Staking is called the process where you delegate your ADA to a certain pool, for example CASCH. It is somewhat comparable to voting for a political representative. The more stake a pool has the higher the probability that it can produce a block on the blockchain. The pool gets a reward for this. The rewards less a variable and fix fee are distributed among its stakers.

To be able to stake you need the have full control over your funds which means you need to have it on a wallet. If you keep it on an exchange the funds are not really yours – not your keys not your funds.

There are basically 3 different common wallets to choose from:

• Daedalus is a full node, which means that you download the entire blockchain. This can take several hours. On the other hand, Daedalus is usually the wallet with the latest functionality as it is being directly developed by IOHK. IOHK is the company with the biggest positive impact on cardano.
• Yoroi is a light wallet. It is being developed by EMURGO. Yoroi is a browser extension for google chrome, firefox, microsoft edge and iOS.
• adalite is a online wallet. You can interact with the blockchain directly online.

We will show you in the next steps how to transfer your funds from an exchange on your own wallet and how to stake.

The pool itself has no control over your funds. You can choose a different pool by any point in time – you are free to choose. Therefore, we have no control over your funds. If you loose your seed words – a couple of words – you will loose your funds. So be very careful with your seed words as they are the only way to get access to your funds.