The ALEX staking pool now offers two staking options: auto-staking with AutoALEX (atALEX) or manual staking. In this post we’ll explain the difference.

What’s the Difference Between “Auto Staking” and “Manual Staking”?

Both auto-staking and manual staking receive rewards at the end of every cycle (525 Stacks blocks or about 3.5 days).

The difference is auto-staking is done through atALEX which automatically harvests and restakes your rewards, generating passive compound interest. For more information please see “AutoALEX: The Power of Compound Interest.”

With manual staking, to generate compound interest, you must first harvest then restake your rewards. We have however, created an “Auto Stake” function that will restake manual rewards into AutoALEX in a single transaction.

Auto-Staking with AutoALEX

Mint your ALEX into atALEX and just hold it in your wallet and it will grow in value, relative to ALEX, completely passively. The advantages of atALEX are:

1. True passive income.
2. Greater APY as you never run the risk of missing a rewards cycle or pay regular transaction fees.
3. Liquidity with no staking lockup. You can withdraw atALEX in any amount at any time using the ALEX/atALEX pool.
4. Capital efficiency. atALEX can be used as collateral to participate in IDOs or to swap into other tokens and still receive auto compounding gains.

Manual Staking (Customized Staking)

Stake your ALEX and manually harvest the reward after every cycle. The ALEX staked manually will require executing a “harvest” transaction to collect, and there will be a “cool down” cycle with no rewards received, once your custom-selected number of staking cycles end.

If you have ALEX staked in manual (customized) staking,

• The longer you stake, the fewer (cool down) cycles you will have, which produces a greater average APR.
• You must harvest rewards after every cycle, otherwise the rewards will just accumulate with no interest earned.
• “Auto Stake” now allows you to convert your cycle rewards into atALEX in a single transaction.
• ❌ Liquidity: Manually staked ALEX is locked up until the end of the rewards cycles.
• ❌ Capital Efficiency: Manually staked ALEX can not be used as collateral.

How to Use Auto Staking (minting AutoALEX)

This is how you mint ALEX into atALEX

1.Go to the “Stake” page here

2. Connect to your Stacks-compatible wallet by clicking the Connect button (top right-hand side).

3. Go to the Staking panel section and add an auto staking amount:

• Enter the amount of ALEX you wish to stake.
• The “Auto” section displays the atALEX you will mint for the ALEX amount you entered.
• The “Current value” represents the “intrinsic value of 1 atALEX” when you mint or the current “minting rate” of ALEX into atALEX.

4.Select Confirm and then confirm the transaction in your wallet.

5.Once the Stacks blockchain confirms your staking transaction, you will see your atALEX amount in your wallet and also in the “My Staking” section above with Live APY.

How to Use Manual (Customized) Staking

Add Stake

1.Go to the “Stake” page here

2. Connect to your Stacks-compatible wallet by clicking the Connect button (top right-hand side).

3. Go to the Staking panel section and turn on the “Customize” switch.

4. Enter the amount of ALEX you wish to stake as well as selecting the number of staking cycles you’ll lock up your ALEX for.

5. Selecting the down arrow will show staking details such as:

• Cycle numbers: how many staking cycles you are committing to
• Start block: The block number when your staking cycle begins
• End block: The block number when your staking cycle ends

Please note that during staking your $ALEX is truly locked away and inaccessible until the conclusion of the staking cycle period.

6. Select Confirm in the pop up window and then confirm the smart contract transaction in your wallet.

7. After selecting “Confirm” a final time, you should see that your transaction has been broadcast, with a “View in explorer” link to verify your transaction status.

Please note, that it may take up to 20–40 minutes for your balance to update in your wallet and on ALEX. ALEX is built through Stacks smart contracts which settle on the security and finality of Bitcoin, and this transaction time reflects the Bitcoin block speed as well as processing on the Stacks network.

Your updated staking balance should then be visible in the “My Staking” panel.

Explore the ALEX Bitcoin DeFi Ecosystem today!

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