14. Staking & Delegation
Staking in Kortana aligns validator economic incentives directly with network security and consensus integrity. Validators bond native $DNR tokens to earn block proposal privileges, while token holders can delegate their stake to support honest validators.
14.1 Validator Registration & Self-Stake
To register as a consensus validator, an operator must broadcast a native Stake transaction (Type 0x30) containing at least the minimum self-stake threshold (e.g., 100,000 DNR) and register their public BLS12-381 consensus key. The consensus engine verifies the signature, credits the bonded stake to the validator record in the validators column family, and includes the validator in the active set at the next epoch transition.
Validators must maintain their bonded self-stake continuously. If a validator's self-stake drops below the required minimum due to partial unstaking or slashing penalties, the node is immediately deactivated from the leader rotation schedule.
14.2 Delegated Staking
Token holders who do not operate validating server infrastructure can participate in network security by delegating their DNR to active validators using the DelegateStake transaction (Type 0x32). Delegating increases the chosen validator's voting weight in KSC BFT consensus.
In return, delegators automatically receive a pro-rata share of block rewards and priority transaction tips earned by the validator, minus the validator's declared operational commission fee. Staking delegation is completely non-custodial: validators never gain custody of delegated funds, and delegators retain full ownership to initiate unstaking at any time.
14.3 Unbonding Period
To prevent long-range attacks and ensure that malicious validators cannot withdraw their stake immediately before their Byzantine actions are detected, Kortana enforces a strict Unbonding Period.
When a validator or delegator submits an Unstake transaction (Type 0x31), the requested DNR tokens enter an unbonding queue. During this unbonding window (configured at 168 epochs, or approximately 7 days), the tokens earn zero staking rewards and cannot participate in consensus voting. However, the unbonding stake remains fully slashable if cryptographic evidence of equivocation committed prior to unstaking is submitted to the network.