the process involves a weighted system whereby the more GNO tokens a user holds, the greater their voting power will be.

Gnosis, as a closely-related fork of Ethereum, underwent a “Merge” hardfork similar to that of Ethereum. The hardfork replaced Gnosis’ former “proof-of-authority” consensus with the “proof-of-stake” system as it merged with the Gnosis Beacon Chain. The Gnosis Merge replaced the Proof-of-Authority (PoA) consensus, which was secured by 20 validators, to a far more resilient 100,000 validators supporting the new PoS network. With nodes run by community members and teams around the world, the Gnosis Merge makes Gnosis the second most decentralized PoS network behind Ethereum.

The max supply of GNO was initially capped at 10,000,000 to be fully vested in April 2021. However, on 4th May 2022, the Proposal to reduce Gnosis total supply was passed to cap supply at 3 million GNO.

Initial Distribution Breakdown 

• 95.80% is allocated to Gnosis Vault, Founders & Project
• 4.20% is allocated to ICO Investors

The use of these proceeds are:

• 5% is allocated to marketing
• 15% is allocated to operations 
• 20% is allocated to legal
• 60% is allocated to core development

Funding Rounds

• $12.5M was raised in a Token Sale in April 2017 where the team raised 250,000 ETH. The sale was conducted as a Dutch auction which had a limit of $12.5 million raised or nine million GNO sold, whichever came first. The $12.5 million cap was reached selling 418,777 GNO.

To earn a yield on your GNO, you can either lend them out to custodial providers or via a Defi lending protocol, liquid stake your GNO for sGNO, stake with ANKR, or run your own validators.

There are three main options to stake your GNO:

1. Run a Node:

Running a node involves significant technical complexity. Gnosis provides both beginner-friendly “1-click” tools that abstract the complexity in favor of defaults, and a full advanced guide for technical users:

Step-by-Step Guides:

• Run a Node
• Stereum 

One-Click Tools:

• dApp Node
• Nethermind Sedge

2. Liquid Stake:

Liquid staking providers allow anyone to stake without running the infrastructure themselves. It also gives stakers an opportunity to use their tokenized staked resources (sGNO & rGNO) for yield farming, borrowing or compounding while still protecting the protocol.

View our step-by-step tutorial on How to Liquid Stake GNO

3. ANKR Delegation Staking

ANKR has announced that they are teaming up with Gnosis to launch a new staking product that is completely trustless and non-custodial. Gnosis staking allows you to stake your mGNO, making more profit from your assets. Thanks to the implemented Node Providers technology, you’ll be able to choose between Ankr-owned node providers and various Node Providers supporting Ankr Network 2.0.

View our step-by-step tutorial on Stake GNO with ANKR