Delegating to a Stake Pool

✅ Prerequisites

• Both a payment and a stake key pair. Payment key should contain some ADA.

👩‍💻 Registering Your Stake Address

Create a certificate, stake.cert, using the stake.vkey

cardano-cli conway stake-address registration-certificate \
    --stake-verification-key-file stake.vkey \
	--key-reg-deposit-amt 2000000 \
    --out-file stake.cert

You need to find the slot tip of the blockchain.

currentSlot=$(cardano-cli conway query tip --mainnet | jq -r '.slot')
echo Current Slot: $currentSlot

Retrieve the UTXOs available for your payment address and calculate the balance.

# Retrieve the list of UTXOs available for your payment address
utxo_json=$(cardano-cli conway query utxo --address $(cat payment.addr) --mainnet)

# Initialize variables
tx_in=""
total_balance=0
txcnt=0

# Loop through the list of UTXOs
while read -r utxo; do
    # Retrieve the values for the current UTXO
    values=$(jq -r --arg k "${utxo}" '.[$k]' <<< "${utxo_json}")
    # Retrieve datum associated with the UTXO
    datum=$(jq -r '.datum' <<< "${values}")
    # Retrieve the reference script associated with the UTXO
    script=$(jq -r '.referenceScript' <<< "${values}")
	# If limits on spending the UTXO may exist, then skip the UTXO
    if [[ ${datum} == 'null' && ${script} == 'null' ]]
    then
        hash=${utxo%%#*}
        idx=${utxo#*#}
        utxo_balance=$(jq -r '.value.lovelace' <<< "${values}")
        total_balance=$((${total_balance}+${utxo_balance}))
        echo "TxHash: ${hash}#${idx}"
        echo "ADA: ${utxo_balance}"
        tx_in="${tx_in} --tx-in ${hash}#${idx}"
		txcnt=$((txcnt + 1))
    fi
done <<< "$(jq -r 'keys[]' <<< "${utxo_json}")"

echo
echo "Total available ADA balance: ${total_balance}"
echo "Number of UTXOs: ${txcnt}"
echo "Final --tx-in string:${tx_in}"

Find the stakeAddressDeposit value.

stakeAddressDeposit=$(cat $NODE_HOME/params.json | jq -r '.stakeAddressDeposit')
echo stakeAddressDeposit : $stakeAddressDeposit

Registration of a stake address certificate (stakeAddressDeposit) costs 2000000 lovelace.

Run the build-raw transaction command

The invalid-hereafter value must be greater than the current tip. In this example, we use current slot + 10000.

cardano-cli conway transaction build-raw \
    ${tx_in} \
    --tx-out $(cat payment.addr)+$(( ${total_balance} - ${stakeAddressDeposit} )) \
    --invalid-hereafter $(( ${currentSlot} + 10000 )) \
    --fee 200000 \
    --out-file tx.tmp \
    --certificate stake.cert

Calculate the current minimum fee:

fee=$(cardano-cli conway transaction calculate-min-fee \
    --tx-body-file tx.tmp \
    --tx-in-count ${txcnt} \
    --tx-out-count 1 \
    --mainnet \
    --witness-count 2 \
    --byron-witness-count 0 \
    --protocol-params-file params.json | jq -r '.fee')
echo fee: $fee

Ensure your balance is greater than cost of fee + stakeAddressDeposit or this will not work.

Calculate your change output.

txOut=$((${total_balance}-${stakeAddressDeposit}-${fee}))
echo Change Output: ${txOut}

Build your transaction which will register your stake address.

cardano-cli conway transaction build-raw \
    ${tx_in} \
    --tx-out $(cat payment.addr)+${txOut} \
    --invalid-hereafter $(( ${currentSlot} + 10000 )) \
    --fee ${fee} \
    --certificate-file stake.cert \
    --out-file tx.raw

Sign the transaction with both the payment and stake secret keys.

