I've purchased my first Decred and have a few questions. I've read through the threads here, but a few things are unclear. If I purchase 1 ticket, and my ticket is selected, I receive the PoS reward listed here https://dcrstats.com/subsidy as PoS vote, DCR (1.60 decred listed here under January 9th). If I purchase 10 tickets, and 1 of my tickets is selected, I receive 1.60 / my coins back that I spent on that ticket minus any fees. The number of coins still in my wallet makes no difference in regards to the staking reward. The number of tickets I currently makes no difference in regards to the staking reward. Are these 4 statements all correct?
Yes. More specifically, you receive the PoS reward when the ticket is selected and you vote. It is the vote that actually earns the reward, but you can only vote when your ticket is selected. Also, the reward received is whatever the reward is at the time of the vote, not at the time of purchase because it is a percentage of the block subsidy in which the vote occurs. Correct. The reward is per ticket (vote). Correct. Correct.
Appreciate it davecgh! Sorry, I have a few more. 1. On the voting part, we are just voting for the previously accepted block? 2. I would guess the previously accepted PoW accepted block. 3. Can the voting be done both automatically and manually? 4. How long do I have in order to respond to a manual vote?
I also wanted to ask, is there any normal circumstances where I would lose any amount of coins while staking?
At the current time, the vote is for the validity of the previous block. However, voting is also how PoS holders will cast their vote on hard forks. Yes Voting is automatic. You set how you want to vote and when your ticket is called, the wallet will vote for you. That is why you either need to have your wallet on 24/7 and/or use a stake pool to cast the vote on your behalf. N/A, however, if your wallet (or stake pool on your behalf) doesn't submit your vote to the network before the next block is found, you will have missed the vote and not receive any reward The only losses you can incur by either solo staking or staking via an official stake pool are the transaction fees associated with purchasing the tickets. Also, the following thread has a lot of specifics about how PoS works. The thread was started before Decred was even released, so there are a lot of incorrect assumptions, but if you read through my responses, it's all clarified. I suspect that will be informative. https://forum.decred.org/threads/understanding-of-proof-of-stake.180/
Thank you! And yes, your responses on that thread led me to much of the understanding I have up till this point. Very helpful.