Participating in verification.
WHAT RUNNING ONE PROVIDES
Independent verification, trusting nobody Privacy, since queries are not sent to a third party Support for the network's decentralisation
WHAT IT REQUIRES
Storage, substantial and growing Bandwidth, continuously A machine running reliably Initial synchronisation, which takes time
WHAT SYNCHRONISATION INVOLVES
Downloading and verifying the entire history.
HOW LONG THAT TAKES
Hours to days, depending on network and hardware.
WHAT PRUNING PROVIDES
Discarding old block data after verification, reducing storage.
WHAT IT LOSES
The ability to serve history to others.
WHAT RUNNING A VALIDATOR ADDITIONALLY REQUIRES
Committed stake High availability, since downtime is penalised Careful key management
WHY AVAILABILITY MATTERS ENORMOUSLY
Penalties apply for being offline, and severe penalties for certain failures.
WHAT THAT MEANS HERE
Power and connectivity reliability are the binding constraint.
WHAT TO PLAN
Backup power, and connectivity redundancy.
WHAT TO NEVER DO
Run the same validator keys in two places.
WHY
It produces conflicting signatures, which are penalised severely.
WHAT TO CONSIDER INSTEAD
Delegating to an established operator.
