What is COSMOS Delegators?

ATOM delegators, who will stake their tokens with one or more Validators. In exchange for picking Validators, delegators have the ability to earn a percentage of network transaction fees and also receive additional ATOMs from continuous inflation called block provisions. However, staking with a Validator carries the risk of losing ATOMs via slashing from things like a Validator going offline, double signing transactions, or failing to vote on governance proposals.

Why become a delegator?

If an ATOM token holder chooses not delegate to a Validator, they will not receive a percentage of network transaction fees nor block provisions, and their percentage of total ATOM will decrease over time from inflation. Because ATOM holders are heavily incentivized to bond their staking tokens, it would make it far more difficult for the attack scenario described above to occur on the COSMOS Network. If anyone tries to buy the amount of ATOMs required to get 33% of the stake on the open market, the market for ATOMs will become progressively more illiquid, causing the price of each successive ATOM to become more expensive, greatly increasing the cost required to make an attack feasible.

Risks about delegator

When evaluating Validators to stake with, you can think about three distinct buckets of questions: missed earnings, slashings, and commission rate.

  • With missed earnings, you don’t lose any money but you don’t make as much as you could.
  • With slashings, you lose money.
  • With commission rate, you receive more or less from the Validator.

How long does it take to get back the delegated ATOM from the validator?

21 days. While delegators can change validators automatically, there is a 21 day un-bonding process for staked ATOMs to prevent long range attacks during which delegator ATOMs do not earn rewards and cannot be transferred, exchanged or spent. ATOMs can however be slashed during the un-bonding period. Besides, you can change a validator immediately during the un-bonding periods.