Holders of the Network’s token who choose to stake these tokens to the protocol in order to participate in the network’s consensus mechanism. At all times throughout the staking process, the Delegator maintains control of the private keys associated with this address and has full control of the movement of tokens in and out of that address, subject to any bonding period set by the protocol.

A node, configured with the protocol’s software, that operates as the primary method for producing new blocks of the Network. It does this by selecting and ordering  the transactions to be included in the next block of the chain and creates that block per the protocol rules, in order to keep consensus on the blockchain. 

Validator nodes act as access points for delegators to participate in the protocol’s consensus mechanism, but they do not control access. A delegator can choose to simply undelegate from a specific validator and re-delegate through another validator.

Validators can be made up of multiple machine node types, a single machine node, or multiple validators on a single machine. The exact configuration of a validator node is dependent on the processing power required by a particular protocol.

A Validator typically has a keypair - public and private. Public keys are the Validator’s onchain identity, and the private key is used to control that identity on chain (ie. set the validator to active or inactive, set parameters like Commission Fee rate or plain text name). The actions the Validator can perform are set by the Network.

Validator Keys are NOT able to control Delegator’s funds. Please note that the Validator Keys are different to the public-private key pair controlling the delegator’s wallet address. 

Depending on the network, a Validator may have one keypair (Public and Private), or there are multiple keys that control and operate various functions. 

Tokens required on the Validator keys are typically the minimum self-stake required for the Validator to be activated, which is separate from the Delegator’s staked funds. The Network sets the minimum self-stake a Validator is required to have, and can sometimes be as little as 1 Token.

Token distributions made by the protocol if a Validator Node is chosen to validate transactions. These rewards subsidize the cost of network participation. 

Every Network has a specific way it calculates Rewards that can include Network state and Validator performance.

The Validator charges the Delegators who choose to stake their tokens to the protocol via the validator infrastructure. This fee is charged as a % of any rewards distributed by the protocol to that validator.

Commission fees help to cover operating costs of running the machine(s) and the network bandwidth that is required to effectively operate the Validator  in accordance with the Network’s requirements.

Validators set the commission fee %, but are only able to change it in accordance with limitations set by the Network. The Commission Fee is public information published on the Network, accessible by any participants including Delegators.

The tokens that are staked to the network are usually locked up (“bonded”) for a specified period of time. The length of time differs from protocol to protocol and is entirely controlled by the protocol. 

During this period, the protocol has temporarily removed the ability for the delegator to remove tokens from the address that is being used to stake and the tokens must remain in the address that is on the blockchain ledger.

Once the time period has elapsed, the tokens can be transferred back to the origin address (“unbonded”).  Subject to any bonding period that is set by the protocol, the delegator has full control of the movement of tokens. 

A delegator also has the ability to undelegate/unbond from a specific validator, and re-delegate to another validator without requiring permission from either the validator operator or the protocol.

To guarantee the integrity of the network, the protocol imposes a penalty on any participant who violates the protocol’s rules. This is referred to as a slashing event. These rules usually relate to signing or double-signing blocks or extreme downtime.

Slashing is applied at the validator level and is implemented by taking a set percentage from staked tokens.