Bonding period

A bonding period is the period between when a user stakes or delegates a proof-of-stake asset and when that stake becomes active under the network’s rules. During this period, the stake is recorded but is not yet treated as active for functions such as validator weight, consensus participation, or reward accrual. Bonding periods vary by protocol and are often implemented as a fixed delay, an epoch-based schedule, or a validator activation queue that controls when a new stake becomes effective.

A user stakes an asset that has a two-epoch bonding period; the wallet shows the stake as “bonding,” and staking rewards begin only after it becomes “active.”