"Astar Dapp Staking" has been upgraded to version V3 at the beginning of this year, and many changes have been made to the rules for staking income.
At present, the first staking cycle has ended, and the "voting" sub-cycle of the second staking cycle has just begun. If you want to get the "extra reward" income, you must grasp this critical stage (expected to last until June 26, and there are less than 5 days left).
I will break down the Astar staking benefits in detail and teach you how to get a total APR (annual rate of return before compounding) of up to 32%, as well as potential airdrops from ecosystem projects.
Astar Dapp Staking Principle
Before we officially begin, let’s first explain the principle of Astar Dapp staking.
“Dapp staking” is an incentive mechanism launched by Astar for its blockchain projects. Through user choice, part of the staking income will be subsidized to Dapp developers.
For users, when staking ASTR(), they need to choose to stake (vote) one or more Dapps in the Astar ecosystem to obtain certain rewards. For users, the rate of return is the same regardless of which Dapp they choose.
For Dapp, the more stakes it receives from users, the higher the level it can reach and the higher the stake reward income it can get. Therefore, Dapp has the motivation to attract users to stake to itself (for example, through airdrops).
Astar Portal (staking interface): https://portal.astar.network/astar/dapp-staking/discover
Staking income breakdown
Source: Polkadot Insider
Under the current "Dapp Staking V3" rules, staking income = basic rewards + additional rewards + potential airdrops.
How to get it?
Don’t be impatient, we need to first understand the concept of “cycle” in Astar.
In Astar, one cycle (peirod) is about 122 days, or about four months.
Each cycle consists of two sub-cycles:
“Voting” sub-period (about 11 days)
“Build & Earn” sub-period (approximately 111 days)
Okay, back to the rewards.
Basic Reward: You can get it as long as you stake ASTR, with an APR of about 22%. The reward is calculated on a daily basis, starting from the next day. It is important to note that at the end of each cycle, all dApp stakes will be automatically unstaked, so users must stake again at the beginning of each new cycle.
Bonus Reward: It is linked to the loyalty of the staker, with an APR of about 10%. To get the bonus, you need to select the dApp in the "Vote" sub-period and maintain or increase the amount of stake on the dApp throughout the "Build & Earn" sub-period. In other words, if you cancel the stake, reduce the stake amount, or switch the staked dApp during the "Build & Earn" sub-week, your bonus on the dApp will be cleared.
Potential airdrops: In order to attract more users to vote for them, some dApps will promise to issue airdrops to stakers. This part of the reward is issued by the dApp (while the first two items are issued by Astar), and the specific qualifications and issuance rules are determined by the dApp team itself.
It can be seen that the rule of dApp staking V3 is to "reshuffle" once every 4 months or so to avoid more and more staking of the top dApps, give new projects more opportunities, and also give users who participate more actively in staking higher rewards opportunities.
Potential Airdrop Projects
Astar dApp staking rankings, source: Astar Portal
Below is a summary of some ecosystem projects that promise to issue airdrops or other forms of rewards to dApp stakers.
General
Astar ecosystem liquidity pledge agreement.
It is mentioned in tokenomics that 2% of ALGM will be airdropped to "testnet participants, early members, dApp stakers": https://docs.algem.io/algem-protocol/algm-token/tokenomics.
Neurolanche
AI + blockchain project.
We are preparing to airdrop 100,000 NEROX (about 100,000 USD according to the last round of valuation) to dApp staking V3 users. The airdrop reward will be calculated based on the number of ASTRs staked and the number of days: https://grillapp.net/29665/neurolanche-astar-d-app-portal-launched-to-track-your-180536.
A portal has been launched for stakers to view accumulated airdrop points, which will be converted into NEROX tokens in the future, with the specific conversion ratio not announced: https://portal.neurolanche.com/.
Healthree
Move-to-Earn projects.
Healthree will use 25%-45% of the staking rewards it receives to subsidize the pledgers. The specific reward ratio is related to the level of staking obtained by Healthree https://x.com/Heal3official/status/1801550021999136995.
Astral Degens DAO
Astar Degens NFT-based DAO.
Astar Degens is currently doing an AirLyft mission, in which stakers can accumulate different levels of points based on the amount of staked, and users with higher points on the leaderboard can share 15 Astar Degens NFTs, 25,000 ASTR, and 500 billion HaHa: https://airlyft.one/astardegensdao/june-dapp-staking-campaign-1717965594130.
Astar Degens will give 20% of its staking rewards as subsidies to stakers. To receive the rewards, you need to set up AstarPASS to connect to the EVM address.
Very Long Swap
Astar zkEVM DEX and Launchpad
Currently, there are activities underway to encourage staking: stakers can receive double VLS() points and meme airdrops ($NINJA was previously airdropped); if Very Long Swap's dApp staking level reaches Tier 2, users will be given subsidies (the proportion is not specified): https://x.com/VeryLong_Swap/status/1801827554036486376.
Staking Strategies & Operations
According to the above content, if you want to maximize the rewards of each part, the best staking strategy is:
Basic Rewards:
If the pledge period is long, you can pledge or unstake at any time, and it will not have much impact on the income, because the income is calculated on a daily basis.
Additional rewards:
Complete the pledge before June 26, i.e. within the current “Voting” sub-period
Choose the projects you vote for carefully, and do not unstake or change your votes during the next "Build & Earn" sub-period (you can select multiple projects at once)
Pay attention to the dApp staking schedule and stake in the new “voting” sub-cycle after each cycle ends
Potential Airdrops
Try to choose projects that plan to distribute airdrops to stakers
For specific steps on staking, unstaking, and collecting rewards, please refer to the previous article "Astar Dapp Staking V3 User Guide | How to Stake, Collect Rewards, Unstake, etc.
