> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.aura.markets/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Staking & Vaulting $AURA
> Stake $AURA to unlock tier benefits, earn voting power, and put skin in the oracle.
The **Aura Vault** is the on-chain home of every staked \$AURA token. It
does three jobs at once:
1. **Tracks tier eligibility** — the tier you qualify for (and the
benefits that come with it) is computed live from your vaulted
balance.
2. **Powers governance voting** — your voting weight in proposal voting
and dispute resolution is read directly from the Vault.
3. **Backs the optimistic oracle with skin in the game** — when a
dispute is resolved, voters who backed the wrong outcome (or who
committed a vote and never revealed it) have a portion of their
vaulted $AURA **slashed**. That $AURA flows to the voters who got
the call right.
## How to stake tokens
Sign in to Aura using your compatible crypto wallet.
Click the **Vault** tab in the navigation toolbar at the top of the
site.
Enter the number of \$AURA tokens you wish to vault. Your tier is
assigned automatically based on the amount staked.
Confirm the staking transaction in your wallet. Your new tier
status takes effect immediately upon confirmation.
## How to unlock tokens
Ensure you're signed in and click the **Vault** tab.
Click **Request Unlock** to initiate your token unlocking. This
starts a **7-day cooldown period**.
After the 7-day period, return to the Vault page and withdraw your
tokens via the **Withdraw** tab.
### Understanding the cooldown period
After requesting an unlock, your staked \$AURA tokens enter a mandatory
cooldown period of **7 days**.
During this time:
* Your tokens remain locked but **no longer contribute to your tier
privileges**.
* After the cooldown ends, return to the Vault page to complete the
withdrawal.
- Tokens remain secure during the cooldown and can only be withdrawn
to your connected wallet.
- After withdrawal, your tier status resets based on your remaining
locked tokens.
## Slashing — why staking has skin in the game
A pure governance system that only rewards good behavior — without
penalizing bad behavior — is easy to game. A whale who votes the same
way on every dispute earns rewards on the ones they get right and pays
nothing on the ones they get wrong. That breaks the alignment Aura
needs: voters should only weigh in on outcomes they actually believe.
Slashing fixes the asymmetry. By making wrong-side votes (and silent
commits) cost real \$AURA, the cost of voting on a market you don't
understand is roughly equal to the reward of voting on one you do. The
result is an honest oracle where the most confident, best-informed
voters get most of the weight.
### How slashing works
Slashing is triggered automatically by the dispute lifecycle — there's
no manual action required from anyone. After a disputed market's vote
finalizes:
| Voter behavior | What happens |
| ----------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------- |
| Revealed a vote for the **winning** outcome | Earns a proportional share of the penalty pool. |
| Revealed a vote for a **losing** outcome | **0.1% of vaulted \$AURA** is slashed. |
| Committed a vote but **never revealed** | **0.1% of vaulted \$AURA** is slashed. |
| Was eligible (Iron tier+, no position) but **didn't vote at all** | **0.1% of vaulted \$AURA** is slashed. |
Every slashed token flows into the **penalty pool** for that specific
market. Once the pool is finalized, winning voters claim their share —
weighted by their voting tier — directly into their wallet as \$AURA.
The slash percentage is small per individual vote (0.1%), but it
compounds over time for stakers who consistently vote against the
community consensus. Long-term, the only sustainable strategy is to
vote on disputes you've actually researched.
### Voting power vs. stake at risk
Higher tiers get more voting weight on disputes — and have more \$AURA
at risk if they vote wrong:
| Tier | Voting weight | Slash if you back the wrong side (per vote) |
| ---------- | ------------: | ------------------------------------------: |
| Degenerate | 30 | 1,000 \$AURA (0.1% of 1,000,000) |
| Diamond | 22 | 833 \$AURA |
| Platinum | 16 | 667 \$AURA |
| Gold | 11 | 500 \$AURA |
| Silver | 7 | 333 \$AURA |
| Bronze | 3 | 167 \$AURA |
| Iron | 1 | 60 \$AURA |
The trade-off is intentional: bigger stakers get bigger reward shares
when they're right, and bigger penalties when they're wrong. See
[Voting on Disputes](/tutorials/voting-on-disputes) for the actual
voting flow.
### What slashing does *not* affect
The Vault is built so that slashing only ever touches the **vaulted
balance** for the user being slashed. It cannot:
* Slash \$AURA that's already been requested for unlock past the
cooldown (those tokens are pending withdrawal, not active vault
collateral).
* Affect any other user's balance, even pro-rata.
* Touch your USDT, your open trading positions, or your market shares.
* Slash more than you have vaulted at the time the penalty is applied.
If your vaulted balance has dropped below your active unlock request
(because slashing reduced it), the unlock request is automatically
clamped down to the remaining balance, so you can never end up with a
"phantom" unlock pointing at \$AURA you no longer have.
### Authority over slashing
Only the **Optimistic Oracle contract** can call the Vault's slash
function — and even then, only as part of a dispute resolution flow
that's already gone through commit, reveal, and supermajority
finalization.
This authority is rotated through a **timelocked pointer**: changing
which contract can slash requires queuing a new slasher address and
waiting through a delay window before the change takes effect. There
is no way to push an emergency slash through with no notice.
## Summary
* The Vault holds every staked \$AURA token and tracks who stakes how
much.
* Your tier and voting power are computed from your vaulted balance in
real time.
* Wrong-side and silent dispute voters lose 0.1% of vaulted $AURA per
vote; that $AURA funds rewards for correct voters.
* Only the Optimistic Oracle can trigger a slash, and only after a
finalized dispute vote.
* You retain full custody — Aura cannot move, freeze, or arbitrarily
reduce your vaulted balance outside the explicit dispute flow.