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 in a url you control. For example https://teststakepool.com/poolMetadata.json You can use a GIST in github to store the definition and git.io to make it short. Ensure that the URL is less than 65 characters long.

Example: Gist-URL https://gist.githubusercontent.com/carloslodelar/38c7482070627092a427583cae8fa470/raw/7fddda4d258bf685d24ea3510fbde295b3920188/clrpool.json Git.IO-URL https://git.io/JJWdJ

Get the hash of your metadata JSON file:

This validates that the JSON fits the required schema, if it does, you will get the hash of your file.

cardano-cli stake-pool metadata-hash --pool-metadata-file pool_Metadata.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: CertificateShelleydescription: Stake Pool Registration CertificatecborHex:18b58a03582062d632e7ee8a83769bc108e3e42a674d8cb242d7375fc2d97db9b4dd6eded6fd582048aa7b2c8deb8f6d2318e3bf3df885e22d5d63788153e7f4040c33ecae15d3e61b0000005d21dba0001b000000012a05f200d81e820001820058203a4e813b6340dc790f772b3d433ce1c371d5c5f5de46f1a68bdf8113f50e779d8158203a4e813b6340dc790f772b3d433ce1c371d5c5f5de46f1a68bdf8113f50e779d80f6

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>