This blog article refers to the Olympia Betanet that operated in early 2021. It is not relevant to the Babylon Betanet that is operating in early 2023. For more details on the Radix Roadmap, see What is the Radix roadmap?
In preparation for the launch of betanet on April 28th, everyone who was interested in running a node on Radix was asked to fill out a community validator proposal. These proposals are being used to help us select validators to help us test on betanet.
It has been two weeks since Radix announced the validator proposal program and we have received over 330 applications! We are now in the process of reviewing them, and before going any further want to thank all those who have applied!
On betanet, Radix will control the majority of the “temporary” XRD tokens. That means we will select which nodes are in the top 100 and make up the validators set. However, on mainnet, it is completely down to XRD token holders to decide.
Therefore, we are pleased to be able to share the validator proposals we have received so the Radix community can look them over, and the Validators can answer any questions you may have. It’s also the perfect time for prospective validators to start to engage with the community to make their case to the Radix Community as to why they should consider delegating their XRD tokens to them on the Radix mainnet.
We have asked those who submitted the applications to get involved with the community on both the #Node-runner channel on the Radix Discord, and the Radix Validators Reddit that the community has made! Once you have had a chance to review the applications, those are the best places to ask any questions you may have or to discuss node running on Radix in general.
What Happens Next?
Over the coming weeks, the Radix team will be reviewing the community engagement of prospective validators, as well as their proposals to identify those who we will be inviting to participate in testing on the Radix Betanet.
On April 7th, we will announce which nodes have been selected to participate in the betanet ahead of the betanet launch on April 28th. Due to the number of proposals received, unfortunately, it will not be possible for all prospective validators will be able to participate in the betanet. However, we will try to include as many as we can while balancing the range of testing requirements we need to fulfil on the betanet.
As a reminder, this selection process is only for betanet. When the Olympia mainnet releases, it will be down to the community to decide (by delegating their stake) which validators are in the 100 active validators!
Importance of Delegating Stake
In the lead up to the Olympia betanet, we want to remind everyone that delegating stake is very important to network reliability and security; you are choosing the nodes that are entrusted with the power and responsibility to operate consensus quickly and correctly.
Therefore, when engaging with prospective validators in the lead up to betanet (and beyond), consider how you may want to distribute your stake on mainnet.
We will be releasing more information about the importance of delegating stake, but for now, we wanted to provide a few guidelines for the Radix Community to consider:
- Obviously, you should only delegate to nodes that you trust not only to not be an attacker, but to have the technical ability and commitment to operate a reliable node.
- Resist the temptation to stake to only one or two nodes. Even the most well-intentioned node-runner may be disconnected for reasons beyond their control. If they have too much stake, a disconnection like this could slow the network or even (in an extreme situation) cause the network to temporarily halt.
- Diversity is important! A good, reliable, secure network should be made of node-runners with different types of deployments, in different locations – each with enough stake delegated to them to participate strongly in the network. Known community members are great, but so are professional node-running services, individuals who are making a strong effort to engage with the community, and others.
As the delegation of stake is so important for the network, on mainnet we intend to highlight these factors on the validator list shown in the explorer. This may include information such as the % of consensus rounds a node has participated in, highlighting nodes at the top of the list with a dangerous amount of stake and strongly encourage stakers to delegate to other nodes, and allow validators to link to an info webpage about themselves and their node to earn community trust.
With this in mind, we are excited to see how the Radix Community, token holders, and prospective Validators engage in the process leading up to betanet as this will likely set the precedent for future engagement in the process!
As always, for node-running or other general questions, the Radix Community is one of the most welcoming communities in the industry and we highly recommend both the Radix Telegram and Radix Discord servers as great places to chat about all things Radix at this exciting time!
Stay tuned for more updates or join our newsletter for the latest Radix Updates