Become a validator

The four genesis validators of testnet-0 are run by the Aeva team. The set accepts up to 20 validators; anyone can create one by staking AEVA, and it joins the active set if its stake ranks among the top 20.

1. A synced full node

Follow Run a node and wait for catching_up: false.

2. An operator key, funded


aevad keys add validator --home "$AEVA_HOME" --keyring-backend file
ADDR=$(aevad keys show validator -a --home "$AEVA_HOME" --keyring-backend file)
curl -s -X POST -H 'content-type: application/json' -d "{\"address\":\"$ADDR\"}" https://faucet.aevachain.com/claim

Write the mnemonic down offline — it is shown once. The faucet gives 10 AEVA per address per 24 hours; a validator on testnet-0 needs a self-delegation of at least 1 aaeva, and ranks by stake.

3. Create the validator


cat > validator.json <<JSON
{"pubkey": $(aevad comet show-validator --home "$AEVA_HOME"), "amount": "5000000000000000000aaeva", "moniker": "<your-moniker>",
 "commission-rate": "0.05", "commission-max-rate": "0.20", "commission-max-change-rate": "0.01", "min-self-delegation": "1"}
JSON
aevad tx staking create-validator validator.json --from validator --chain-id aeva-testnet-1 \
  --home "$AEVA_HOME" --keyring-backend file --gas 400000 --fees 10000000000000000aaeva \
  --node https://rpc.aevachain.com -y

This stakes 5 AEVA. Check the set:


aevad query staking validators --node https://rpc.aevachain.com -o json \
  | jq -r '.validators[] | "\(.status)  \(.description.moniker)  \(.tokens)"'

The validator appears on the explorer’s Validators page.

Rules of the network

Parameter	Value
Max validators	20
Unbonding	3 days
Downtime	jailed after signing fewer than 50 % of the last 10 000 blocks; jailed 10 minutes; slashed 0.01 %
Double sign	slashed 5 %, tombstoned
Inflation	0 — rewards are transaction fees only, in AEVA
Governance	voting period 24 hours, expedited 6 hours

After a downtime jail, unjail once the node signs again:


aevad tx slashing unjail --from validator --chain-id aeva-testnet-1 --home "$AEVA_HOME" \
  --keyring-backend file --gas 200000 --fees 5000000000000000aaeva --node https://rpc.aevachain.com -y

Keys and operations

On testnet-0 the consensus key is priv_validator_key.json on disk (mode 0600). Never run the same key on two machines — that is a double sign. For anything beyond a testnet, use a remote signer (tmkms or horcrux).
Run the validator behind sentry nodes, with pex = false and the sentries as its only peers; that is how the genesis validators run.
Watch cometbft_consensus_validator_missed_blocks, cometbft_p2p_peers and disk space. The network’s own dashboards are on Grafana .