# Staking Staking involves holding or delegating cryptocurrency in a staking pool in order to validate transactions and earn rewards. This is a consensus mechanism that uses proof of stake, where holders of the cryptocurrency act as validators by committing their coins as a stake. Proof of stake is more energy-efficient than proof of work, which relies on computational power, and requires validators to have a significant amount of stake in order to participate. In a staking pool, users' balances represent the total amount of coins they have delegated to the pool. These coins are locked and cannot be transferred until they are unstaked. The network selects nodes for validation based on their stake balance. A Validator is a smart contract on the Venom blockchain that allows users to stake their coins and increase the stake of the validator node owner. This enables users with smaller stakes to participate in validation and earn rewards. The validator node owner also benefits by increasing their node's stake. Staking is continuous, with stakes being added to the current pooling stage at any time. When an election occurs, the accumulated pool is locked and staked for that specific election, and the next pooling stage begins. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://docs.venompools.com/docs/general/staking.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.