The arrival of 1,600 Validators on the Helium blockchain!
Today, July 7, 2021 marks the arrival of the "Validators" on the Helium blockchain!
Introduction
The "Validators" are a group of servers which will have a very important role in the blockchain. They will allow the verification of transactions and the addition of new blocks to it. They will replace and do the work of the “Consensus Group”, which we know today in order to bring additional stability to the blockchain.
The current “Consensus Group” is made up of 16 elected representatives (Hotspots). This system has reached a certain limit with no less than 80,000 Hotspots registered on the blockchain! At the rate of current growth, the production of blocks directly on the network via Hotspots becomes unsustainable and creates delays.
Currently, the Hotspots lack stability during the Consensus Group: no fixed IP address, general public Internet connections, possible disconnection, etc. Therefore, some operations necessary for the blockchain do not always take place correctly. This is the case, for example, when distributing rewards or during payment transactions, which poses an obvious problem for all minors.
The idea is therefore to run Validators on more powerful hardware (servers), located in computer data centers and with a better network connection than current Hotspots. This will bring better stability to the entire blockchain and will prevent these various problems.
The results
With the arrival of Validators today, Hotspots will no longer be eligible for the Consensus Group. The 6% allocated in HNT will go directly to the Validators in order to provide them with compensation. So another loss for us, poor miners?
Indeed, we all remember the enormous rewards in HNT during the election of a Hotspot to the Consensus Group (the JACKPOT!). It was quite common to belong to this Consensus Group at the start of the blockchain with 10,000 Hotspots, but now with an exponential amount of 80,000 Hotspots your luck is much lower (in the order of 0.034 % , roughly every 2/3 years).
With a very low chance of being part of the Consensus Group, the consequences are negligible for current Hotpots. On the other hand, with a more stable blockchain, more regular rewards and fewer calculation problems, Hotspots will even win with the implementation of Validators!
Note that Validators will free up and lighten the load on Hotspots by reducing memory and network consumption. This will allow the arrival of Light miners soon in the blockchain (upcoming article on the subject!).
How to become a Validator
To create a Validators, you need to store / stack (block a certain number of tokens, such as an A booklet) 10,000 HNT for at least five months, which is currently the modest sum of 110,000 € (that's calm!). There are of course services or companies which employ people responsible for collecting this sum (this is called "pooling"). You still need to have confidence and agree to send your HNTs to an unknown company / person.
It will also be necessary to run and maintain a server in a data center, which has a significant cost (for the technical details, it is here).
At present, there are already 1,600 Validators in operation. The return on investment is around 11%, or 1'125 HNT / year. The rewards arise from the number of Validators active on the blockchain (see here).
If you want to learn more about Validators, I invite you to read the HIP 25 and the documentation associated.
Do not hesitate to join us on our server Discord if you have questions !
Recent updates to the Helium network
📈 78,000+ Hotspots on The People's Network
✅ 1,500+ Validators Staked for Activation
♋ Helium Zodiac NFT Auction Completed
📱 Helium App v3.3.0 Launched
📍 Mappers v2 Interface Launched
🔀 Console 2.0 Beta (Testers Needed)
🖥️ Microshare Console Integration
📄 Batch 1 of DeWi Grant Recipients Chosen
🐳 New Users Barnacle, ConnectedFresh, DIMO, and Abeeway
🗂️ 37 Hotspot Maker Applications Under HIP 19
🕺 16,500+ Hotspots Using Disco Mode
Contents
Find our different technical guides:
Tutorial on the Helium network, the full point!
Our hardware buying guides: