The Roles & Responsibilities of a Validator Print
Modified on: Sat, 15 Oct, 2022 at 12:58 AM
What do validators do?
Validators have two crucial roles in maintaining the Polkadot network. First, they participate in consensus with other validators to produce new blocks on the Relay Chain. Second, they verify and validate the information contained in the parachain blocks they are assigned.
In return for their work and performance, they receive rewards in the form of DOTs. Their rewards come in two forms:
- From transaction fees and transaction tips
- From staking rewards, which are newly minted DOT from the network's inflation. These are calculated based on the validator's own stake of DOT and their commission, if it's not 0%
Should they not comply with the consensus algorithm (e.g., go offline, attack the network, or run modified software) they and their nominators will be punished by losing some or all of their staked DOTs. This is called "slashing" and is a way of discouraging bad actors in the network.
Becoming a validator requires some technical skills, a stake of DOTs, as well as trust and support from the community, in the form of nominations.
If you are interested in becoming a validator, you will find lots of tech resources in our Wiki and you can also join other validators in the Validators Lounge on Element Chat.
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