Run a validator

A DAIT validator runs daitd, signs blocks, and earns 30 percent of block rewards weighted by the PoUW credits delegated to it. Self-bond floor is 369,000 DAIT. The active set is 189 out of a 999-slot standby pool with epoch rotation every 9 epochs.

Hardware

Component	Minimum	Notes
CPU	16 vCPU, modern x86_64	Block-STM benefits from cores; 32 vCPU recommended once parallel EVM workloads pick up
RAM	64 GB minimum, 128 GB recommended	State growth + mempool + Block-STM scratch space
Disk	4 TB NVMe Gen4	Pruned-everything ~600 GB at year 1; archive nodes need 5x
Network	1 Gbps symmetric, sub-150ms p99 to peers	189-validator BFT signature aggregation is latency-bound
OS	Ubuntu 22.04+ or RHEL 9	systemd unit shipped in `scripts/systemd/`

Stake and rewards

Self-bond floor is 369,000 DAIT. Standard Cosmos delegation is enabled, so validators may accept additional delegated stake; commission rate is set at create-validator time and adjustable on a 24h cooldown.

Reward weighting: each validator's share of the 30% validator pool is proportional to effective_stake_v, defined as:

effective_stake_v = stake_v * (1 + alpha * min(credits_v / stake_v, K))
defaults: alpha = 1.0, K = 4.0

credits_v is the sum of decayed PoUW credits delegated to validator v by hosts. Hosts choose which validator to delegate their credits to; this is a separate axis from token delegation.

Setup

# 1. Init
daitd init my-validator --chain-id dait_4090-1

# 2. Pull the canonical genesis (devnet path shown)
curl -L https://daitchain.io/devnet/genesis.json > ~/.daitd/config/genesis.json

# 3. Configure peers (substitute real seeds when devnet is live)
sed -i 's/^seeds = .*/seeds = "node1@host1:26656,node2@host2:26656"/' \
  ~/.daitd/config/config.toml

# 4. Start under systemd
sudo systemctl enable --now daitd

# 5. Once syncing has caught up, create the validator
daitd tx staking create-validator \
  --moniker my-validator \
  --pubkey "$(daitd tendermint show-validator)" \
  --amount 369000000000udait \
  --commission-rate 0.05 \
  --commission-max-rate 0.20 \
  --commission-max-change-rate 0.01 \
  --min-self-delegation 369000000000 \
  --chain-id dait_4090-1 \
  --from operator-key

State sync

State sync is enabled by default with a snapshot interval of 6,000 blocks. New validators can join the chain in roughly the time it takes to download one snapshot rather than the full block history.

[statesync]
enable = true
rpc_servers = "https://rpc.daitchain.io:443,https://rpc-2.daitchain.io:443"
trust_height = 100000
trust_hash = "ABCD..."
trust_period = "168h"

Slashing

Offense	Penalty	Window
Missed blocks > 5% of signed-blocks-window	1% slash + jail	10,000 blocks
Double sign (equivocation)	5% slash + permanent jail	n/a
Bad TEE attestation forwarded via vote extension	100% slash	per offense

Operational checklist

Sentry node architecture: keep your validator behind 2-3 sentries, not directly peered.
Monitoring: Prometheus is on by default at :26660. Scrape cometbft_consensus_height, cometbft_p2p_peers, and process_resident_memory_bytes.
Key management: prefer a remote signer (tmkms, horcrux) over the on-disk priv_validator_key.
Time sync: chronyd with at least 4 NTP peers. Validators with skewed clocks fall behind during commit.