Aptos

Time factors

	Protocol time	Human readable time
Protocol time 1	Block	1 second
Protocol time 2	Epoch	2 hours
First reward delay	1 epoch	2 hours
Reward frequency	At the beginning of every epoch	2 hours
Unbonding period	N/A	-

Lifecycle

• Each lockup period lasts for 360 epochs.

• Unstaking happens at the end of lockup periods.

Must know before staking

Minimum stake amount	✅	11 APT
Partial stake changes	✅
Partial reward withdrawal	✅
Compounding	✅
Penalty	❌
Slashing	❌

• Staking rewards are added directly to the staked balance.

Advanced topics

General

• Stakers can set up different accounts to manage a validator.

  • Owner: This account controls the funds that is staked. It can unstake funds, set commissions for an operator, and assign or change operator and voter accounts.

  • Operator: This account handles all the responsibilities of a validator: proposing and consensus voting on blocks. It also has the permissions to join or leave the validator set.

  • Voter: This account can participate in governance votes.

• Staking runs on lockup periods.

  • Each lockup period lasts 360 epochs or 30 days.

  • The lockup period is defined at the time of staking. For example, if Alice staked at epoch 100 and Bob staked at epoch 110, Alice’s first lockup period ends at epoch 460 and Bob’s first lockup period ends at epoch 470.

  • The lockup period will automatically renew at expiration. Continuing from the example above, Alice’s lockup period will renew at epoch 461 and the following lockup period will end at epoch 820.

  • Stakers can unstake at any time, but will need to wait for the current lockup period to end. For example, if Alice staked at epoch 100 and requested to unstake at epoch 120, Alice will need to wait until epoch 461 to be able to move funds.

Rewards

• Rewards come from newly issued tokens.

  • Inflation rate applied to staked tokens. The protocol has an inflation rate of 7% applied to staked tokens. These issued tokens are distributed directly to block proposers.

• Factors that impact realized rewards.

  • Validator performance. The protocol will reduce rewards for a validator by the proportion of failed block proposals.

  • Commissions.

Risk

• The protocol does not have any penalties or slashing.

• A validator receives rewards proportionally to the rate of successful block proposals. A deteriorating block proposal rate will lead to reduced realized rewards.

Validators

Total validator cap	❌
Validator requirements	✅	1,000,000 APT

• Validator stake cap. A validator can have up to 50 million APT staked. Any additional stake above this cap will not earn any additional staking rewards.

Resources

• Aptos developer documentation: https://aptos.dev/

• Aptos genesis configuration: https://mainnet.aptoslabs.com/v1/accounts/0x1/resource/0x1::staking_config::StakingConfig

• Aptos explorer: https://explorer.aptoslabs.com/

Update notes

2023-06-14: Aptos started to support delegations (announcement). Documentation has been updated to reflect this.