Stacks

FAQ's

How to Stack STX?

You don’t have to run a node or validate transactions to stack — all you need to do is lock your STX in your wallet temporarily. To participate, you need to meet the minimum amount of STX for a full reward slot or pool together with others.

Check out our Step-by-Step Guide on How to Stake STX.

How much can I earn Stacking STX?

As of May 2021 around 60 BTC are being rewarded per cycle, this is split proportionally throughout the engaged participants.

To estimate your staking rewards visit the Stacks Advanced Calculator.

Staking STX follows the PoX Parameters:
A block reward is given to the Bitcoin miners of 1000 STX/block for first 4 yrs; 500 STX/block for following 4 yrs; 250 for the 4 yrs after that; and then 125 STX/block in perpetuity after that. This inflationary STX payment is given to the Bitcoin miners to incentivize them to participate in the PoX consensus mechanism. The Bitcoin miners dispense BTC rewards to the STX participants.

Block time: Stacks blockchain produces blocks at the same rate as Bitcoin. Bitcoin blocks are produced roughly once every 10 minutes, so that will be the rate for Stacks 2.0 mainnet. However, microblocks can give faster initial confirmation.

Block reward maturity window: 100 blocks, meaning if a miner wins a block, they will earn the coinbase reward for that block after 100 blocks have elapsed.

Stacking parameters: 2 reward addresses per block; reward cycle 2000 blocks (~2 weeks) for a total of 4000 reward slots.

Stacking threshold: the minimum number of STX needed is dynamic based on participation. This threshold is 0.025% of the participating amount of STX when participation is between 25% and 100% and when participation is below 25%, the threshold level is always 0.00625% of the liquid supply of STX.

What's the minimum to Stack STX Independently?

To determine the minimum amount of STX required to Stack Independently please consider the following:

If less than 25% of the liquid supply of STX are participating in Stacking, then the minimum amount required per reward slot is 1 / 16,000th of the total liquid amount of STX.

If more than 25% of the liquid supply of STX are participating in Stacking, the minimum amount required for a reward slot is 1 / 4,000th of the amount of STX participating in Stacking.

After making these calculations, the minimum threshold is rounded up to the nearest interval of 10,000.

Any risks to Stacking STX?

The biggest risk to staking STX is the lockup period which is determined based on the cycle time. This is a great opportunity to capture a yield in BTC using a PoX mechanism.

Please consider rewards are paid in BTC, thus fluctuating BTC and STX price will affect the reward rate.