| title | Validator |
|---|---|
| weight | 3 |
A Validator is an entity that participates in the consensus process by sharing its votes. Validators get rewarded for creating new blocks, and to become a Validator, they must "bond" or lock up a certain amount of coins as stake. The amount of stake held by validators determines their power in the consensus.
The base Validator structure is 120 bytes long and consists of the following fields:
| Field | Size |
|---|---|
| Public Key | 96 bytes |
| Number | 4 bytes |
| Stake | 8 bytes |
| Last Bonding Height | 4 bytes |
| Unbonding Height | 4 bytes |
| Last Sortition Height | 4 bytes |
- Public Key is the Validator's public key.
- Number is a sequential and unique number assigned to each validator when it is created for the first time. The validator number is used to calculate the state hash of the blockchain.
- Stake holds the Validator's stake or the amount of Pactus coins locked or "staked" by the Validator.
- Last Bonding Height is the last block height at which the validator bonded stake.
- Unbonding Height is the block height at which the validator's stake is unbonded. If greater than zero, the validator is considered unbonded.
- Last Sortition Height is the last block height at which the validator evaluated sortition.
PIP-49 introduces an optional delegation section that adds 33 bytes to the structure:
| Field | Size |
|---|---|
| Delegate Owner | 21 bytes |
| Delegate Share | 8 bytes |
| Delegate Expiry | 4 bytes |
When the delegation fields are present, the total structure size is 153 bytes.
- Delegate Owner is the address of the stake owner account.
- Delegate Share is the stake owner's reward share in nano PAC (within
[0, 0.7 PAC]). - Delegate Expiry is the block height at which the delegation expires (zero means no expiry).