As part of the Asset Hub migration, balances, governance, and staking operations were migrated from the Relay Chain to Asset Hub. However, some essential actions performed by validators must continue to be executed on the Relay Chain. If you are a validator for Polkadot or Kusama, keep reading as this could be of interest to you.


⛔ READ THIS FIRST!



This article is only intended for validators. No other user should interact with the Relay Chain after the Asset Hub migration performed on October 4th, 2025 for Kusama and November 7th, 2025 for Polkadot.


As a validator, you still need to use the Relay Chain to set your session keys, and that requires paying transaction fees on that chain. However, during the Asset Hub migration, all account balances were moved from the Relay Chain to Asset Hub.


After the migration, validators must teleport enough funds back to the Relay Chain to cover the existential deposit, a proxy deposit if applicable, and the fees for the required extrinsics.


TABLE OF CONTENTS

Common situations as a validator


Find the most common options you'll face after the Asset Hub migration as a validator and follow the corresponding sections below:

  • You used to operate from your stash account: Follow the first section and teleport funds from the Relay Chain to Asset Hub.
  • You used to have a proxied stash account: Follow the first section to teleport funds to your stash account on the Relay Chain and the second section to re-assign the proxy account to it (fees and proxy deposit). Additionally, you will need to teleport funds to the proxy account to cover the fees and the existential deposit.
  • You used to have a pure proxy stash account: Check the third section, which explains that every pure proxy stash account receives a free Any proxy corresponding to the one it had before the Asset Hub migration.


‼️ IMPORTANT



If you are setting up a new validator, do not set up your stash account as a pure proxy account.


How to teleport from Asset Hub to the Relay Chain on Polkadot Developer Interface


To perform any operation on the Relay Chain, your account needs a transferable balance on that chain. Learn how to teleport DOT or KSM from Asset Hub to the Relay Chain.


1. Make sure to switch to Asset Hub (Kusama Asset Hub or Polkadot Asset Hub) on the Polkadot Developer Interface.


2. On top of the page, navigate to "Accounts" > "Teleport":



3. This opens the "Teleport assets" interface:



Here, you can choose:

  • Send from account: choose your account with the source token (DOT or KSM).
  • Destination chain: choose the Relay Chain to send the assets to.
  • Send to address: choose your validator stash account.
  • Amount: enter the amount you wish to teleport. This amount doesn't include the transfer fee on the source chain, but the fee on the destination chain will be deducted from it.


‼️ IMPORTANT



Make sure you teleport enough funds so the amount received in the destination account is well over the existential deposit after substracting the fees.


4. After reviewing transaction information and fees, click the "Teleport" button, then sign and submit your transaction. 

How to recreate the proxy account on the Relay Chain


Most validators benefit from proxy accounts to manage their stash accounts. If this applies to you, you need to recreate the proxy/proxied association on the Relay Chain, which was moved to Asset Hub during the migration.


Before starting the process, make sure you have control over the two accounts involved (i.e., proxy and the proxied account). Then, follow these steps:


1. Teleport funds from Asset Hub to the Relay Chain, as described in the previous section.


2. To set up a proxy account on the Polkadot Developer Interface, navigate to the "Accounts" page.


3. Click on the three vertical dots next to the account that will be the proxied account and select "Add proxy."



‼️ IMPORTANT



The assignment of a proxy account in Polkadot Relay Chain or Kusama Relay Chain requires an initial deposit of 20.008 DOT (Polkadot) or 0.666933 KSM (Kusama), plus 0.033 DOT or 0.001099 KSM, respectively, for each proxy account added. This deposit is returned when the proxy is removed.



The deposit is deducted from your account's free balance, which after the deduction will need to be larger than the existential deposit, otherwise the call will fail.



Make sure you have teleported enough funds from Asset Hub to cover the fees, the proxy deposit, and keep the transferable balance over the existential deposit.


4. Select the "Add proxy" button again in the menu below. This will allow you to select or paste the account that will act as a proxy and the type of proxy it will be.



5. Sign and submit the transaction. The proxy account will then be assigned, and it will be able to issue extrinsics on behalf of the proxied account.

Pure proxy stash accounts

‼️ IMPORTANT



If you are setting up a new validator, do not set up your stash account as a pure proxy account.


If your validator stash was a pure proxy before the Asset Hub migration, this relationship was also moved from the Relay Chain to Asset Hub. However, pure proxies are created from the proxy account and their address is dependant on the block number when they were created, so they can't be recreated on another chain. 


To address this, during the Asset Hub migration, each pure proxy on the Relay Chain retained the Any proxies it had before the migration for free, meaning without a deposit.


To set the session keys for your pure proxy stash account, first teleport funds from Asset Hub to the Relay Chain into your proxy account (see the steps above). Once the proxy has enough balance, you can use it to set the session keys on the pure proxy stash account.


⚠️ ATTENTION



You can add additional proxies (like a Staking proxy) to the pure proxy on the Relay Chain following the steps in the previous section. Any additional proxies need a deposit as normal.