What is slashing?
The penalty in a proof-of-stake network where a validator that misbehaves or goes offline has part of its staked collateral confiscated.
Slashing is what makes proof of stake work. Validators lock up collateral, and the protocol destroys some of it if they break the rules — signing two conflicting blocks, for example, or in milder form simply failing to participate for a long period. The severity scales with how damaging the behaviour is, and coordinated failures are punished far more harshly than isolated ones.
Why it matters: it is the reason staking is not free money. If you stake through a validator or pool, their mistake can cost you: delegators typically share the penalty even though they had no part in it. Choosing an operator is therefore a real risk decision, and any yield you are quoted is compensation for taking it. Some providers insure against slashing; most do not. Our staking calculator deliberately does not model it, because the probability is not something we can know for your setup.
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