Kaia has asked users staking KAIA through its existing Public Delegation system to prepare for a mandatory migration to new staking contracts, with withdrawal requests set to open on November 17 ahead of its permissionless network upgrade.
Summary
- Kaia has asked existing Public Delegation users to manually migrate their staked KAIA into new contracts as the network prepares to transition to a permissionless validator system.
- Withdrawal requests will open through Kaia Portal on November 17, while withdrawals and redeposits will begin from November 26 after a mandatory seven day waiting period.
- Kaia said eligible CR Mission participants who complete the migration within the specified period will retain recognition of their existing staking balances and avoid interruptions to their contribution rewards.
- The network plans to introduce a permissionless validator structure under which operators meeting a minimum staking requirement of 5 million KAIA and other technical conditions can register without the previous manual approval process.
According to a November 6 announcement, the transition will involve deploying new staking contracts and carrying out a network hard fork, requiring existing stakers to manually move their tokens because their current positions will not transfer automatically.
The migration will affect users who have deposited KAIA through the network’s existing Public Delegation service, with the process requiring them to request a withdrawal, wait seven days, withdraw their tokens and deposit them into the replacement contract.
Kaia said withdrawal requests will open on November 17 through a dedicated Migration menu on Kaia Portal, while withdrawals and re-deposits are scheduled to begin from November 26.
Kaia staking migration requires users to move their tokens manually
Under the new arrangement, users will be able to connect their wallets to Kaia Portal and view their existing staking positions alongside their migration status.
The dedicated interface will guide users through each stage and direct them to the replacement staking contract operated by the same Governance Council, or GC, to which they currently delegate their tokens.
Submitting a withdrawal request will not complete the process, as users must wait for the unstaking period to finish before they can move their KAIA into the new contract.
Individual withdrawal dates will depend on when each request is submitted, with Kaia planning to publish a detailed migration guide on November 13 before opening the portal’s withdrawal request feature four days later.
Kaia outlines reward protection for CR Mission participants
In a separate announcement, Kaia explained that participants in its Contribution Rewards, or CR Mission, program would retain recognition of their existing staking balances while completing the migration.
Normally, the program calculates rewards using the lowest eligible staking balance recorded during a reward period, meaning a temporary withdrawal could reduce the amount recognized for rewards.
To address this, Kaia will use balances recorded at block 232,552,000, expected around November 16, and maintain that recognition until block 235,526,400, expected around December 20.
The network said participants who complete the migration within that period will retain their staking contribution recognition, while tokens remaining in the old contract after the final reference block will no longer qualify.
Users have been advised against unstaking before the initial snapshot because doing so could reduce their recognized balances.
Kaia further explained that withdrawals of USDT or JPYC deposits could affect eligible KAIA balances because the program caps recognized staking contributions at ten times the value of deposited stablecoins.
Under the replacement system, users will receive pdKAIA tokens representing their staked positions, although only tokens held directly in their wallets will qualify for CR Mission recognition.
Permissionless upgrade will change Kaia’s validator structure
The migration forms part of Kaia’s previously announced Permissionless, Governance and Tokenomics framework, which seeks to replace the network’s permissioned validator structure with a system based on staking and operational requirements.
In its March roadmap, the foundation proposed separating validator operations from Governance Council responsibilities, allowing participants to qualify for network validation without going through the previous manual approval process.
Under the proposed validator framework, operators must meet a minimum staking requirement of 5 million KAIA and satisfy technical conditions to register through Kaia Square.
The technical design sets a maximum validator pool of 100 candidates, with the 50 highest-staked eligible operators participating in consensus and receiving validator rewards.
Kaia has said validator performance will be assessed through operational metrics, including network availability and consensus participation, with consistently underperforming operators subject to removal from the active validator set.
The foundation’s permissionless roadmap further separates governance decisions from day-to-day validator operations, with Governance Council membership subject to its own eligibility and accountability requirements.
Kaia was formed through the merger of Klaytn and Finschia, blockchain projects associated with South Korea’s Kakao and Japan’s LINE. As crypto.news previously reported, the combined network launched with plans to support Web3 applications through LINE’s messaging ecosystem.
The network has since seen periods of substantial activity, with on-chain user retention falling from 11.45% in the first month to 1.75% by the third month among users who joined in April 2025, according to an Outset Data Pulse analysis published in December 2025.
