How to select a Moonbeam Collator
Selecting a collator can be a daunting task for people who are new to the world of staking. However, once you understand the basics of how staking on Moonbeam works, you will be ready to embark into the world of staking.
Understanding the basic
Your staking rewards are based on the following factors, which collectively determine the annual percentage yield (APY) that you will receive on your delegation.
- Self-Bonded: means how many GLMR tokens this collator has put in themselves (you ideally want to see a relatively high number here as it shows commitment from the collator)
- Effective amount bonded: is the amount of GLMR that is currently in this pool (lower is better)
- Delegations: is the number of unique accounts that have delegated to this collator
- Min bond: is the minimum amount of GLMR you need to delegate to the pool and earn staking rewards
- Blocks per round: tells you the performance of the collator in the last round. Make sure this is not zero for the collator you choose to delegate to
Selecting a specific collator
Navigate to stakeglmr.com. This website will provide the necessary information you need to decide which collator to delegate to
You want to choose a collator that:
- Has the lowest counted backing
- Produces the highest blocks per round (last 28 rounds)
Once you have navigated to stakeglmr.com, click on the ‘counted backing’ twice to sort the counted backing from smallest to largest.
Next, click ‘28’ in the ‘blocks per round’ column. This shows the average blocks produced over the past week and the implied APY that you will receive by staking your GLMR with this collator.
Remember, choose the collator that has the combination of the lowest counted backing and the highest average blocks being produced.
Which collator is most secure?
All collators are secure and you are not at risk of losing your delegated stake. However, it is good practice to choose a collator that has a listed identity and profile picture.
Don’t worry, your stake cannot be slashed on the Moonbeam network. The worst that can happen is you don’t receive rewards because the collator has stopped producing blocks.
Delegate your stake
Once you have decided on the collator, you can navigate to the Moonbeam staking site to delegate your stake.
Click on ‘select a collator’ and type in the name of the collator you have chosen.
Conclusion
Make it a habit to review your staking APY weekly. This is good practice as things might not always be the same depending on how whales move their coins in between collators. For an advanced staking strategy, you can read this article.
If you haven't done so already, check out our staking + analytics dashboard at stakeglmr.com