If you're familiar with Cardano, you know that as of July they have entered the Shelley era. Cardano did an hardfork of there blockchain from Byron to Shelley. What is the difference? You may ask. Well, the difference is Cardano is now a Proof Of Stake coin.
POS allows you to earn coins by staking your ADA. The great thing about Cardano's staking is that you don't have to lock up your tokens. Or even send them from your wallet. Cardano now as Stake Pools run by the community, which moves towards decentralization of the network. Currently, there are over 1000 stake pools. Now all you have to do is choose a stake pool and delegate your ADA coins.
Once you've upgraded your wallet from Byron to Shelley you are ready to delegate your tokens. Your wallet options are Daedalus, Yoroi, Adalite. Theirs also an option for Ledger Nano if you prefer a hardware wallet. That option took some time but it is now available.
The blockchain now goes through a process called epochs which last 5 days. At the beginning of an epoch a screenshot is taken of the number of ADA you hold in your delegation wallet. During the epoch, blocks are created, and the pools fight for a chance to win blocks. The amount of ADA you stake determines the amount of ADA you receive. The stake pool gets a percentage of course. Currently, once you initially delegate your ADA, it takes 3 epochs to actually earn rewards.
The process is pretty straight forward once you get the hang of it. There are numerous pools available so choose wisely. I currently delegate to the SWAG Stake Pool. His pool is running well and is minting blocks, at least 4 blocks per epoch. His pool is growing every day, but the skies the limit. He's currently running a marketing campaign promoting his pool to the Japanese market. The Cardano ICO was initially done in Japan and a large number of there ADA holders have not delegated there ADA. All are welcome to delegate to his pool though.
