Using the Delegated Proof of Stake consensus protocol makes Tezos extremely reliable in terms of speed, capability, and stability of its blockchain. The somewhat complex principle of baking provides a fair mechanism of supporting transactions and smart contracts running on the blockchain. The network users further improve this mechanism by delegating their stakes to bakers, thus, unscrupulous bakers who may harm the network performance can be easily detected and ignored.

In return, this principle puts partial responsibility on the delegators’ shoulders and requires research of the delegates available on the platform before staking with them. This article is a prompt intro into the most vital stats one should consider before start staking. We will be comparing the following bakers: two Polychain Labs pools, Cryptium Labs, Flippin’ Tacos, Tezos Capital Legacy pool, Tezos Istanbul, Everstake, Tezwhale, Airfoil, Happy Tezos, Coinone, Pay Tezos, Tezosteam, Blockpower, TZ Dutch, Ø Crypto Pool, Cryptodelegate, Staked, Tezzigator, and Lucid Mining.

UPTIME

The consistency and stability of the operation is a very vital indicator. Being a baker on the Tezos platform requires up-to-date hardware, well set-up software and a very stable Internet connection. Any fails within these requirements will lead to missed blocks or endorsements, and the delegators will get less yield. Good Internet connection may also lead to steals and baking the blocks which were supposed to be baked by others.

Almost all bakers show a good miss-to-steal ratio, around 60 missed blocks and over 130 stolen ones per year. Several bakers, such as Everstake, Tezos Capital, and Airfoil, show much lower numbers, below 30 for both stats, which indicates either well-maintained hardware and software and a very stable connection, or simply a smaller baker size: the less the number of blocks, the fewer are misses. While this doesn’t necessarily mean higher yields, it definitely offers bakers more consistent and stable baking profits.

AGE

The time, for which a baker is operational, pays a big deal in the selection. Long operation without faults builds up a loyal staking community. The stats collected throughout this period give an insight into the baker’s operational history and makes the choice clearer.

12 bakers started their operation in Summer 2018, immediately after the Tezos mainnet launch event, and almost all seem to continue baking successfully. Tezzigator has moved to new addresses in May 2019, but, in fact, started baking in the very beginning of the network operation. 7 bakers have launched shortly after, in Autumn and Winter 2018/19. The rest started in the beginning of 2019, but are already among legit top 20 bakers by now.

FEES

To support the baking facility, all delegates take a commission from the payouts to delegators. Most bakers keep their fees at 10 to 15 percent, while Tezos Istanbul has 7.5% and Airfoil is damping to 5%. One of the Polychain Labs pools, on the other hand, withholds a 25% commission, in return for solid guarantees of stable work, offered by an institutional baker.

CORRECT REWARDS

All bakers have their own algorithms of breaking up the baking reward they get from the network into personal rewards to each delegator. These algorithms may or may not consider stolen or missed blocks, can be triggered after each block, cycle or another arbitrary period, and the correctness of them can be only checked over large time spans, by watching random addresses that bake with certain delegate.

11 of the top 20 delegates send fully correct rewards. 4 bakers send their rewards with minor misalignments to the calculated numbers. Polychain Labs, and Coinone hide their rewards, and Cryptium Labs have a specific algorithm, the correctness of which can’t be checked by the automated tools at https://baking-bad.org.

STAKE SIZE

The stake size shows the number of funds, delegated to the baker in total. While this parameter doesn’t affect much directly, it shows the loyalty of the baker’s community and overall trust of the general public in their activities.

At the same time, it’s important to bear in mind that an excessive stake size may become a threat to decentralization. Thus, when choosing a baker, make sure to pay attention to its stake size and don’t encourage the network centralization.

WHO RUNS THE STAKING SERVICE

Staking service can be run by anyone. However, it involves work with large transactions, and the delegates who take their risks and responsibilities seriously, keep their business legally transparent. This way, the delegators can be sure, that they know who to contact in case of any serious problems.

Four pools run privately, but they provide extensive information about the teams behind them, their expertise and previous achievements. The majority of pools are run by teams, usually of good specialists working together, or as child projects of other companies. Everstake, Tezos Capital, Airfoil, Happy Tezos, Coinone, Pay Tezos, and Blockpower are registered companies with all legal details available right on their corresponding websites.

Furthermore, only these open and transparent companies provide extensive contact details including several electronic means of communication, phone numbers, and even office addresses, whereas the others provide only email and/or Telegram contacts.

COMMUNITY AND OTHER ACTIVITIES

Surprisingly as for businesses who work openly with lots of people, most bakers lack active community activities over the Internet. While some, such as Everstake, Cryptium Labs, Coinone, Tezos Capital, Tezzigator or Happy Tezos, are proactive in their own media and generally over the Internet, half of the delegates don’t have a basic Telegram chat or Twitter account, where every question can be discussed within the community in a transparent manner.

In majority, the same delegates also publish educational materials on Tezos and other blockchain-related topics in their blogs, on websites, or any other public media.

Almost all delegates specialize in baking in Tezos and some other networks, with the exception of Everstake, Blockpower and Airfoil. The Everstake’s parent company, Attic Lab, provides blockchain software development, offers staking of all major DPoS coins, runs an exchange and provides a variety of tools for blockchain users and developers. Blockpower provides investment management and liquidity services for exchanges and digital asset emitters, while Airfoil specializes in security solutions for digital asset holders.