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Validator Node

A Validator Node participates in the Main Chain's optimized PBFT consensus, proposing and finalizing blocks. Validators are sampled from the Council into the active Committee each round.

caution

Validator slots are permissioned during the current network phase. Applications go through the XPHERE Foundation. This guide documents the operational requirements once admitted.

Eligibility​

To be admitted to the Council, a candidate must:

  1. Submit a formal application to the XPHERE Foundation
  2. Stake the validator bond — a Union membership is 35,000,000 XP (see Union Staking)
  3. Operate infrastructure meeting the hardware requirements below
  4. Maintain ≥ 99.9% uptime across two consecutive monitoring epochs — operating the node reliably is an ongoing obligation of membership, not a one-time admission check

Hardware Requirements​

ComponentMinimumRecommended
vCPU1632
Memory32 GiB64 GiB
Storage2 TB NVMe4 TB NVMe
Disk IOPS5,00015,000+
Network1 Gbps5 Gbps
Geographic redundancySingle regionMulti-AZ

The vCPU minimum matches the 16 cores published in the Union eligibility requirements. Storage is sized well above the published floor because chain data alone already exceeds 300 GB and grows continuously. PBFT message rounds are latency-sensitive, so network jitter matters as much as raw bandwidth.

Setup Overview​

info

Detailed setup instructions — the validator binary, configuration, keystore provisioning, seed peers, and registration — are not published here. The XPHERE Foundation provides initial technical support to admitted members as part of the registration process.

Operational SLOs​

These are the service levels Union members commit to under the Council agreement. They are not enforced automatically by the protocol — the Foundation monitors them and applies the conduct terms below.

MetricTargetAction if breached
Block proposal success≥ 99.5%Investigate dropped peers
PREPARE→COMMIT latency≤ 200 ms p99Check network jitter
Disk IOPS≥ 5,000Upgrade storage
Uptime≥ 99.9%Improve runbook coverage

Slashing Conditions​

The current network does not implement automated on-chain slashing. The Foundation enforces the following conditions through the Council agreement:

  • Double-signing — proposing conflicting blocks at the same height and round
  • Equivocation — voting PREPARE and COMMIT for conflicting blocks in the same round
  • Extended downtime — more than 48 hours consecutively offline

Penalties range from bond reduction to removal from the Council.

Monitoring​

Recommended Prometheus metrics to scrape from --metrics --prometheus:

xphere_consensus_round_total
xphere_consensus_proposals_accepted_total
xphere_consensus_proposals_orphaned_total
xphere_p2p_peers
xphere_chain_head_block_number

See Also​