If you’re new to Cardano staking — or even if you’ve been delegating for a while — it’s completely natural to feel uneasy when rewards aren’t perfectly regular.
Large stake pools often produce blocks every epoch. Smaller pools like 46 South may go several epochs without producing one. At first glance, that can look worrying.
But here’s the key point:
Over time, rewards from a well-run small pool even out.
How Cardano rewards actually work
Cardano stake pools are selected to produce blocks based on probability. The more active stake a pool has, the more often it tends to be selected — but no pool is guaranteed a block in any given epoch.
A useful way to think about it is like tossing a weighted coin:
- A large pool tosses the coin many times each epoch
- A small pool tosses it fewer times
- Over enough tosses, the average result converges
That convergence happens over time, not necessarily every epoch.
This is why delegators to small pools may see:
- Several epochs with no rewards
- Followed by an epoch with higher-than-average rewards
When you zoom out over months rather than weeks, the maths settles down.
Do large pools earn more?
Not in the long run.
Cardano’s reward system is deliberately designed to:
- Discourage over-saturated pools
- Encourage decentralisation
- Keep long-term returns broadly similar across pools
Large pools trade smoothness for crowding.
Small pools trade variance for independence.
If you’re comfortable holding ADA and thinking long-term, short-term reward gaps are not a loss — they’re simply timing.
Why small pools matter
Delegating to a small, independent stake pool helps:
- Strengthen Cardano’s decentralisation
- Reduce reliance on a handful of operators
- Support operators who are committed for the long haul
Cardano was designed to be a network of many independent pools — not a few massive ones.
Small pools are not a weakness in the system.
They are the system working as intended.
A word on patience
It can be tempting to switch pools after a quiet epoch or two. But frequent pool-hopping:
- Doesn’t improve long-term rewards
- Adds instability to the network
- Makes it harder for smaller pools to mature
Delegation works best when it’s set-and-forget, measured in months rather than individual epochs.
Why 46 South?
46 South is run with a long-term mindset:
- Stable, conservative infrastructure
- Careful operation rather than chasing scale
- A commitment to staying online through good luck and bad
We also believe stake pools can contribute to more than just block production. That’s why 20% of our pool fee is donated to support Pest Free Token (pestfreetoken.co.nz), a New Zealand-based initiative funding pest eradication and helping protect native biodiversity through a mix of community action and blockchain technology.
It’s a practical way of connecting decentralised infrastructure with real-world environmental outcomes — and it reflects both Cardano’s ethos and our New Zealand roots.
We don’t promise perfectly smooth rewards.
We do promise transparency, reliability, and sticking around.
If you believe in Cardano’s vision of decentralisation — and in supporting independent operators who give something back — delegating to a small pool like 46 South is a meaningful choice.