Glossary · Consensus

Epoch.

A five-day window on Cardano during which staking distribution is fixed.

Think of it as

A five-day pay cycle. Stake snapshots and rewards land on epoch boundaries, never mid-cycle.

In depth

Cardano time is grouped into epochs of 432,000 slots (five days). The staking distribution is snapshotted between epochs, rewards earned in one epoch are paid out two epochs later, and many protocol parameters can only change at epoch boundaries.

Example

You delegate in epoch 500; the snapshot is taken at the end of that epoch, your stake counts toward the pool starting in epoch 502, and the first rewards from blocks it produced with your stake are paid out at the start of epoch 504.

Next on this path

  1. Staking rewards Ada paid out to delegators and pool operators for producing blocks.
  2. Stake pool A node that produces blocks on behalf of itself and its delegators.