Overview
The Cardano.org Staking Guide is the official walkthrough for earning rewards on your ADA by picking a stake pool. It explains what staking is, how rewards are paid, and how to choose a pool without giving up control of your coins. The page is written for everyday holders, not engineers, and the guide lives on the main Cardano website.
Cardano runs on a system called proof-of-stake. In plain terms, the network picks a stake pool to write the next page of the ledger based on how much ADA has been delegated to it, and that pool then shares rewards with everyone who delegated. The Cardano.org guide explains this in simple language so a first-time delegator can follow along.
The guide is published by the Cardano Foundation, translated into five languages, and links out to a reward calculator, a wallet directory, and the pool monitoring tools listed on adastack.io.1
Key Features
- Your ADA never leaves your wallet. Staking on Cardano is non-custodial, which means your coins stay where they are. There is no lock-up, no waiting period to exit, and no chance of losing your stake because a pool misbehaved2.
- Rewards add to your stake on their own. Once you pick a pool, new rewards arrive every five days and start earning rewards too. You do not need to claim, restake, or do anything else1.
- Smaller pools earn more for you. If a pool gets too big, the network shrinks the rewards it pays. The guide explains why picking a smaller pool helps both the network and your earnings1.
- Side-by-side reward estimates. The Cardano.org guide links to a reward calculator where you can compare up to three real pools and see expected yearly earnings before you delegate3.
- Plain answers to common questions. A long FAQ covers how to pick a pool, what fees mean, what saturation is, and how to tell a reliable operator from a flaky one.
What to Expect
Readers new to staking get a clean, beginner-friendly entry point. The page is mostly prose with diagrams, no jargon-heavy sections at the top, and clear links to next steps. To actually stake, you will need a Cardano wallet with some ADA in it, then you pick a pool from inside the wallet or after browsing the stake pool explorers on adastack.io. Your delegation kicks in after about ten days, and rewards start arriving on their own every five days.
There is no ongoing work after that. You can switch pools whenever you want and the change takes effect at the next reward cycle. Some wallets also let you split your stake across more than one pool. If you ever decide you want to run a pool yourself, Intersect and the Cardano Developer Portal cover the technical side in detail.
