$BARD Staking
Overview of how BARD staking works, including vault mechanics, rewards, epochs, unstaking, and protocol security layers.
BARD Staking
BARD staking is available on Ethereum mainnet. When you stake BARD, your tokens are deposited into a Mellow vault and you receive stBARD, a vault share that increases in redeemable BARD over time. Staking contributes collateral to a Symbiotic-powered cryptoeconomic guarantee layer that complements Chainlink CCIP for cross-chain LBTC transfers. Rewards are paid in BARD and accrue automatically; additional incentives are provided via partner points programs. Unstaking follows a 21-day exit period.
What staking does in the protocol
LBTC moves across chains using CCIP. Lombard adds an extra guarantee layer by routing staked BARD into Symbiotic, where it backs a monitoring/alerting network that engages whenever LBTC is transferred cross-chain. If transfers proceed correctly, stakers earn programmatic rewards; Symbiotic’s design keeps funds slash-eligible over a defined window to cover failures, aligning economic incentives with secure interoperability. This is implemented without changing CCIP itself; Lombard uses CCIP’s modular features (e.g., Token Developer Attestation) and layers guarantees around it.
Two Symbiotic vaults were launched for this system: a LINK vault capped at $100M and a BARD vault capped at 20M BARD. These vaults serve as the collateral base for the monitoring network that validates LBTC transfers.
How staking works
You connect your wallet in the Lombard App, approve BARD, and deposit the amount to stake. The vault mints stBARD to your wallet at the current exchange rate. From that moment, your redeemable BARD grows automatically and there is no claim button to press. The app shows your stBARD balance, the live APY, and the status of any pending exits.
Under the hood the vault runs on Mellow and integrates with Symbiotic. Mellow handles deposits, accounting, reward accrual, and withdrawals. Symbiotic provides the restaking layer that uses your staked BARD as collateral to back LBTC transfers executed through CCIP. All of this remains transparent to the user, while you simply see your stBARD position grow in redeemable BARD over time.
Mellow vaults are ERC-4626 compliant, which means stBARD follows the standard share accounting used by tokenized vaults (convertToAssets, convertToShares, etc.), ensuring compatibility with the broader DeFi ecosystem.
Rewards
Rewards are paid in BARD and auto-compound inside the vault. Accrual happens by increasing the stBARD → BARD exchange rate, not by sending periodic payouts. If you hold 1,000 stBARD and the exchange rate moves from 1.00 to 1.08 BARD per stBARD, you will be able to redeem 1,080 BARD, without ever claiming anything manually.
Partner incentives run in parallel. While staked, you may accumulate Symbiotic points and Mellow Finance points. These are partner programs, separate from the BARD yield that accrues in the vault, and they are tracked by the respective partners.
Lux Season 2 also includes a $BARD Staker badge that grants 5,000 Lux when you stake 100 BARD in a single transaction (live since 18 Sep 2025, 10:00 UTC). Staking BARD for this badge does not change how exchange-rate accrual or exits work; it only adds Lux to your Season 2 total.
Epoch schedule
Rewards follow a four-stage curve where one epoch equals 10.5 days beginning from 18th September 2025. The stBARD → BARD exchange rate increases continuously, but the emission pace changes as epochs advance:
Epoch 1, Day 0–10.5): rewards accrue at 240% APY, the highest emission window.
Epoch 2 (Day 10.5–21): the rate steps down to 120% APY.
Epoch 3 (Day 21–31.5): rewards accrue at 60% APY.
Epoch 4 and onward (from Day 31.5): the program stabilizes at the long-term rate of 30% APY.
Rewards are distributed weekly. Early staking captures the highest rewards, but every epoch keeps growing the value of your stBARD.
Epoch timing also aligns with the 21-day unstaking period: two epochs equal 21 days, which creates a consistent relationship between reward windows and exit processing.
Unstaking and withdrawals
Unstaking takes up to 21 days. When you initiate an unstake, that portion of your stBARD stops accruing new rewards and enters the exit flow. Each unstake request has its own countdown. After a maximum of 21 days the request becomes claimable in the app and you can redeem back to BARD. The vault uses a predictable queue so pending and claimable states remain visible at all times. Epoch timing and the 21 day exit period align cleanly, two epochs equal 21 days, which is why exits feel consistent relative to the reward schedule. Note that withdrawals are processed at the end of the next epoch. Hence, some requests may be processed earlier, depending on how far along the current epoch is.
If you open multiple unstakes at different times, each one is tracked independently. You can continue accruing on the portion that remains staked while another portion waits in its exit window.
The withdrawal process is two-step by design: (1) initiate unstake, (2) claim after cooldown. During the exit window, funds remain slash-eligible under Symbiotic until the epoch closes, which is part of the economic security model.
Protocol architecture
BARD staking integrates three layers: the Mellow vault, the Symbiotic restaking network, and Chainlink CCIP. Together, they secure LBTC transfers across chains.
On the source chain, LBTC is burned when a transfer is initiated.
Chainlink CCIP’s Committing DON records the burn and transmits it to the destination chain.
Before minting on the destination, CCIP checks Lombard’s Token Developer Attestation (LTA), which validates that the burn was legitimate.
In parallel, the Symbiotic network monitors both sides (burn and mint). It runs an independent alerting process, comparing events and flagging anomalies.
If the Symbiotic network detects a mismatch, an alert is raised and slash eligibility applies to the collateral in the BARD and LINK vaults.
stBARD positions remain slash-eligible until the end of an epoch, aligning the unstake flow with the monitoring window.
This architecture means that CCIP itself is unchanged, but Lombard adds an external cryptoeconomic layer around it. stBARD and Symbiotic effectively act as an economic insurance mechanism: if cross-chain execution fails, staked collateral can be penalized.
The contracts used include:
Mellow Vault (ERC-4626): manages deposits, shares, and withdrawals.
Withdrawal Queue: handles pending and claimable exits, ensuring the 21-day cooldown.
Symbiotic Integration: enforces slash eligibility and collateral caps (20M BARD, 100M LINK).
CCIP + Attestation API: guarantees that burns are validated before mints.
By combining these components, BARD staking creates the first production system where restaked collateral actively secures a cross-chain Bitcoin asset.
Contracts and verification
BARD (ERC-20):
0xf0DB65D17e30a966C2ae6A21f6BBA71cea6e9754stBARD (ERC-20):
0x4B266366dc8fF4c0007943a679CBa1fDB845f98D
Always use the official links published by Lombard and verify contract addresses in App. If an address in your wallet or on an explorer does not match what the app shows, do not proceed.
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