cardano-cli conway transaction sign \
    --tx-body-file tx.raw \
    --signing-key-file payment.skey \
    --signing-key-file stake.skey \
    --mainnet \
    --out-file tx.signed

Send the signed transaction.

cardano-cli conway transaction submit \
    --tx-file tx.signed \
    --mainnet

📄 Creating a Delegation Certificate

Given its stake pool verification key file node.vkey , from your stakepool should have generated (and published) a stake pool ID:

cardano-cli conway stake-pool id \
    --cold-verification-key-file node.vkey \
    --output-format 'hex'

Given the stake pool ID from your stakepool, run the following:

cardano-cli conway stake-address stake-delegation-certificate \
    --stake-verification-key-file stake.vkey \
    --stake-pool-id <stake pool ID> \
    --out-file deleg.cert

You need to find the tip of the blockchain to set the ttl parameter properly.

currentSlot=$(cardano-cli conway query tip --mainnet | jq -r '.slot')
echo Current Slot: $currentSlot

Retrieve the UTXOs available for your payment address and calculate the balance.

# Retrieve the list of UTXOs available for your payment address
utxo_json=$(cardano-cli conway query utxo --address $(cat payment.addr) --mainnet)

# Initialize variables
tx_in=""
total_balance=0
txcnt=0

# Loop through the list of UTXOs
while read -r utxo; do
    # Retrieve the values for the current UTXO
    values=$(jq -r --arg k "${utxo}" '.[$k]' <<< "${utxo_json}")
    # Retrieve datum associated with the UTXO
    datum=$(jq -r '.datum' <<< "${values}")
    # Retrieve the reference script associated with the UTXO
    script=$(jq -r '.referenceScript' <<< "${values}")
	# If limits on spending the UTXO may exist, then skip the UTXO
    if [[ ${datum} == 'null' && ${script} == 'null' ]]
    then
        hash=${utxo%%#*}
        idx=${utxo#*#}
        utxo_balance=$(jq -r '.value.lovelace' <<< "${values}")
        total_balance=$((${total_balance}+${utxo_balance}))
        echo "TxHash: ${hash}#${idx}"
        echo "ADA: ${utxo_balance}"
        tx_in="${tx_in} --tx-in ${hash}#${idx}"
		txcnt=$((txcnt + 1))
    fi
done <<< "$(jq -r 'keys[]' <<< "${utxo_json}")"

echo
echo "Total available ADA balance: ${total_balance}"
echo "Number of UTXOs: ${txcnt}"
echo "Final --tx-in string:${tx_in}"

Run the build-raw transaction command.

cardano-cli conway transaction build-raw \
    ${tx_in} \
    --tx-out $(cat payment.addr)+${total_balance} \
    --invalid-hereafter $(( ${currentSlot} + 10000 )) \
    --fee 200000 \
    --certificate-file deleg.cert \
    --out-file tx.tmp

Calculate the minimum fee:

fee=$(cardano-cli conway transaction calculate-min-fee \
    --tx-body-file tx.tmp \
    --tx-in-count ${txcnt} \
    --tx-out-count 1 \
    --mainnet \
    --witness-count 2 \
    --byron-witness-count 0 \
    --protocol-params-file params.json | jq -r '.fee')
echo fee: $fee

Calculate your change output.

txOut=$((${total_balance}-${fee}))
echo txOut: ${txOut}

Build the transaction.

cardano-cli conway transaction build-raw \
    ${tx_in} \
    --tx-out $(cat payment.addr)+${txOut} \
    --invalid-hereafter $(( ${currentSlot} + 10000 )) \
    --fee ${fee} \
    --certificate-file deleg.cert \
    --out-file tx.raw

Sign the transaction.

cardano-cli conway transaction sign \
    --tx-body-file tx.raw \
    --signing-key-file payment.skey \
    --signing-key-file stake.skey \
    --mainnet \
    --out-file tx.signed

Send the transaction.

cardano-cli conway transaction submit \
    --tx-file tx.signed \
    --mainnet

Congratulations! Your ADA is now successfully delegated to your chosen stakepool.