🥥Cardano stake pool key generation for Windows (plain text keys)

In this guide we will genereate stake and payment addresses for your stake pool. We strongly advise using Hardware Wallet as it's easy to attach to Daedalus/CCvault and, additionally to the security, it's also easier to manage that wallet (send/receive). By using text file keys you will have to manually create transactions (advanced level) to withdraw funds from the pledge address.

1. Getting ready

For this guide to work, you will need a computer running the latest Windows OS and ideally Windows PowerShell to execute commands.

1.1 Create a "cardano" directory where to store the executable files and keys (we are using Documents Folder)

creating "cardano" directory in the Documents folder

1.2 Downloading Daedalus wallet or adding Yoroi extension to your internet browser

In this installation guide, you can use either Daedelus wallet or Yoroi/ccvault light wallet to manage the pledge funds (we will be using Daedalus)

2.1 download the following applications

2.1 Cardano wallet for windows (currently we are using v2022-01-18)

Open this link in your internet browser and download the windows zip archive file.

https://github.com/input-output-hk/cardano-wallet/releases/download/v2022-01-18/cardano-wallet-v2022-01-18-win64.zip

2.3 Unzip download file

2.4 Copy files from both directories. Check as you should have the following files there:

Now let's move to the key generation process

3. Creating Stake Pool pledge wallet keys

3.1. Open Power Shell which we will be using for generating keys

3.2. Let's generate the keys. Paste the following commands in the PowerShell:

3.2.1. Let's start by going to the directory where we have the executable files.

cd .\Documents\cardano\

3.2.2. Generating staking cli keys

we are using text-based keys, as those will be used by our infrastructure to generate the rewards payments to your wallet's address

## Generating staking cli keys
.\cardano-cli.exe stake-address key-gen --verification-key-file pool.staking.vkey --signing-key-file pool.staking.skey

3.2.3. Generating payment keys

.\cardano-cli.exe address key-gen   --verification-key-file pool.payment.vkey --signing-key-file pool.payment.skey

3.2.4. Building a Payment (pledge) address (from payment and staking public keys) 

.\cardano-cli.exe address build --payment-verification-key-file pool.payment.vkey --stake-verification-key-file pool.staking.vkey --out-file pool.payment.addr --mainnet

3.2.4. Building a stake Address

.\cardano-cli.exe stake-address build --staking-verification-key-file pool.staking.vkey  --mainnet > pool.staking.addr

3.2.5. Create the staking registration certificate

.\cardano-cli.exe stake-address registration-certificate --staking-verification-key-file pool.staking.vkey --out-file pool.staking.cert

3.2.5. Checking if we have generated the files

dir

You should see that we have generated the pool payment/staking files.

3.2.6. check the pledge address (where you will have to send the funds for your pledge):

cat .\pool.payment.addr

This will be the address that will be used for your pool's pledge. DO NOT stake this address in any pool.

5. Sending keys:

This step is only for people who are using StakePool247 Stake Pool outsourcing service!

For us to generate the necessary keys and to be able to automatically send you the rewards we will need the following files:

  • pool.payment.addr - payment/pledge address

  • pool.payment.vkey - payment/pledge public key (pledge wallet's secret key always stays in your hardware wallet device)

  • pool.staking.addr - pool's staking address, where rewards will be sent

  • pool.staking.vkey - pool's staking public key

  • pool.staking.skey - pool's staking secret key - we will automatically withdraw rewards and send your part to your identified Cardano address (which you submitted in the google spreadsheet)

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