Stake Wars is a program that helps the community become familiar with what it means to be a NEAR validator, and gives them an early chance to access the chunk-only producer. The rewards offered by the Stake Wars program supports new members that want to join mainnet as a validator starting from the end of September 2022.
- Visit https://near.org/stakewars/ to get the latest information about the program.
- Fill-in the registration form, if you have not done so already (https://nearprotocol1001.typeform.com/to/Z39N7cU9)
- Visit the github repo and read the FAQ and the Rules there (https://github.com/near/stakewars-iii)
- Look into the challenges folder (https://github.com/near/stakewars-iii/tree/main/challenges) and start having fun.
To make thinkg fun, we designed the first Stake Wars challenge in such a way to guide you through the basic steps of running a node. Check it out here: https://github.com/near/stakewars-iii/tree/main/challenges
Stake Wars is a community driven program, supported by Pagoda, Meta Pool, LiNEAR, Everstake, Open Shards Alliance and the NEAR Foundation.
If you are an existing mainnet validator, Stake Wars offers you the opportunity to get early access to the chunk-only producer (more details here), understand how it works, and offer feedback around experience of using it.
If you don’t have a validator seat on mainnet today, and would like to get one, Stake Wars can support you to improve your skills and competences of running a NEAR node, and gives you access to rewards that will support the economics of your validator.
If you are new to the community, and would like to learn more about what it means to run a validator node, Stake Wars offers you a guided playground and support that will help you become more familiar with NEAR.
Stake Wars is made possible by a partnership between Pagoda, Meta Pool, LiNEAR, Everstake and Open Shards Alliance. Together we are driving the program and supporting the participants.
Stake Wars gives participants challenges, mainly focused on technical deliverables, and offers them support as they progress throughout the technical work. Solving challenges gives participants rewards, shaped as NEAR tokens granted or delegated.
Stake Wars launched on Wednesday July 13th and continues until Friday September 9th. You are welcome to join at any moment, but we encourage you to join as early as possible to take more advantage of the program.
Challenges will be announced throughout the entire period of the program, so stay tuned to address them quickly. Some challenges will have a limited timeframe when they can be solved.
You can join Stake Wars at any moment before the end date of the program. However, we encourage you to join as early as you can, to have enough time for solving the challenges and unlocking the rewards, and to take advantage of the support you will receive.
Keep in mind that some challenges may need strict timelines and cannot be accessed after their due date. Also, we plan to move the playground from shardnet to testnet in early August 2022, and at that moment shardnet will no longer be in focus.
We encourage anyone to join Stake Wars, solve the challenges, learn and be part of the program. However, there are a few restrictions related to reward eligibility: existing mainnet validators (as of July 13th 2022) are not eligible to receive rewards shared as delegated NEAR tokens. Members of Pagoda, Meta Pool, LiNEAR, Everstake and Open Shards Alliance are not eligible for any type of rewards.
Stake Wars is composed of technical challenges that you are encouraged to solve. Each challenge gives you access to rewards that can include:
- NEAR Tokens delegated to your staking pool on mainnet after phase 1 of sharding launches on mainnet in late September 2022. The total amount of delegated tokens that each participant can receive is limited to 50,000 NEAR.
- NEAR Tokens granted unlocked to your mainnet account. The total amount of granted tokens that each participant can receive is limited to 500 NEAR.
Keep in mind that receiving the rewards may require identity verification.
Stake Wars is an online-only event, and participant support will be offered through Discord.
The challenges proposed by the program will take place in the dedicated NEAR shardnet network and in the already existing NEAR testnet network. The tokens used during for operating nodes during Stake Wars are test tokens, unrelated to the mainnet NEAR tokens.