I’ve been doing validator verification calls for the past few weeks, and first of all, I am super excited about and honored to meet the group of people who will become validators on the ThreeFold Grid. They are a diverse bunch with incredible passion for the project.
There have been some questions, to which I am providing answers down below. Let’s keep this a running topic, if you have more questions, as in the comments and we will incorporate – with the end goal of being added here on the Library.
Please note some answers are incomplete at this time. Additionally, these are our best answers at this given moment – things may evolve as we move forward together.
In the Validator FAQ document, it says: “Once the blockchain is set up on the hardware, all the verifications and voting is done on a web portal, a seamless process accessible to anyone. However, it is important to remember that if a validator fails to uphold their responsibilities, a portion of their stake will be slashed (fined), as such an event would impact the resilience and security of the network.” Do verifications and voting have to be done manually on a web portal? Who and how would this be done by us?
We will change this language, there is no slashing at this point, maybe at one point it will be needed but not now yet. (Note: this answer is incomplete, have asked @kristof to address the aspect around voting.)
What are the specific tasks and decisions to be done by the validator? What are the voting rules – in the DOA documentation it says: IMPORTANT: VOTING RULES NOT DONE YET, WE ARE LOOKING FOR FEEDBACK FROM COMMUNITY
Validators have minimal voting requirements, examples of things to decide on: upgrade of validator software, agree on rules to do with the validators and money on top of the validators secured blockchain. The DAO for ThreeFold runs as a workload but is not linked of being a Validator.
What are the concrete technical steps to proceed – where to activate the web-portal, install the cosmos chain, etc?
There will be a weblet to allow you to easily install a validator,
We will also have some pointers on how to do a manual install yourself.
We are working on a simple portal for money transfers, and voting at the moment. All code is at https://github.com/threefoldtech/threefold_hub, deployments will be available as an flist, and will be available via terraform/weblets.
As of which date, the Validator L0 will start to be active?
That’s not defined yet, Q3 or Q4 this year.
When will the pay out of the 5% fixed reward for year 1 and year 2 start? At the end of each year? Or each month?
Each month.
Who is the governing body defining the rules of the Validator program?
That’s the DAO itself = the validator nodes together.
Staking of the TFTs required for L0/L2 is for how long?
Moment you unstake you lose your benefit and position of being a validator.
Please share the SLA for L0/L2 Validators
The validator needs to be available at least 95% of the time out of the last 10,000 blocks, and then the validator can send unjail transaction to rejoin the validator set.
Can you please send over the validator simulator?
Could not find this link, does anybody have?
What is the situation in terms of locked TFT? How long are TFT locked for?
Could not find, does anybody have?
Can there be multiple wallets for the staking of the validators?
Not for the primary staking, yes for the top up, everything above 1m (L2).
When do the rewards start? From the point we have 2 million (L2) tokens? Or would it be backdated to the timing of activation once the second million tokens are secured?
Rewards only start when there are 2m tokens.
How often are validators paid?
Need to check in code.