The alpha version of AURA staking went live on January 10th, and the results of the first month are extremely exciting.

Over 300 nodes have been created, with 200+ generated in the first 72 hours.

have been created, with 200+ generated in the first 72 hours. These nodes are currently staking ~37M AURA , 25% of the circulating supply.

, 25% of the circulating supply. Roughly 10% of users are currently receiving trade history data from stakers.

A big thank you to one of our community members who created Auraview.net to report real-time network stats. AURA is being staked in over 20 different countries!

Overall the roll-out process has been smooth, with no major critical issues. The development team has continued to release weekly updates to the AURA staking software in order to provide new features as well as address any issues as they arise.

Community Feedback

Initial feedback from the community is that setting up a node is simple. Many users have mentioned how they had no previous experience with using the command line but had no trouble following the directions to get their staking node live and serving up trade history.

I’m a car mechanic, and I’m just impressed that I was able to get my aura-staker going — Steffosn

Additionally, one of the many benefits of staking AURA is that users can stake their AURA from cold storage. Community members have discussed how this “lower stakes” form of staking has encouraged them to try out the process. No matter what mistakes they make in the node configuration process, their funds are still protected within their preferred choice of storage solution. Staking from cold storage is a benefit unique to tier 3 of AURA staking, with no other platforms allowing their stakers to utilize the security that cold storage brings.

First ETH Payout — Period 2/18/2019

Yesterday marks the end of the first staking period, Feb 18, 2019. Along with that we now have a clearer picture of how staking is playing out in the real world, including the amount of ETH earned by stakers during this first period.

This first staking period total payout is equal to 145.96 ETH, nearly $21,000 USD at the time of writing this post. This represents a current yearly staking yield of almost 30% on staked AURA! Compare this to staking yields from other top project such as Decred and Tezos which tend to hover in the 10–15% range.

The current yield based on last week’s volume would put AURA in the top 5 of all staking projects listed on Stakingrewards.com. Of course, the current yield does not guarantee future results, which will fluctuate based on several factors, including individual node uptime, AURA price, transaction volume, total AURA staked, etc.

The Future

We’re excited to see the network continue to grow as more people discover the value of participating in the AURA staking process. We encourage you to spin up an AURA node and join in on the staking experience! If you have any questions please come by our discord and someone from the support team or community will help you get up and running.

Happy staking!

~Team IDEX (Aurora)

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