Detailed instructions How to delegate / stake on graphs network

How to stake your tokens with The Graph: The Complete Guide to become a Delegator If you are reading this guide you may be already familiar with the crypto world and with the new Web3 revolution that is going to disrupt the Internet we use today. If you want to know more about Web3, I suggest you to read this article from Nader Dabit who is a passionate and enthusiastic Web3 advocate. The Graph is a protocol that provides Indexing & Search to the major blockchains, like Ethereum, Avalanche, Solana, Near, Cosmos, and many more to come. As today 22 blockchains are already supported by The Graph. You can check the full list of supported blockchains in The Graph website here. Many of the best projects are using The Graph in production today, you may be already familiar with names like Uniswap, Audius, Decentraland, Livepeer. The best projects are using The Graph todayThe Graph is also dubbed as the Google of Blockchain, and as you can imagine, this would be a fundamental layer for the new Web3. In few words there will be no Web3 without The Graph! For this reason I got involved with this project and become a Delegator to earn a passive income. GRT is the token that powers The Graph ecosystem, you can check the token price and all other data here. Delegating your tokens is a synonym of staking. Staking is a way to put your crypto to work and earn rewards on it (approx. from 8% to 15% APY). Staking cryptocurrencies is a process that involves committing your crypto assets to support a blockchain network and confirm transactions. It’s available with cryptocurrencies that use the proof-of-stake model to process payments. In a nutshell staking is a way of earning rewards for holding certain cryptocurrencies. (“What Is Staking in Crypto? | The Motley Fool”) Staking is a way of earning rewards for holding certain cryptocurrencies What is a Delegator? Within The Graph ecosystem you can play different roles, based on your interests, skills and risks you want to take. I will not go deep into all the roles but I will focus only on the Delegator role. To become a Delegator you do not need any technical skills and you have nothing to worry. It is a safe investment with very low risk. You need to own a crypto wallet (MetaMask) and you need to purchase some GRT tokens to stake in the network. Delegators play a key role in maintaining the security and decentralization of The Graph Network.So a Delegator is a person that stake his/her GRT tokens in The Graph network and in exchange earns a passive interest (approx. from 8% to 15% APY). If you are interested in all the details, you can visit The Graph Academy that is the educational hub for The Graph ecosystem. Everything about what is a Delegator can be found in the Delegator Hub section, here. I will explain below the four steps in an easy to follow video-tutorial in how to become a Delegator. Feel free to jump to the next step if you are already familiar with some of them. Step-by-Step guide (video tutorial) Install and setup MetaMask wallet Transfer your GRT tokens to MetaMask Choose an Indexer to delegate your GRT tokens Delegate your GRT tokens via The Graph Explorer Now let’s go into details for each step. 1. Install and setup MetaMask wallet You need to have MetaMask wallet to delegate your tokens. MetaMask is a crypto wallet used by more than 21M of people as today. You can install it as a browser extension and it has also a mobile versione for iOS and Android. If you do not know what is a crypto wallet, you can read my previous post here. MetaMask wallet is available as browser extensions and mobile App on iOS and Android.To install and setup MetaMask I have prepared the following video: STEP 1 of 4 — Install and setup MetaMask wallet 2. Transfer your GRT tokens to MetaMask You need to have already some GRT tokens so you can send them to your MetaMask wallet. If you do not have any tokens, you can buy GRT tokens in all major exchanges like Coinbase, Binance, Kraken, FTX and so on. The full list of exchanges where you can purchase GRT tokens is available here. To transfer your GRT tokens I have prepared the following video: STEP 2 of 4 — How to transfer your GRT tokens to MetaMask 3. Choose an Indexer to delegate your GRT tokens An Indexer is another actor in The Graph ecosystem and it is the one that gives you rewards based on the amount of token you are staking. At the time of writing there are 154 active indexers and each of them gives you a different APY (Annual Percentage Yield). You can get from 8% to even 15% APY based on the Indexer you select. You need to choose one of the active indexers and then you will start to earn rewards (in GRT tokens) every time your Indexer closes an allocation. An allocation can last maximum for 28 days but your Indexer can decide to close even before. So every time the Indexer closes an allocation you will receive a reward in GRT that will auto compound on top of your initial staking amount. In this way you will accumulate more and more tokens because your initial staking amount is increasing every time you receive some rewards. List of active Indexers from The Graph Explorer.APY is not the only factor to take into account when choosing an Indexer, I have prepared the following video to explain how to choose an Indexer: STEP 3 of 4 — Choose an Indexer to delegate your GRT tokens 4. Delegate your GRT tokens via The Graph Explorer Once you figured out to which Indexer you want to delegate your tokens, you are ready for the final step. Here the most important factor is to check the Ethereum Gas fee that you have to pay for the transaction. You can check the cost of gas here from Etherscan. Alternatively, you can also install some browser extensions to easily keep track of the current Gas price. Some of my favorite extensions are: Generally gas price is low during the weekends, especially during the night (in US) or early in the morning (in EU). During weekends, especially in the mornings (CET timezone), gas fees are cheap.To delegate your GRT tokens I have prepared the following video: STEP 4 of 4 — Delegate your GRT tokens via The Graph ExplorerIf you want to dive deep into gas cost and be able to better manage this fee, I suggest you to read this article “How to reduce the cost of gas for delegating your GRT tokens”. Congratulations! You did it! You are now part of The Graph ecosystem as a new Delegator and you will enjoy earning rewards weeks after weeks. If you will hold for five years you will end up in doubling your initial investment in GRT (e.g. if you put 1,000 GRTs, thanks to the compound interest you will end up having 2,000 GRTs). And in addition, just imagine the increasing price of the GRT token in the next five years and you will end up having a huge return of your initial investment. Keep and hold your GRT investment for at least five years to get a huge return of your investment. One last thing: How to keep track of your rewards? One last thing! Now that you started delegating your GRT tokens, the next question is how to keep track of your earnings? Easy answer, just open the brand new Graphtronauts App here: Graphtronauts App is the easiest way to keep track of your rewards as Delegator.On the top right corner, click on the Profile icon and from here you can do two things: Connect your Telegram account to receive instant notifications when your Indexer closes an allocation and distribute to you the rewards. Add your Wallet address to keep track of your rewards as Delegator (and also as Curator coming soon). Add your Wallet address to keep track of your delegations, and connect your Telegram account to receive alerts.Below you can see an example of how it looks like tracking your rewards: With Graphtronauts App you can check all the Indexers you have delegated to, and have a look at your rewards.If you want to know all the new features of our Graphtronauts App, check this article that introduces you to our new v4 App, released for the first birthday of our community.