Kaia is asking KAIA stakers to act now: the network is rolling out a permissionless upgrade that requires a manual migration of staked tokens to new contracts and will involve a hard fork. In a November 6 announcement, the project said existing staking positions in its Public Delegation system will not move automatically, so users must withdraw and re-deposit their KAIA into replacement contracts operated by the same Governance Council (GC). What to expect and key dates - Announcement: Nov. 6 — Kaia explained the migration and hard fork. - Migration guide: Kaia plans to publish a step-by-step guide on Nov. 13. - Withdrawal requests open: Nov. 17 via the Migration menu on Kaia Portal. - Withdrawals and re-deposits begin: Nov. 26. - Unstaking period: 7 days after submitting a withdrawal request — users must wait for this to finish before re-depositing. How the migration works - New staking contracts will be deployed and a network hard fork performed. - Users who staked via Public Delegation must submit a withdrawal request in Kaia Portal, wait the 7-day unstake period, withdraw tokens, then deposit them into the new staking contract. - Kaia Portal will show your current staking positions and migration status and guide you to the replacement contract used by your current GC. - Submitting a withdrawal request is only the first step; you must complete the unstake and re-deposit to finish migration. Individual withdrawal dates depend on when each request is made. Rewards and contribution recognition (CR Mission) - To protect users’ Contribution Rewards (CR Mission) recognition during migration, Kaia will lock in reference balances at block 232,552,000 (expected around Nov. 16) and honor those balances until block 235,526,400 (expected around Dec. 20). - Participants who complete migration within that window will retain their staking recognition. Any KAIA left in old contracts after the final reference block will stop qualifying. - Don’t unstake before the initial snapshot — doing so could reduce your recognized balance and lower rewards. - Note: recognized staking contributions are capped at 10x the value of users’ USDT/JPYC deposits, so withdrawing those stablecoins can affect eligible KAIA balances. - Under the new system, users receive pdKAIA tokens representing their staked positions — but only pdKAIA held directly in users’ wallets will count for CR Mission recognition. Security reminder - Kaia warned users to follow official channels only. The foundation will never DM first or ask for wallet recovery phrases or private keys. Why this matters: the permissionless roadmap - The migration is part of Kaia’s Permissionless, Governance and Tokenomics framework, which shifts the network from a permissioned validator model to a staking-and-operations-based system. - Proposed validator rules (from Kaia’s March roadmap): operators must stake at least 5 million KAIA and meet technical requirements to register via Kaia Square. The design caps the validator candidate pool at 100, with the top 50 eligible, highest-staked operators participating in consensus and earning rewards. - Validator performance will be measured by operational metrics (availability, consensus participation) and poor performers can be removed from the active set. - Governance will be separated from daily validator operations; Governance Council membership will have its own eligibility and accountability measures. Context - Kaia formed from the merger of Klaytn and Finschia (projects tied to Kakao and LINE) and launched to support Web3 uses through LINE’s messaging ecosystem. The network has seen fluctuating on-chain activity: Outset Data Pulse reported on-chain retention for users who joined in April 2025 fell from 11.45% in month one to 1.75% by month three (report published Dec. 2025). Bottom line If you stake KAIA through Public Delegation, follow Kaia’s migration guide when it’s published, submit your withdrawal request starting Nov. 17, and complete the full unstake-and-redeposit flow (beginning withdrawals Nov. 26) to preserve rewards and stay in the new permissionless network. Read more AI-generated news on: https://app.chaingpt.org/news
