Becoming A Validator

Creating a Validator

Got questions or need help with becoming a validator?

• Visit the Secret Network Discord here and ask in #node-discussion or #node-support for help

In order to become an active validator, you must have more stake than the bottom validator. You may still execute the following steps, but you will not be active and therefore won't receive staking rewards.

Run a Full Node

In order to become a validator, you node must be fully synced with the network, using either the Quicksync / Snapshot or Statesync.

After you completed these steps, you can check this by doing:

secretd status

When the value of catching_up is false, your node is fully sync'd with the network and ready to go.

  "sync_info": {
    "latest_block_hash": "7BF95EED4EB50073F28CF833119FDB8C7DFE0562F611DF194CF4123A9C1F4640",
    "latest_app_hash": "7C0C89EC4E903BAC730D9B3BB369D870371C6B7EAD0CCB5080B5F9D3782E3559",
    "latest_block_height": "668538",
    "latest_block_time": "2020-10-31T17:50:56.800119764Z",
    "earliest_block_hash": "E7CAD87A4FDC47DFDE3D4E7C24D80D4C95517E8A6526E2D4BB4D6BC095404113",
    "earliest_app_hash": "",
    "earliest_block_height": "1",
    "earliest_block_time": "2021-09-15T14:02:31Z",
    "catching_up": false
  },

Confirm Wallet is Funded:

This is the secret wallet which you used to create your full node, and will use to delegate your funds to you own validator. You must delegate at least 1 SCRT (1000000uscrt) from this wallet to your validator.

secretd q bank balances $(secretd keys show -a <key-alias>)

If you get the following message, it means that you have no tokens, or your node is not yet synced:

ERROR: unknown address: account secret1xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx does not exist

Backup Validator Key

Before creating your validator, backup your validator key.

WARNING: if you don't backup your key and your node goes down, you will lose your validator and have to start a new one.

Create Validator

Remember 1 SCRT = 1,000,000 uSCRT, and so the command below stakes 10 SCRT

secretd tx staking create-validator path/to/validator.json --from <key-alias>

Where validator.json contains:

{
    "pubkey": {
        <secretd tendermint show-validator>
    },
    "amount": "100000000uscrt",
    "moniker": "<MONIKER>",
    "identity": "optional identity signature (ex. UPort or Keybase)",
    "website": "validator's optional website",
    "security": "validator's optional security contact email",
    "details": "To infinity and beyond!",
    "commission-rate": "0.10",
    "commission-max-rate": "0.20",
    "commission-max-change-rate": "0.01",
    "min-self-delegation": "1"
}

Confirm Validator is Created

You should see your moniker listed.

secretd q staking validators | grep moniker

Important CLI Commands for Validators

Staking More Tokens

(remember 1 SCRT = 1,000,000 uSCRT)

In order to stake more tokens beyond those in the initial transaction, run:

secretd tx staking delegate $(secretcli keys show <key-alias> --bech=val -a) <amount>uscrt --from <key-alias>

Editing Your Validator

secretd tx staking edit-validator \
  --new-moniker "<new-moniker>" \
  --website "https://scrt.network" \
  --identity 6A0D65E29A4CBC8E \
  --details "To infinity and beyond!" \
  --chain-id <chain_id> \
  --from <key_name> \
  --commission-rate "0.10"

Seeing Your Rewards From Being A Validator

secretd q distribution rewards $(secretcli keys show -a <key-alias>)

Seeing Your Commissions From Your Delegators

secretd q distribution commission $(secretcli keys show -a <key-alias> --bech=val)

Withdrawing Rewards

secretd tx distribution withdraw-rewards $(secretcli keys show --bech=val -a <key-alias>) --from <key-alias>

Withdrawing Rewards+Commissions

secretd tx distribution withdraw-rewards $(secretcli keys show --bech=val -a <key-alias>) --from <key-alias> --commission

Removing Your Validator

Currently deleting a validator is not possible. If you redelegate or unbond your self-delegations then your validator will become offline and all your delegators will start to unbond.

Changing Your Validator's Commission-Rate

You are currently unable to modify the --commission-max-rate and --commission-max-change-rate" parameters.

Modifying the commision-rate can be done using this:

secretd tx staking edit-validator --commission-rate="0.05" --from <key-alias>

Slashing

Unjailing

To unjail your jailed validator

secretd tx slashing unjail --from <key-alias>

Signing Info

To retrieve a validator's signing info:

secretd q slashing signing-info <validator-conspub-key>

Query Parameters

You can get the current slashing parameters via:

secretd q slashing params