Validators

Introduction

The Minter Blockchain is based on Tendermint, which relies on a set of validators that are responsible for committing new blocks in the blockchain. These validators participate in the consensus protocol by broadcasting votes which contain cryptographic signatures signed by each validator’s private key.

Validator candidates can bond their own coins and have coins “delegated”, or staked, to them by token holders. The validators are determined by who has the most stake delegated to them.

Validators and their delegators will earn BIP (MNT) as rewards for blocks and commissions. Note that validators can set commission on the rewards their delegators receive as additional incentive.

If validators double sign or frequently offline, their staked coins (including coins of users that delegated to them) can be slashed. The penalty depends on the severity of the violation.

Requirements

Minimal requirements for running Validator’s Node in testnet are:

  • 4GB RAM
  • 200GB SSD
  • x64 2.0 GHz 4 vCPUs

SSD disks are preferable for high transaction throughput.

Recommended:

  • 4GB RAM
  • 200GB SSD
  • x64 3.4 GHz 8 vCPUs
  • HSM

Validators limitations

Minter Network has limited number of available slots for validators.

At genesis there will be just 16 of them. 4 slots will be added each 518,400 blocks. Maximum validators count is 256.

Rewards

Rewards for blocks and commissions are accumulated and proportionally (based on stake value) payed once per 12 blocks (approx 1 minute) to all active validators (and their delegators).

Block rewards are configured to decrease from 333 to 0 BIP (MNT) in ~7 years.

Delegators receive their rewards at the same time after paying commission to their validators (commission value is based on validator’s settings).

10% from reward going to DAO account.

10% from reward going to Developers.

Rules and fines

Validators have one main responsibility:

  • Be able to constantly run a correct version of the software: validators need to make sure that their servers are always online and their private keys are not compromised.

If a validator misbehaves, its bonded stake along with its delegators’ stake and will be slashed. The severity of the punishment depends on the type of fault. There are 3 main faults that can result in slashing of funds for a validator and its delegators:

  • Double signing: If someone reports on chain A that a validator signed two blocks at the same height on chain A and chain B, this validator will get slashed on chain A
  • Unavailability: If a validator’s signature has not been included in the last 12 blocks, 1% of stake will get slashed and validator will be turned off

Note that even if a validator does not intentionally misbehave, it can still be slashed if its node crashes, looses connectivity, gets DDOSed, or if its private key is compromised.

Becoming validator in testnet

  1. Install and run Minter Full Node.

    See Install Minter. Make sure your node successfully synchronized.

  2. Get your validator’s public key from Minter GUI.

  3. Go to Minter Console and send 2 transactions:

    Fill and send Declare candidacy and Set candidate online forms.

    P.S. You can receive testnet coins in our telegram wallet @BipWallet_Bot.

    3.1. Declare candidacy

    Validators should declare their candidacy, after which users can delegate and, if they so wish, unbond. Then declaring candidacy validator should fill a form:

    • Address - You will receive rewards to this address and will be able to on/off your validator.
    • Public Key - Paste public key from step 2 (Mp…).
    • Commission - Set commission for delegated stakes.
    • Coin - Enter coin of your stake (i.e. MNT).
    • Stake - Enter value of your stake in given coin.
    _images/console-declare.png
    3.2. Set candidate online

    Validator is offline by default. When offline, validator is not included in the list of Minter Blockchain validators, so he is not receiving any rewards and cannot be punished for low availability.

    To turn your validator on, you should provide Public Key (from step 2 (Mp…)).

    Note: You should send transaction from address you choose in Address field in step 3.1

    _images/console-candidate-on.png
  4. Done.

    Now you will receive reward as long as your node is running and available.

DDOS protection. Sentry node architecture

Denial-of-service attacks occur when an attacker sends a flood of internet traffic to an IP address to prevent the server at the IP address from connecting to the internet.

An attacker scans the network, tries to learn the IP address of various validator nodes and disconnect them from communication by flooding them with traffic.

One recommended way to mitigate these risks is for validators to carefully structure their network topology in a so-called sentry node architecture.

Validator nodes should only connect to full-nodes they trust because they operate them themselves or are run by other validators they know socially. A validator node will typically run in a data center. Most data centers provide direct links the networks of major cloud providers. The validator can use those links to connect to sentry nodes in the cloud. This shifts the burden of denial-of-service from the validator’s node directly to its sentry nodes, and may require new sentry nodes be spun up or activated to mitigate attacks on existing ones.

Sentry nodes can be quickly spun up or change their IP addresses. Because the links to the sentry nodes are in private IP space, an internet based attacked cannot disturb them directly. This will ensure validator block proposals and votes always make it to the rest of the network.

It is expected that good operating procedures on that part of validators will completely mitigate these threats.

Practical instructions

To setup your sentry node architecture you can follow the instructions below:

Validators nodes should edit their config.toml:

# Comma separated list of nodes to keep persistent connections to
# Do not add private peers to this list if you don't want them advertised
persistent_peers = [list of sentry nodes]

# Set true to enable the peer-exchange reactor
pex = false

Sentry Nodes should edit their config.toml:

# Comma separated list of peer IDs to keep private (will not be gossiped to other peers)
private_peer_ids = "ipaddress of validator nodes"