THE PROTOCOL
LOCK
Deposit ZEC into the staking contract. Your funds remain yours — always self-custodied, never pooled.
DELEGATE
Select a Finalizer to represent your stake. They sign blocks; you earn rewards. No trust required — it's all cryptographic.
EARN
Every epoch (5 days), rewards flow to delegators proportional to their stake. Compounding is manual but encouraged.
UNBOND
Request withdrawal. Wait 5-10 days for security. Then reclaim your ZEC plus accumulated rewards.
QUANTIZED STAKES
Privacy through uniformity. Hiding in plain sight.
Can You Find the Staker?
An interactive demonstration of why quantized stakes protect your privacy.
Traditional Staking
- Variable amounts create unique fingerprints
- Stake size reveals wealth level
- On-chain analysis can track activity
Crosslink Staking
- Powers of 10 create uniform anonymity pools
- Orchard pool adds cryptographic privacy
- Batch processing obscures timing analysis
"Stake any power of 10. Become one of thousands."
5-DAY EPOCHS
Rewards don't trickle. They batch.
What is an Epoch?
An epoch is a 5-day reward cycle. Instead of receiving rewards continuously (which creates a trackable fingerprint), Crosslink bundles all staking activity into batches. At the end of each epoch, rewards are distributed to everyone at once — making it impossible to trace individual stakers by timing.
WATCH THE EPOCH LIFECYCLE
DAYS 1-4
Stakes Accumulate
DAY 5
Batch Processing
EPOCH END
Rewards Release
NEXT EPOCH
Cycle Repeats
Traditional: Continuous Rewards
Each spike = traceable transaction
Crosslink: Batched Epochs
Single batch = 1,000+ stakers hidden together
"Hide in the batch. Disappear in the herd."
THE UNBONDING WINDOW
5-10 days. Your patience protects the network.
Why the wait?
Think of it like a hotel checkout: you can't damage the room and leave immediately. The waiting period ensures that if someone tries to cheat or attack the network, their staked ZEC is still locked, giving the community time to identify the bad actor and take action before they can escape with their funds.
The good news: If you're an honest staker (which you are), this is just a short wait. Your ZEC is never at risk. You simply can't access it for a few days after requesting withdrawal. No penalties for going offline, no surprise fees. Just patience.
UNBONDING PERIODS
"Shorter than most. Long enough to matter."
FINALIZERS
Not validators. Finalizers. The difference matters.
"Validators in most PoS chains produce blocks. Crosslink's Finalizers don't produce blocks — miners do. Finalizers confirm blocks, providing the finality guarantee. They're the seal, not the stamp."
Uptime
How often are they online signing blocks? Higher uptime = more consistent rewards for you.Good news: If they go offline, you only miss rewards — your stake is never slashed.
Commission
The % of your rewards they keep for running infrastructure.Lower isn't always better — underfunded finalizers may have poor uptime.
Reputation
Are they known in the community? Do they communicate openly about downtime or issues?Look for finalizers with a track record of transparency and responsiveness.
Decentralization
Only ~100 finalizers can be active at once. Spreading stake across many strengthens the network.Consider smaller finalizers — the network is healthier when no single entity dominates.
YIELD CALCULATOR
Model your rewards. Understand the economics.
Block Reward Distribution
Every block, rewards split three ways. Stakers share 40% proportional to their stake.
APY decreases as more ZEC is staked because rewards are shared among more participants. Early stakers benefit from higher yields.
PRIVACY MODEL
Staking with Zcash means privacy isn't sacrificed for yield.
Traditional Staking
- Deposit address visible
- Stake amount visible
- Withdrawal address visible
- All transactions on-chain
- Validator identity public
"Full transparency. Full surveillance."
Crosslink Staking
- Orchard pool deposits
- Quantized stake amounts
- Batched epoch transactions
- Shielded reward claims
- Finalizer delegation private
"Verify the math. Protect the identity."
The Privacy Stack
THE FUTURE OF STAKING
Crosslink is currently in development. Mainnet activation is targeted for 2026.
Follow the progress and get ready to stake privately.