Validators
Validators are the participants in the BlockX ecosystem who help keep the blockchain active by validating nodes, creating new blocks, and confirming all transactions.
Introduction
BlockX is based on Tendermint Core, 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 staking tokens and have the tokens "delegated", or staked, to them by token holders. BCX is BlockX's native token.
Validators and their delegators will earn BCX as block provisions and tokens as transaction fees through execution of the Tendermint consensus protocol. Initially, transaction fees will be paid in BCX but in the future, any token in the Cosmos ecosystem will be valid as fee tender if it is whitelisted by governance. Note that validators can set commission on the fees their delegators receive as additional incentive.
Validators receive the highest rewards of all participants for preserving the foundation of the chain. The BlockX ecosystem has a total inflation rate of 20%, so Validators earn 20% additional BCX tokens per annum on top of the gas fees paid by smart contract users.
Validators are encouraged to acquire as many tokens as possible for their nodes, because see real earnings potential, one should optimize for server costs and the annual inflation rate. Starting validation with a small amount can result in little-to-no rewards to even cover expenses.
Validators that double sign, are frequently offline, or do not participate in governance, can have their staked BCX (including BCX of users that delegated to them) slashed. The penalty depends on the severity of the violation.
Hardware
Validators should set up a physical operation secured with restricted access. A good starting place, for example, would be co-locating in secure data centers.
Validators should expect to equip their datacenter location with redundant power, connectivity, and storage backups. Expect to have several redundant networking boxes for fiber, firewall and switching and then small servers with redundant hard drive and fail-over. Hardware can be on the low end of datacenter gear to start out with.
We anticipate that network requirements will be low initially. Bandwidth, CPU and memory requirements will rise as the network grows. Large hard drives are recommended for storing years of blockchain history.
Supported OS
For now, we officially support machines running Ubuntu Linux with the following architectures:
linux/arm64linux/x86_64
Minimum Requirements
To run mainnet or testnet validator nodes, you will need a machine with the following minimum hardware requirements:
4 or more physical CPU cores
At least 200GB of SSD disk storage
At least 32GB of memory (RAM)
At least 100mbps network bandwidth
As the usage of the blockchain grows, the server requirements may increase as well, so you should have a plan for updating your server as well.
Get Involved
Validators earn from Block rewards created on chain and receive delegation from users
Submit an application to become a BlockX Validator on our Testnet by entering this Google Form: https://forms.gle/mmhNg5xzYc2eqeHSA
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