Start your staking journey or explore more information about staking on Polkadot's Home PageDiscover this new Staking Dashboard that makes staking much easier and check our extensive article list in the Overview article to help you get started.


⚠️ ATTENTION

Controller accounts are being deprecated. You can still use existing ones for now, but creating new ones is no longer possible.

It is recommended to set your stash account as its own controller, as described below.


This article explains how to update your controller account using the Staking Dashboard. By the end of the process, your stash account will be its own controller and no other account could sign any transactions on its behalf.


In this example, we use the Westend testnet, but the process is the same for Polkadot and Kusama.


How to change your controller account


1. First, connect your accounts to the Staking dashboard.


2. Either from the "Overview" tab or "Nominate," you'll be welcomed with a warning announcing the deprecation of the controller accounts. Click on "Update Controller to Stash."


3. A new screen will appear where you'll see how the controller account would be updated from your current controller (1) to your stash (2) account.


That's it! You have now updated your controller account to your stash!


ℹ️ INFO

If you don't want to use your stash account often, you can create a staking proxy which can do all staking actions on its behalf. It has the same advantages as the controller, but even more flexibility.
Check how to do it in our article "How to Create a Proxy Account"