Polkadot Nomination Strategy Guide

Staking4All
3 min readJun 18, 2020

So polkadot is entering into nPOS this morning, with first set of elected validators at around 13:30 (Zug time). That means all DOT holders can nominate validators they want to run the network. Make a little cash back by staking and increase your DOT holdings

So first thing you going to ask is who you should nominate?

So you might say lets nominate by

  • Profitability — so you may go look who shares the most rewards and nominate them, get best bang for your buck. But is that good for the long term longevity of the network? Agree it is definitely a factor.
  • Node Setup — so you may ask who is best running the network, got a good network setup, etc. This is a good option and also gives you less risk of slashing but providing a more secure network
  • Support the underdogs — you might choose to support the smaller guys to achieve higher decentralization, that is also great especially if the small validator has taken the time to setup a solid node. Some of these underdogs might even be in the waiting list

But to be honest you can have a bit of all three of the above when the polkadot nPOS starts today and help grow the ecosystem of validators. Some good profitability, with some solid nodes and help support the underdogs in the waiting list.

You may ask how? Well it is pretty simple, you as a DOT holder will have 16 nominations.

With the 16 nominations you can

  • Nominate 10–12 active validators that meet your requirements of profitability and node setup
  • Nominate 4–6 of the underdogs in the waiting list

Now you might be saying to yourself that you losing profitability with 4-6 nominations on the underdogs. Well…no you won’t because each era your stake will go to one of the 10–12 elected validators that you nominated. Your stake will only support one of the elected validators per era. Your stake will rotate and support one of those in each era. Elected validator means the validators that have enough DOT staked behind them to be in the top x validators…..we will start with 20 validators and should expand to more. You will always note that per era you will have one active nomination and the rest waiting. Will literally show as below.

So literally no skin off your back or loss in profitability.

However the 4–6 nominations on the underdogs will help them move up the ranks and hopefully get enough to be elected in later eras. So eventually some of the underdogs will move into your list of 10–12 active validators. Will make the network more decentralized and fundamentally preserve your investment with a stable network,

At Staking4All we are one of the validators that will probably not be part of the first 20 validators. But with your help and by sparing 1 of your nominations for our validator we could move up the list and be elected in the next round of expanded validators.

Look forward to your support on our validator Staking4all with the address 14cxMDpBNLsNEXWyCzked3zghzaYWXwoqGT4h12GqQXdVhmn

Thanks ahead of time. You can find us trolling Polkadot Telegram and Riote, or reach out to us over mail staking4all@gmail.com.

Thanks.

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