What is Electra?

Electra is a fast, community driven proof of stake coin that has low fees. It's a speedy coin that can not only be useful for swift transactions, but it can also earn you interest on your holdings! You can check out the road map at the official site.

Official Website
Discord Chat

What is staking?

Bitcoin is what is known as a POW (Proof Of Work) coin. That means that it is minted by miners using their own computers. This unfortunately consumes a lot of electricity, and it requires a lot of upfront cost in the way of computer components to get started. In contrast, POS (Proof Of Stake) coins simply require you to hold a number of coins in your wallet. By doing so you can mint new coins for yourself under Proof Of Stake. This can be a valuable way to build your holdings.

How To Start Earning Electra Through Staking

Step 1.) Get Yourself Some Electra!
While there are plans to add Electra to more exchanges later it is presently only available at Coinsmarket. Electra can be traded there for either Bitcoin, Litecoin or Doge. I would advise against Bitcoin as it can take a very long time for the deposits to go through. I have used Litecoin to purchase my own Electra.

Step 2.) Download The Official Electra Wallet
Visit the Electra website, and download the official wallet. Installers are available for Windows or Mac. The installer is a straight forward exe, and it should give you no trouble. You can also install on Linux, but you'll need to get it straight from the githhub repository. The bitcointalk thread has instructions for building your Ubuntu Electra wallet if you need some help with this. Electra also has an option for paper wallets should you want safe, long term storage of some of your coins, but you will of course not earn any POS rewards for these coins.

Step 3.) Connect and Update Your Wallet
Before you can use your wallet you'll need to sync it with the network. Staking requires connecting to peers much like a torrent application. You'll also need to download any updates available before you can do much of anything. If you have trouble getting connections to your wallet try checking that you've allowed the wallet access through your firewall and anti-virus.

You should also use the updated configuration file. You can download this here. Save this file into the folder where you installed the Electra wallet. Most likely..

C:\Program Files (x86)\Electracoin\Electracoin wallet

Just overwrite the existing configuration file, restart the wallet, and soon you should be able to see it finding connections. You can see this by hovering your mouse in the bottom right hand corner. Keep in mind that this does not happen right away, and you may need to wait a few minutes for the connections, and the updates to finish. After it's all done you're free to transfer your coins to your wallet.

Step 4.) Encrypt and Protect Your Wallet
Protecting your wallet should be the number one goal of any crypto enthusiast. This means making a strong password and a proper backup of your wallet. Click on settings at the top menu, and then select 'encrypt wallet'. You will then be prompted to create a password. Make sure this is a strong password, but one you will also remember. I would also strongly recommended writing it down on a sheet of paper somewhere for safe keeping as you may not be able to recover your coins without!

At this time you can also select file from the top menu and then click 'back up wallet'. Save this to an external storage drive somewhere for safe keeping. In the event your wallet experiences an issue or your computer passes on to the electronic's graveyard you will need this file to recover your coins.

Step 5.) Unlock Your Wallet For Staking
Now that you've got your password set and your back up is in a safe place you'll need to unlock your wallet for staking. Keep in mind you don't want it to be completely unlocked. In the bottom left corner of the wallet you'll see a little check box that says "for staking only". Make sure this is checked when you type in your password. This will leave your protected, but still good to go for earning rewards.

Step 6.) Wait For Your Coins To Mature
It takes 24 hours for Electra coins to mature. You will not be eligible for staking rewards until this time has elapsed. You'll know when they are ready by hovering your mouse in the bottom right corner over the little arrow. It will either say "staking" or "not staking, because you don't have mature coins".

If it's the latter then you will need to wait longer. The longer your coins are in the wallet the higher your weight will grow. These two numbers verses the weight of the network as a whole (other people who are staking) will determine how often you can stake. Don't worry if at first the "time to reward" is a long way off. This number will shrink quickly as your coins age. At the time of writing the staking percentage for Electra is 50% annually until total coin supply is reached.

If you experience any difficulties you can get support from community members by joining the discord chat or posting in the bitcointalk thread.

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Posted on Utopian.io - Rewarding Open Source Contributors

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