Guide · checked against its sources on 2026-10-24
You stake NAM by bonding it to one or more validators, in Namadillo or from the command line. The stake starts to count after a short delay, earns rewards each epoch that you claim with a transaction, and takes a set number of epochs to unlock when you unstake.[1][2][3]
Staking also gives you a vote in governance, and it carries a risk: if your validator breaks the protocol, part of your stake can be slashed.[4][2]
You need NAM in an account and some left over for fees: Namada's docs say a delegator needs an account with a positive NAM balance, and namada.net advises leaving some free balance to pay transaction fees.[2][3]
Namadillo's Staking panel does the rest: stake, unstake, redelegate and claim rewards, signed with Namada Keychain, which also supports a Ledger.[1]
How much NAM is staked now, the staking rate and the unstaking wait
Check each validator's commission, the share of block rewards it keeps as its fee, before you stake; namada.net advises researching validators and their commission rates first.[2][3]
Size matters too: Namada's slashing makes it increasingly risky to stake with a validator that holds a lot of stake, and its docs suggest choosing validators with less stake, which also spreads stake across the network.[2]
Namadillo can stake with several validators in a single action.[1]
A new bond becomes active after the pipeline length, a number of epochs set by the chain, which Namada's docs currently give as two; namada.net says an epoch lasts about six hours, depending on block times, and that rewards start accruing after that delay.[2][1][3]
Staking rewards are computed and minted once per epoch, at the very beginning of the new epoch.[2]
Staking rewards wait for you to claim them with a transaction, in Namadillo's Staking panel or from the command line; claimed rewards go to your transparent balance, where they can be used at once.[3][2][1]
The rewards are newly minted NAM shared among validators and their delegators in proportion to their stake, minus each validator's commission, at a rate that follows a controller whose settings governance can change.[5][6][7]
Unstaking, which Namada calls unbonding, takes your NAM off a validator, but it cannot be withdrawn straight away: it becomes withdrawable once the pipeline length, the unbonding length and the cubic slashing window have passed, three settings you can query from the chain.[2][6]
The wait is a whole number of epochs set by the chain; this site's staking page shows it in days, worked out from the chain's own settings and the measured epoch length.[2]
NAM that is unbonding can still be slashed for a fault committed while it was staked: the unbonding length exists so that stake used to misbehave cannot be withdrawn before it is punished.[8][9]
When the wait is over, a withdraw transaction moves all fully unbonded NAM back to your account.[2]
The unstaking wait now, from the chain's settings · Staked NAM being unlocked, and when
Yes: a redelegation moves bonded NAM from one validator to another without unbonding, withdrawing and bonding again, and the new bond counts for the new validator after the pipeline length.[2][1][3]
You cannot unbond or redelegate from a jailed validator that is waiting to be slashed; otherwise both are allowed, and bonding to a jailed validator is always allowed.[2]
A validator that breaks the protocol, for example by double signing a block or proposing an invalid block, is jailed and slashed, and its delegators lose part of the stake they had with it.[10][2][3]
Namada's slashing is cubic: the amount slashed grows with the cube of the stake involved in the misbehaviour, so that a validator holding a third or more of the voting power would lose all of its stake.[10]
A validator can also be jailed without being slashed, for too much downtime; a jailed validator stays out of the validator set until it unjails itself.[11]
It is a number of epochs set by the chain: the pipeline length, the unbonding length and the cubic slashing window together. This site's staking page shows the wait in days, read from those settings.[2][6]
Not as Namada's docs describe them: rewards wait to be claimed with a transaction and then land in your transparent balance, so staking them is a separate step. Namada's specs page on reward distribution still describes rewards as bonded automatically, but the docs and namada.net say they must be claimed.[2][3][5]
Namada's docs name no minimum amount: they say you need an account with a positive NAM balance, and namada.net advises keeping some NAM unstaked to pay fees.[2][3]
Yes. Accounts with active bonds vote on governance proposals with power in proportion to their stake. By default your validator votes for you, and if you vote yourself, your vote overrides it.[4][12][13]
No. Staked NAM is bonded: it cannot be transferred or spent until you unbond it and withdraw it after the wait, though you can redelegate it to another validator.[3][6][2]
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