Symbiosis staking separates veSIS governance locks from relayer delegation

SIS Balances Before a Staking Commitment

PoS participation requires SIS on Arbitrum One. The veSIS locking program supports Ethereum, BNB Chain, zkSync Era, and Linea. Token availability and staking eligibility describe different things: a network that carries SIS does not automatically support every staking mechanism. SIS also has different token contract addresses across networks.

Preparing a balance may involve bridging existing SIS or exchanging another supported asset for SIS on the required network. That acquisition has its own quoted output, price impact, and transaction costs. During Safe Mode, smart contracts also enforce limits on cross-chain operations. A swap that delivers SIS completes the acquisition; it creates no staking position by itself.

Approval and the Commitment Boundary

Token approval grants a contract permission to use SIS within the authorized allowance. The interfaces may request approval before a lock or delegation. Approval alone creates neither position.

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Stopping before approval avoids a new token-use authorization. If approval already exists, declining the lock or delegation transaction still avoids a new position. A successful approval remains a permission even when no staking transaction follows. Review the network, SIS amount, and selected lock or validator before committing tokens.

What Does veSIS Measure?

veSIS measures voting power that a SIS holder receives by locking tokens for a chosen duration. The vote-escrow model links the initial balance to both the SIS amount and the remaining lock time. Longer commitments provide more initial voting weight for the same SIS amount, with locks extending up to four years.

One veSIS represents one vote in the Symbiosis DAO, its decentralized autonomous organization. The veSIS balance decreases as the lock approaches expiry. That decline concerns voting weight, rather than a scheduled reduction in the original SIS principal. The position can consequently show less veSIS even when its locked SIS amount has not changed.

The veSIS Reward Calendar

veSIS locks earn SIS rewards, distributed weekly on Thursday at 00:00 UTC and collected through a claim transaction. A new lock must accrue for a full reward week before its first allocation. Creating a lock shortly before a distribution therefore does not establish entitlement to that next payment.

Reward estimates also depend on the available weekly allocation and participating balances. The displayed APR, weekly reward, and total reward estimates describe those inputs at calculation time. They do not fix the amount that every later distribution will pay.

When Does a New Delegation Become Active?

A new delegation becomes Active after the relevant epoch change accounts for its tokens. The documented default epoch duration is 24 hours, while actual epochs can differ. That default describes network coordination, rather than an exact personal countdown from submission.

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Reward eligibility adds another condition: the supported validator group must participate through its relayer in signing the applicable epoch change. Ordinary reward distribution depends on network completion of that change. An administrator's manual epoch change follows a separate path and does not, by itself, establish entitlement to the ordinary distribution.

PoS Reward Shares and Manual Claims

PoS reward rules allocate an epoch pool among eligible validator groups in proportion to their combined validator and delegator stakes. The pool also adjusts for actual epoch duration relative to the configured default. Contract parameters determine the reward pool, so a quoted annual rate can change.

PoS rewards are paid in SIS, and the documented split assigns 7.5% of the group's reward directly to its validator. The remaining 92.5% goes to both the validator and delegators in proportion to their stakes. These percentages apply to the group reward, not deposited SIS. Validator rewards automatically increase stake; delegators claim rewards manually without automatic compounding. Allocated rewards become claimable after the following epoch change.

Validator Availability and Blocking

Validator status determines whether a listed relayer can accept delegation and participate in network operations. Registered means that registration has completed but the node has not established uptime. Active indicates participation with positive uptime. Offline identifies an unavailable node, while Inactive indicates that the validator has withdrawn its stake. Offline status leaves staked and delegated SIS withdrawable under the applicable withdrawal rules.

Blocking addresses relayer misbehavior in the native PoS mechanism. A blocked node cannot participate in network operations or receive rewards. Delegation therefore carries an ongoing dependency on the selected relayer's operation. An Active label at entry does not promise uninterrupted participation through every later epoch.

Delegators may support multiple validators, and each supported group has its own participation record. Splitting a position changes its exposure across relayers; it does not remove the contracts or reward conditions that those delegations share.

Lock Changes and Withdrawal Boundaries

A veSIS lock retains its SIS principal until its chosen term ends. Adding tokens or extending the expiry changes that commitment. A longer extension postpones the point when the underlying SIS becomes withdrawable, even if the holder has already claimed earlier rewards.

At expiry, veSIS reaches zero and the locked SIS becomes available for withdrawal. The withdrawal instructions require claiming outstanding rewards first. Claiming rewards and recovering the original principal have separate effects; the ability to claim rewards during a lock does not provide early access to its SIS.

Native PoS and delegated staking use an unbonding delay for unstaking. The default epoch duration does not establish that delay's length. A delegation's activation state therefore answers a different question from the date when an exit can finish.

Fee Discounts and Separate Liquidity Positions

veSIS benefits include reductions on eligible cross-chain fees, with the discount tied to veSIS holdings. A discount applies to the relevant fee component; it does not eliminate every transaction cost. A source-network transaction still requires gas, including when SIS must first move to the staking network.

Octopools represent a separate liquidity commitment. Their liquidity providers receive a proportional share of pool trading fees when withdrawing liquidity, with the amount dependent on pool activity. A veSIS lock does not itself supply Octopool liquidity.

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Ethereum Restaking and Its Separate Exit Rules

The SIS Restaking Vault uses Symbiotic infrastructure on Ethereum, adding collateral that supports the Symbiosis Relayers Network. It is a separate contract choice from native PoS delegation on Arbitrum One. Symbiotic can slash allocated vault collateral for misbehavior, while native PoS uses blocking.

The SIS vault's withdrawal guidance allows for a delay of 7-14 days. That range belongs to the Ethereum vault and does not define Arbitrum delegation withdrawals. Selecting a staking contract therefore determines the network holding the commitment and the exit conditions that govern access to its SIS.