London, UK – 27 May 2025. FLock.io has announced the launch of Delegation Pools as part of the AI Arena Version 2 update. This replaces the existing Mini Pools system.
V2 is a major upgrade of FLock.io’s flagship DeAI training platform. It introduces a host of powerful features: a new token called gmFLOCK, delegation pools, and DAO integration. This blog is the second series announcing new V2 features – the previous was about gmFLOCK.
This platform update aims to reward long-term contributors, creating a system that is yet more secure, sustainable, and community-governed. It marks a huge leap forward for the FLock ecosystem and we couldn’t be happier to unveil it. Get ready to stake, train and earn!
What is AI Arena?
AI Arena is a platform for competitive model training. Decentralised AI leader FLock.io launched AI Arena on train.flock.io in May 2024. It brings Web3 a leap closer to traceable contribution and on-chain incentivisation for data owners, model developers and compute providers.
What are delegators?
Delegators contribute to the FLock system by supporting other participants’ staking process, enhancing the network’s validation capacity without directly participating in the task training or validation process. Delegators stake gmFLOCK on behalf of other participants, and earn rewards in return.
The role of delegators allows individuals to participate in the network’s training, validation and economic activities, leveraging their tokens to support delegatees, without needing the technical capabilities to train or validate tasks themselves.
What are Delegation Pools, and what has changed?
Delegation Pools replaces Mini Pools with a smarter, fairer structure. By issuing shares proportional to deposited assets, these vaults prevent dilution of rewards and encourage long-term delegation.
gmFLOCK is now required to participate as a training node, validator and delegator. Rewards will still be distributed in FLOCK – our original token.
A freezing period has been introduced for delegation pools of training nodes. There will be a time window before and after a task during which users cannot delegate to these pools. This measure is intended to prevent instant and last-minute delegations aimed at sharing rewards meant for long-term delegators.
This mechanism ensures a dynamic balance between fairness and incentive for long-term delegation. Existing participants are rewarded for their earlier contributions through accumulated time-weight factors, while new participants contribute to the growth of the reward pool.
How to delegate your gmFLOCK
See the full Delegator Guide in our GitBook for how to delegate your gmFLOCK to training and delegation nodes. See also our tokenomics Delegation Pool explainer. For the nitty gritty, check out our code here.
Step 0: Go to https://train.flock.io/stake-to-earn and connect your wallet.
Navigate to https://train.flock.io/stake-to-earn. There, connect your wallet.
Step 0.1: Connect wallet
You will see a variety of wallets to choose from. Pick your favourite wallet there, agree terms of use and proceed.
Step 0.2: Choose wallet and agree to terms of use
Note: If this is the first time you connect this wallet to train.flock.io, you may need to sign a transaction in order to connect your wallet successfully.
Step 1: Choose a wallet to delegate to.
On the "Stake to Earn" tab, you will see a list of wallet addresses with their respective Delegator estimated Annual Percentage Yield (eAPY), Reward-sharing ratio, Total stake and Weekly Delegation Growth associated with the given address:
Note: In the new delegation pool update, for training nodes, the delegation pool will freeze 1 day before the end of training stage of a task till 1 day after the results have been finalised i.e. the pool will not be able to receive new delegation during that phase.
Understanding the Delegator eAPY (estimated Annual Percentage Yield)
In order to make the delegator returns easy to understand, we display eAPY based on the previous rolling 14d and 30d returns of nodes. Those nodes which do not have a 14d history are highlighted separately.
We use the following formula to calculate the 14d rolling eAPY
If this wallet has delegator stake to him and pool is older then 7 days
Else
*if the delegator pool is less than 14 days (say 11 days), then n=11
Step 2: Approve gmFLOCK transaction.
Click on the wallet you would like to stake gmFLOCK to. You will then see a pop-up, in which you can insert the amount of gmFLOCK you intend to delegate. Click "Approve FLOCK" to confirm this transaction:
Step 3: Stake gmFLOCK.
Once you approve the gmFLOCK transaction, you will see another pop-up. Click "Stake gmFLOCK" to confirm staking transaction:
Step 4: Withdraw stake and Claim Reward.
You will see all your delegated stake on: https://train.flock.io/stake-to-earn. You can withdraw your stake one day after your delegation. The rewards are distributed to the delegation pool daily at midnight UTC. You can claim your rewards anytime as long as there's rewards claimable for you.
See you in the arena!
We can’t wait to see the V2 upgrade promote long term and sustainable growth and development within the FLock ecosystem. FLock will be working closely with our community through Discord, Twitter, and developer channels to explain the benefits of V2.
A huge thank you to all the FLockies for being a part of this project!
