Depool, short for “decentralized pool”, is a special smart contract in the Everscale blockchain that allows ordinary users to take part in staking.


A Depool receives tokens from users and adds them to the stake of its validator. Every 18 hours the elector contract selects validators. It is validators with the highest stakes that take part in the elections. The validator charges a reward for their work during the next cycle. A part of it is sent to the Depool’s stakers. This portion is proportional to each user’s stake in the overall balance of the Depool.


Thus, to take part in staking, you don’t have to install validator software or have a stake of several thousand Ever. Thanks to Depools, you can earn practically any amount of tokens. The validator in turn is interested in receiving tokens from depositors as this means a bigger stake which is essentially more profit for them.


Depools have undergone official verification, meaning that they are safe, secure, and checked by mathematical methods. In case a Depool stops working for whatever reason, all the funds deposited into it will be credited back to your profile along with the rewards received.

There are more than 400 Depools in the Everscale blockchain. The list of them can be found at https://ever.live/depools. Each Depool has its address which can be obtained by copying it or scanning a QR code on the Depool’s page.

To see the Depool’s parameters, on the app’s main screen tap the card Staking rewards or tap the balance amount → Services → Surf Staking.

 

 

Is Depool a wallet? Do I send my funds to a wallet’s address when I deposit them into a Depool?

No, Depool is not a wallet. It is a smart contract that “remembers” the share of each depositor in the overall amount of tokens locked in the pool. Nobody can access the tokens placed into the depool except for the depositor itself. The Depool owner can not access the depositors’ funds as well. All they can do with the Depool is to close it; however, in this case all the funds will be returned back to the users’ profiles.


However, there are some risks associated with staking: in case the validator wins elections (validators are chosen based on elections in the Everscale network) but refuses to work in due course, it can be punished by the elector smart contract. In this case, the validator can lose a part or the whole of its stake. To avoid such a situation, Depool owners should place into the Depool a certain amount of their tokens for each validation round. If, for whatever reason, a penalty is imposed on a node, the node’s owner loses its funds. As such, they have to work with good faith and on a long-term basis, paying their depositors rewards based on their stake.

 

 

Collateral in Depool

The minimum amount that the Depool owner has to put into the Depool in each validation round is named collateral. Without the collateral, the Depool will not be authorized to work. It is the owner’s funds that are withdrawn first when a penalty is placed, so, the more the collateral amount is, the more the owner is motivated to maintain their node. And this means that the depositor's funds are more secured.

 

Depool’s Commission Fee

There is a commission fee in Depools which is a portion of overall reward that is received by the validator (Depool owner). The latter uses this sum to cover the node maintenance expenses. The rest of the overall reward is forwarded to the other Depool users and distributed according to the share of their stake in the overall amount of funds locked in the DePool. This way, the lesser the Depool commission is, the more profitable it is for its participants.

 

Why Use Depools?

To launch a validator node, you need to have significant funds which many users may lack. As such, by depositing your funds into a pool, users can take part in staking. By doing so, users increase the network’s security and receive rewards for putting their tokens into a Depool. This way, Depools make a win-win situation. By using them, everybody wins, both depositors and the whole network: the former get rewarded for their funds while the network becomes more secure and decentralized due to a higher number of validators.

 

There are two categories of users who might be interested in creation and taking part in a Depool:

 

  • users who can launch a node but don’t have enough funds for validation of the network;

  • users who do have free funds to deposit in a staking pool but don’t have the technical possibility to do so.