Staking

Validators stake GEN to become eligible for consensus duties. Other token holders can delegate GEN to a validator without operating a node. Stake secures the protocol, influences validator selection, earns rewards, and remains exposed to protocol penalties.

Validators and delegators

Minimums and the maximum active-set size are governance-configurable. Check current network configuration before transacting.

Owner, operator, and ValidatorWallet

A validator separates control of funds from day-to-day node operation.

• The owner key joins, deposits, exits, claims, changes the operator, and controls the validator identity. Keep it offline when practical.
• The operator key signs activations, proposals, commits, and reveals. It is the hot key configured on the node and can be replaced by the owner.
• The ValidatorWallet is a smart contract created when the validator joins. It is the validator's onchain identity and holds its stake accounting. It has no private key.

Selection weight

The protocol derives committee-selection weight from self-stake and delegated stake:

weight = (alpha × self-stake + (1 - alpha) × delegated stake) ^ beta

Current defaults are alpha = 0.6 and beta = 0.5. Self-stake therefore contributes more per GEN than delegated stake, while the square-root-like damping reduces concentration advantages. The activator role is selected uniformly and does not use this weight.

Shares and compounding

Stake pools use shares. A deposit receives shares representing a fraction of the pool. Rewards increase the GEN represented by each share; slashes decrease it. This lets rewards compound without issuing new shares for every epoch.

Delegation increases a validator's selection weight, but delegates also share the economic performance and slash exposure of that pool.

Epoch activation and priming

Deposits, withdrawals, rewards, and penalties are staged across epochs rather than changing the active set immediately. Under the current rules, new validator and delegation deposits become active two epochs later.

validatorPrime() processes a validator's pending epoch changes, applies rewards and matured penalties, and places eligible stake in the selection structure for the next epoch. The call is permissionless. A validator that is not primed is excluded from the next selection set until processing catches up.

Rewards and risks

Validators and delegators share the stake portion of transaction fees and inflation. Validator owners also receive the protocol's operations allocation. Exact rates and routing are protocol parameters; see the economic model.

Stake can lose value through penalties. Validators can also be temporarily banned or quarantined, which prevents new selection. Read slashing before choosing a validator.

For transactions and command examples, use the staking guide and validator setup guide.