Summary of “IRISnet Validator Brief” Series

6 min readAug 8, 2019

On March 1, 2019, IRIS Hub was launched. It is the world’s first Bonded PoS blockchain network. Validators from all over the world joined and embarked a new chapter in IRISnet’s cross-chain network innovation ecosystem. Just as the miners of the PoW blockchain, they are responsible for generating blocks for each transaction and acting on behalf of delegators to guard the BPoS blockchain network consensus, secure operation and governance.

On IRIS Hub, users can participate in network validation by staking IRIS to the validator nodes. Nodes can receive inflation and block rewards in accordance to their Voting Power. Based on the on-chain regulations, rewards will be distributed to users based on the amount that they delegated, which are also the staking rewards they receive as delegators.

Delegated rewards of staking is affected by many factors, including the validator’s Self-bonded amount, Commission Rate, Bonded Ratio, Inflation, etc. If the node has a downtime or even double sign, the delegator will receive a certain percentage of IRIS penalties with the validator; therefore, the calculation of the delegated rewards of staking is actually a multivariate dynamic system.

In order to let the community know more about the IRISnet validators and select the ones that suit their needs to participate in delegation, the IRIS Foundation launched the “Validator Brief” series on the IRISnet Forum: https://forum.irisnet.org/c/validating

In this event, we received a total of 30 introductions from the validators coming from all over the world. Some are experienced veterans that went through Fuxi testnet. Some have played a major role in the Cosmos Game of Stakes. Some have multiple roles and maintains the security of multiple PoS networks. Of course, there are also some new faces. Due to their enthusiasm for this open network, they decided to embark their first journey on IRISnet.

Almost all teams have outstanding experience in security and node operation， and they can provide high-quality node operation services for delegators; therefore, IRISnet’s mainnet- IRIS Hub can run safely and smoothly. Please follow me and explore more details about those 30 validators.

Based on the series, IRISnet’s validators differ in ecological types and can be roughly divided into six categories. Most of them are validators who provide staking services as their core business, others have background in private equity funds, mining pools, exchanges, wallets and other blockchain projects.

According to the participation of the validator brief, the classification of the 30 validatiors is as follows:

73.3% of the validators take staking as their main business, including Cypher Core, Meleatrust, Figment, Node A-Team, P2P Validator, Staked.us, Forbole, POS Bakerz, bi23, Easy 2 Stake, Validator.Network and etc. Most of them are involved in the validation of many other PoS networks, such as Cosmos, Polkadot, Tezos, EOS and Terra, with excellent technical strength and great node operation experience. Validator.Network, Node A-Team, Forbole, P2P Validator, Kytzu, all had great performance in the Cosmos Game of Stakes. Node A-Team and Forbole also won the first and third prize at the Cosmos Seoul HackAtom.

There are also some enthusiastic validators who provide the community with a good blockchain explorer, including:

IRISnet-Overview from Genesis Lab:Https://irisnet-overview.genesislab.net/
Big-Dipper from Forbole:Https://iris.bigdipper.live/
IRISnet-P2P from P2P Validator:Https://irisnet.p2p.org
Hubble provided by Figment:Https://hubble.figment.network/iris/chains/irishub

In addition, some wallet teams are also involved in IRISnet validation, including Wetez Wallet, Math Wallet and Cosmostation. Wetez and Math Wallet have been involved in IRISnet since the FUXI Testnet and they both support IRIS transfer and delegation rewards which brings a good experience for users. Cosmostation is also planning to support IRISnet to provide users with friendly system tools and solutions.

Wetez: http://www.wetez.io/pc/homepage
Math Wallet: http://mathwallet.org/cn/

Some validators are from blockchain research institutes or exchanges such as Huobi Research, Syncnode, and Kytzu, etc. They also have a reliable infrasturcture and a secure auditing team, which can ensure a stable operation and online duration of the nodes, and provide real-time communication for delegators so they can delegate without worries.

Other validators are dedicated to be professional mining pool, such as HashQuark, Huobi Pool, etc. They have a top security team, a comprehensive security mechanism, and a experienced operation and maintenance team to respond quickly to users and ensure maximum mining efficiency. On the basis of security, transparency and high efficiency, it is also a good choice for the delegators to provide mining services for users.

There are also validators who were early supporters of IRISnet, including SNZ Holding, NGC Capital, Univalues, etc. After the first large-scale token release in May this year, they continued to stake most of their tokens in the network and contributed in maintaining a safe operation of IRISnet. They believe that IRISnet will be great in promoting the ecological development of cross-chain service technology. IRISnet did not disappoint them. On July 7th, it successfully completed the first on-chain parameter governance vote, and officially launched a new era of self-evolution.

In the following August, the v0.15 version tested on Nyancat Testnet will be launched on IRIS Hub, adding multi-asset modules and will fully support the development of DeFi applications.

After the successful release of IBC this fall, it is expected that IRIS Hub will become the first regional hub to connect with Cosmos Hub through the IBC agreement. Cross-chain asset management will bring vitality to future cross-chain ecosystem and cross-chain service network.

Summary

Like other PoS blockchain networks, the development of decentralization is critical for the security and stability of blockchains. Based on the Tendermint consensus, if there are a total of more than 1/3 (in terms of voting power) of the validation nodes violating rules, the network security will be greatly threatened; therefore, your delegation is very important to IRIS Hub. We encourage you to make your decisions based on the validator’s Uptime, Self-bonded staking, Commition Rate and other technical indicators, as well as their contributions to the network and ecosystem, reputation and professionalism. In order to minimize the risk, we encourage you to choose several validators to delegate to.

We believe that now you have a good understanding of the IRISnet validators and can make reasonable decisions that suit your needs. In addition to the validators introduced in this event, there are also some well-known validators who also have made great contributions to the security and stability of the network and have a reasonable commission rate.

For further information, go to the following sites:

IRISplorer：https://www.irisplorer.io/#/validators
IRISnet-Overview：https://irisnet-overview.genesislab.net/
Big-Dipper：https://iris.bigdipper.live/
IRISnet-P2P：https://irisnet.p2p.org
Hubble：https://hubble.figment.network/iris/chains/irishub

Now pick up the Rainbow wallet and find your favorite validator to delegate and start to make profit! Rainbow is currently available for download on the official website (www.irisnet.org), Google Play and the App Store. Please refer to the delegation rules for more details on reward distribution: IRISnet’s BPoS wallet is released |How to delegate your IRIS.

Review of the Validator Briefing Series:

Note: This article does not constitute any investment advice and does not represent the views and attitudes of the IRIS Foundation. Please be sure to understand the risks associated with delegation before making a choice.

Summary of “IRISnet Validator Brief” Series

Summary

Written by IRISnet