Register a Stake Pool with Metadata

Make sure you have access to:

File	Content
`payment.vkey`	payment verification key
`payment.skey`	payment signing key
`stake.vkey`	staking verification key
`stake.skey`	staking signing key
`stake.addr`	registered stake address
`payment.addr`	funded address linked to `stake`
`cold.vkey`	cold verification key
`cold.skey`	cold signing key
`cold.counter`	issue counter
`node.cert`	operational certificate
`kes.vkey`	KES verification key
`kes.skey`	KES signing key
`vrf.vkey`	VRF verification key
`vrf.skey`	VRF signing key

Registering your stake pool requires:

Create JSON file with your metadata and store it in the node and in a url you maintain
Get the hash of your JSON file
Generate the stake pool registration certificate
Create a delegation certificate pledge
Submit the certificates to the blockchain

WARNING: Generating the stake pool registration certificate and the delegation certificate requires the cold keys. So, when doing this on mainnet you may want to generate these certificates in your local machine taking the proper security measures to avoid exposing your cold keys to the internet.

Create a JSON file with your pool's metadata#

{
    "name": "TestPool",
    "description": "The pool that tests all the pools",
    "ticker": "TEST",
    "homepage": "https://teststakepool.com"
}

Store the file on your web server. For example https://teststakepool.com/poolMetadata.json. You must store your pool metadata on reliable server, in case if metadata files will not be available then your pool might disappear from wallets and potential delegators will not be able to find it.

Get the hash of your metadata file uploaded to server:#

These command will return hash value of json file, what we just uploaded to our web server. Keep in mind that you need to put your own address instead https://teststakepool.com/poolMetadata.json

cardano-cli stake-pool metadata-hash --pool-metadata-file <(curl -s -L -k https://teststakepool.com/poolMetadata.json)

>6bf124f217d0e5a0a8adb1dbd8540e1334280d49ab861127868339f43b3948af

Generate Stake pool registration certificate#

cardano-cli stake-pool registration-certificate \
    --cold-verification-key-file cold.vkey \
    --vrf-verification-key-file vrf.vkey \
    --pool-pledge <AMOUNT TO PLEDGE IN LOVELACE> \
    --pool-cost <POOL COST PER EPOCH IN LOVELACE> \
    --pool-margin <POOL COST PER EPOCH IN PERCENTAGE> \
    --pool-reward-account-verification-key-file stake.vkey \
    --pool-owner-stake-verification-key-file stake.vkey \
    --mainnet \
    --pool-relay-ipv4 <RELAY NODE PUBLIC IP> \
    --pool-relay-port <RELAY NODE PORT> \
    --metadata-url https://git.io/JJWdJ \
    --metadata-hash <POOL METADATA HASH> \
    --out-file pool-registration.cert

Parameter	Explanation
cold-verification-key-file	verification cold key
vrf-verification-key-file	verification VRS key
pool-pledge	pledge lovelace
pool-cost	operational costs per epoch lovelace
pool-margin	operator margin
pool-reward-account-verification-key-file	verification staking key for the rewards
pool-owner-staking-verification-key-file	verification staking keys for the pool owners
pool-relay-ipv4	relay node ip address
pool-relay-port	port
metadata-url	url of your json file
metadata-hash	the hash of pools json metadata file
out-file	output file to write the certificate to

You can use a different key for the rewards, and can provide more than one owner key if there were multiple owners who share the pledge.

The pool-registration.cert file should look like this:

type: CertificateShelley
description: Stake Pool Registration Certificate
cborHex:
18b58a03582062d632e7ee8a83769bc108e3e42a674d8cb242d7375fc2d97db9b4dd6eded6fd5820
48aa7b2c8deb8f6d2318e3bf3df885e22d5d63788153e7f4040c33ecae15d3e61b0000005d21dba0
001b000000012a05f200d81e820001820058203a4e813b6340dc790f772b3d433ce1c371d5c5f5de
46f1a68bdf8113f50e779d8158203a4e813b6340dc790f772b3d433ce1c371d5c5f5de46f1a68bdf
8113f50e779d80f6

Generate delegation certificate pledge#

To honor your pledge, create a delegation certificate:

cardano-cli stake-address delegation-certificate \
    --stake-verification-key-file stake.vkey \
    --cold-verification-key-file cold.vkey \
    --out-file delegation.cert

This creates a delegation certificate which delegates funds from all stake addresses associated with key stake.vkey to the pool belonging to cold key cold.vkey. If there are many staking keys as pool owners in the first step, we need delegation certificates for all of them.

Submit the pool certificate and delegation certificate to the blockchain#

To submit the pool registration certificate and the delegation certificates to the blockchain by including them in one or more transactions. We can use one transaction for multiple certificates, the certificates will be applied in order.

Draft the transaction#

cardano-cli transaction build-raw \
    --tx-in <TxHash>#<TxIx> \
    --tx-out $(cat payment.addr)+0 \
    --invalid-hereafter 0 \
    --fee 0 \
    --out-file tx.draft \
    --certificate-file pool-registration.cert \
    --certificate-file delegation.cert

Calculate the fees#

cardano-cli transaction calculate-min-fee \
    --tx-body-file tx.draft \
    --tx-in-count 1 \
    --tx-out-count 1 \
    --witness-count 3 \
    --byron-witness-count 0 \
    --mainnet \
    --protocol-params-file protocol.json

For example:

> 184685

Registering a stake pool requires a deposit. This amount is specified in protocol.json. For example, for Shelley Mainnet we have:

"poolDeposit": 500000000

Calculate the change for --tx-out#

All amounts in Lovelace

expr <UTxO BALANCE> - <poolDeposit> - <TRANSACTION FEE>

Build the transaction:#

cardano-cli transaction build-raw \
    --tx-in <TxHash>#<TxIx> \
    --tx-out $(cat payment.addr)+<CHANGE IN LOVELACE> \
    --invalid-hereafter <TTL> \
    --fee <TRANSACTION FEE> \
    --out-file tx.raw \
    --certificate-file pool-registration.cert \
    --certificate-file delegation.cert

Sign the transaction:#

cardano-cli transaction sign \
    --tx-body-file tx.raw \
    --signing-key-file payment.skey \
    --signing-key-file stake.skey \
    --signing-key-file cold.skey \
    --mainnet \
    --out-file tx.signed

Submit the transaction:#

cardano-cli transaction submit \
    --tx-file tx.signed \
    --mainnet

Verify that your stake pool registration was successful.#

Get Pool ID

cardano-cli stake-pool id --cold-verification-key-file cold.vkey --output-format "hex"

Check for the presence of your poolID in the network ledger state, with:

cardano-cli query ledger-state --mainnet | grep publicKey | grep <poolId>