🌱Mainnet

Everything you want to know about Taraxa's Mainnet!

Is the Mainnet live?

Yes, you can see it on the mainnet explorer right now.

How does Staking work on the Mainnet ?

Delegation is required

In addition to staking into the contract, staked tokens must now be delegated to an active node on the Taraxa Mainnet network to earn yields, otherwise it earns nothing. This is a key economic mechanism in classic DPOS consensus to counter Sybil attacks.

After a Staker stakes TARA, they will need to select a node from a list of available nodes and delegate that stake into the node. Once a node has received the minimum necessary delegation, it will begin participating in consensus and earning yields.

Need to pay commission to the delegated node

Staking Yields (rewarded in the form of Block Rewards) and Transaction Fees now have to be split between the Staker and the Node Operator. How much commission a Node Operator charges is up to him, and whether or not the Staker selects the Node Operator is up to the Staker, making it a purely market-driven activity.

Pick a node that has the maximum expected yield

Not all consensus nodes are equal. Due to varying commitment, skill level, and resource allocation (e.g., does the Node Operator meet minimum resource requirements of a node), different nodes will have varying levels of expected yield. We encourage Stakers to be vigilant in switching away from low-yielding consensus nodes into high-yielding ones to help improve the reliability of the network — and of course earn a higher yield 😃

How does running a node work on the Mainnet?

Consensus eligibility from delegation

Nodes will now need to receive delegated staking from Stakers in order to participate in consensus. There will be a minimum and a maximum delegation for consensus eligibility,

• Min delegation for a node to join consensus: 500k tokens

• Max delegation per consensus node: 80mn tokens

There is a minimum requirement because any consensus node needs to get some sort of community recognition before it can participate in consensus. There is a maximum because we want to avoid excessive centralization and single-point of failure that could result in too many tokens being delegated into a single node.

Define a commission for your node

Each Node Operator will need to define a commission rate for every node they decide to operate, which is the percentage of overall Period Rewards (Block Rewards + Transaction Fees) that the node operator charges the Stakers. This is a purely market-driven decision, so please check out what other nodes are charging before you decide your own node’s commission rate.

How is commission calculated?

The commission is a percent of the overall yield earned by the node. If a node is charging say 5% commission, and it is earning 20% annualized yield, then the commission is 5% of that 20% yield, which is 1% of the overall delegation, annualized.

Here's a simple example,

• A node has 10mn tokens delegated, it earns 20% on that per year, or 2mn tokens per year

• This node has a 5% commission, so the node operator gets 5% of 2mn, which is 100k tokens per year

• The remaining 95% of the yield, 1.9mn tokens per year, goes to the staker(s) who delegated the tokens to the node

Can I register a Testnet node into the Mainnet network?

No.

The Testnet and the Mainnet are two different networks, with two different code bases. You cannot register a node from one codebase into another, and you cannot run a node from one codebase in the other's network.

Are Node Operators required to self-delegate?

There is a 1000 TARA self-delegation requirement for node operators. This self-delegation requirement is not meant to be a financial burden, but purely to guard against spamming.

How many nodes will there be in the Mainnet?

You can find a real time accounting of the network on Taraxa's website.

Since consensus nodes are driven by delegated stake, the number of nodes will depend on how many tokens are staked in the network.

Do I need to unstake to claim my staking yields?

You do NOT need to unstake in order to claim your rewards. Just claim your rewards on the community site's redeem section.

Will there still be a testnet?

YES! New features will still need to be tested before being deployed on the mainnet, so there’s always a need for a testnet.

Furthermore, the testnet will provide a good proving ground and a “bench” for potential Node Operators on the mainnet, so as staking increases, there’ll be a continuous supply of new nodes.

Top block producing awards on the testnet will also continue on until further notice.