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lock-stake

Lock alpha stake on a subnet, building conviction toward a hotkey.

Commits part of the signing coldkey's alpha on the subnet as locked stake: the locked amount builds conviction the longer it stays locked. The lock acts as a subnet-wide floor on unstaking, not a hold on a specific position — the coldkey can freely unstake anything above the locked mass, and the locked amount itself keeps earning normally. The coldkey's total alpha on the subnet, summed across all hotkeys, must cover the locked amount; conviction can be pointed at one hotkey while the stake sits on another. If a lock already exists on the subnet, the hotkey must match the existing lock's hotkey or the call fails with LockHotkeyMismatch — repeat calls only top up the lock; use move_lock to change hotkeys. Whether the lock decays over time or persists is controlled per coldkey per subnet with set_perpetual_lock.

Signer	Pallet	Wraps
`coldkey`	SubtensorModule	`SubtensorModule.lock_stake`

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
`netuid`	integer	yes	Subnet the locked stake lives on.
`amount_alpha`	number \| `"all"`	yes	How much of the existing stake to lock.
`hotkey_ss58`	string	no	Hotkey the lock's conviction is credited to. Defaults to the wallet hotkey.

Address parameters (--hotkey, --coldkey, --dest, ...) accept a raw ss58 address, an address-book or proxy-book name, or a local wallet/hotkey name.

CLI

Preview with --dry-run (shows fee, effects, and policy result without submitting), then submit:

btcli tx lock-stake \
  --netuid <int> \
  --amount-alpha <amount|all> --dry-run
btcli tx lock-stake \
  --netuid <int> \
  --amount-alpha <amount|all> -w my_coldkey

Python

import bittensor as sub
from bittensor.wallet import Wallet

wallet = Wallet(name="my_coldkey", hotkey="my_hotkey")
intent = sub.LockStake(netuid=1, amount_alpha=1.0)

async with sub.Client("finney") as client:
    plan = await client.plan(intent, wallet)   # fee, effects, policy — no submission
    result = await client.execute(intent, wallet)
    if not result.success:
        print(result.error.code, result.error.remediation)

Or build it by op name, as an agent would:

await client.execute_tool("lock_stake", {...}, wallet)