Seeing the recent influx of newer members to the Ark community and the increase in questions on reddit and discord, I decided to write a quick guide to help out the new members find their way around the DPoS system and voting. First, let’s get some important information out of the way.

Ark uses the Delegated Proof of Stake(DPoS) consensus to keep the network safe and confirm transactions between addresses. Other methods you may know about are the Proof of Work(PoW) or Proof of Stake(PoS). In DPoS, we have 51 forging delegates that you can vote for. Those delegates forge blocks on the network. Every block that a delegate forges, they are rewarded with 2 Ark and every tx(transaction) fee in the block. In order to beat out the competitor delegates, they make proposals to share large percentages of their profits with the people that voted for them. In this DPoS concept, voters are rewarded for their weight of the vote. What this means basically, is the more Ark you have in your wallet, the more that you will get rewarded by the delegate that you voted for. Currently the fee for voting or unvoting for a delegate is 1 Ark. This means that smaller wallets may be better off waiting for the next core update, where the fee will be reduced to .1 Ark, speculated to come out in 2018, but you can check the progress here.

Now that we got that out of the way, we can finally know what everyone seemingly doesn’t understand. What’s the point? Good thing for you, voting rewards you with something that everybody can appreciate, more Ark. The well known estimate for voting is a 10% ROI annually, compare that to a high interest savings account at closer to 1–2%! Even better, is that when you vote, you’re not staking the Ark you have. The voting fee is a one time cost, and you’re money doesn’t get locked down, it stays usable! Here’s an example:

I just bought my first 100 ark! I decide I want to vote. I find a great delegate who’s proposal I really like(more on this later).

I pay 1 Ark, bringing my balance to 99, and the rest stays in my wallet under my control.

Now I get about .7–8 Ark weekly deposited into my account, and I can withdraw or deposit at any time!

Sounds great, doesn’t it. It’s really a great part of Ark, and it sparks lots of discussion in our subreddit, discord, and slack. If you’ve decided now that you want to vote, here are some resources for you to start doing research on the delegates, including two articles I wrote on the current popular delegate choices, the forum where proposals are posted, and our subreddit. Here also is a guide on how to vote:

https://medium.com/@cpongo28/which-delegate-is-right-for-you-4bd99f950ba1

https://medium.com/@cpongo28/which-delegate-is-right-for-you-cont-37fe36705213

https://forum.ark.io/category/5/delegates

https://www.reddit.com/r/ArkDelegates/

Guide on how to vote: https://i.redd.it/z629fgqmasyz.jpg

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Finally here is a quick FAQ for the most asked questions I’ve seen on reddit:

Is X amount of Ark good enough to vote?

This answer differs with each person’s opinion, but seeing as the next core update will cut the fee down to .1 Ark, if you can’t recoup 1 Ark in the next 3–6 months, you should probably wait.

How much will I make with X amount of Ark?

You can calculate that using any of these calculators made by members of our community.

How often do I get voting rewards?

Depends on which delegate you voted for, most common is daily or weekly.

Can I vote with my Ledger Nano?

Yes, once you plug in the ledger, you can vote from it, and even unplugged the Ark earning still accumulates as long as you stay voted.

Can I vote for multiple delegates?

Yes, but, when you vote for two delegates, your voting weight gets cut in half for each delegate, and for three it gets cut in thirds and so forth.

Do I have to vote with my Ark?

No, but if you understand the concepts behind the system, I don’t see any cons to voting besides the initial fee.

Do I have to vote multiple times?

No, if you keep your vote with one delegate, the fee happens only once, ever.

Why haven’t I been paid yet?

It depends, some delegates pay weekly, some pay daily, but almost all have a minimum earned Ark limit. Check with your delegate on slack or discord to find out why. Also, payments can be slightly irregular just based off chance that it may take slightly longer to amass the balance necessary.

Why am I getting paid less every week/day?

Your delegate earns the same amount of Ark every day more or less, but if he/she gained voters since the last week, that means they have to pay out the same amount of Ark but to more people. If you want less voters in the same pool, you could take a chance voting for a lower delegate on the leaderboard, and take the chance that the delegate temporarily or permanently gets knocked out of the top 51.

How do I check the top 51 delegates?

You can check many places, I prefer here.

If you have any more questions, you can find ask me or others on slack/discord, or email me at cpogo28@gmail.com

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If you found this article helpful and have some extra Ark hanging around, donations are always welcome! Thanks for reading.

Ark address: AJa5Qre7XvxpuXsU28tYs8M3HL7y9hta5G