Become a Validator

To become a validator, you can use Joltify installer or follow the steps below.

1. Run a full node

To become a validator, you must first have joltify binary CLI installed and be able to run a full node. You can follow the guide to setup your full node if you haven't yet.

2. Create a validator

In order to create a validator, you need to create a wallet first. This will be used in order to hold the tokens that you will later delegate to your validator node, allowing the validator to properly work.

You can run the following to add key (replace key_name with a name of your choice):

joltify keys add <key_name> --keyring-backend file

Alternatively, for securing a validator, we highly recommend using a Ledger device. To create a new wallet with a Ledger (replace key_name with a name of your choice), please run:

joltify keys add <key_name> --keyring-backend file --ledger

If you encounter any connection problem with Ledger, you can refer to the Ledger Support.

To ensure your wallet was saved to your keyring, you can check the keys list by running the following command:

joltify keys list --keyring-backend file

3. Obtain validator public key

The last thing needed before initialising the validator is to obtain your validator public key which was created when you first initialised your node. To obtain your validator pubkey:

joltify tendermint show-validator

4. Create validator

Ensure you have a small amount of JOLT on the wallet address you are using on your keyring in order to successfully send a transaction. Once you have a balance on the address on your keyring, you can now send the create-validator transaction.

Here is the empty command:

joltify tx staking create-validator \
--from=[key_name] \
--amount=[staking_amount_ujolt] \
--pubkey=$(joltify tendermint show-validator) \
--moniker="[moniker_id_of_your_node]" \
--security-contact="[security contact email/contact method]" \
--chain-id="[chain-id]" \
--commission-rate="[commission_rate]" \
--commission-max-rate="[maximum_commission_rate]" \
--commission-max-change-rate="[maximum_rate_of_change_of_commission]" \
--min-self-delegation="[min_self_delegation_amount]" \
--ledger \ # use this flag if you are using ledger

Here is the same command but with example values:

joltify tx staking create-validator \
--from=myKeyName \
--amount=1000jolt \
--pubkey=$(joltify tendermint show-validator) \
--moniker="yourMoniker" \
--security-contact="[e-mail]" \
--chain-id="joltifydev_1730-1" \
--commission-rate="0.05" \
--commission-max-rate="0.2" \
--commission-max-change-rate="0.01" \
--min-self-delegation="100000000" \
--ledger \ # use this flag if you are using ledger

Here is the explanation of these command flags:

• The from flag is the KEY_NAME you created when initialising the key on your keyring.

• The amount flag is the amount you will place in your own validator (Note that the initial staking amount must be greater than min-self-delegation).

• The pubkey is the validator public key found earlier.

• The moniker is a human readable name you choose for your validator.

• The security-contact is an email that your delegaters are able to use to contact you.

• The chain-id is whatever chain-id you are working with (in the Joltify Testnet case it is joltifydev_1730-1).

• The commission-rate is the rate you will charge your delegates (in the example above, 10 percent).

• The commission-max-rate is the most you are allowed to charge your delegates (in the example above, 20 percent).

• The commission-max-change-rate is how much you can increase your commission rate in a 24 hour period (in the example above, 5 percent per day until reaching the max rate).

• The min-self-delegation is the lowest amount of personal funds the validator is required to have in their own validator to stay bonded (in the example above, 100JOLT).

• The ledger flag indicates that you are using Ledger.

5. Track validator active set

joltify query staking validators --limit 300 -o json | jq -r '.validators[] |
[.operator_address, .status, (.tokens|tonumber / pow(10; 6)),
.commission.update_time[0:19], .description.moniker] | @csv' | column -t -s","

You can search for your specific moniker by adding grep MONIKER at the end:

joltify query staking validators --limit 300 -o json | jq -r '.validators[] |
[.operator_address, .status, (.tokens|tonumber / pow(10; 6)),
.commission.update_time[0:19], .description.moniker] | @csv' | column -t -s"," | grep brian

If your bond status is BOND_STATUS_BONDED, congratulations, your validator is part of the active validator set!

6. Track validator's signing

To track your validator's signing history, copy the validator public key:

joltify tendermint show-validator

Use your validators public key queried above as the validator-pubkey below:

joltify query slashing signing-info [validator-pubkey]

Example:

joltify query slashing signing-info '{"@type":"/cosmos.crypto.ed25519.PubKey","key":"WYKlg+xfaxxS+YzpPmwBhbcFtIHD/EfQr/TXoDxXxWQ="}'