Althea’s security relies on a global network of validators. These validators are key to maintaining consensus and play an active role in securing the Althea Network. In recognition of active contribution, the Althea Foundation rewards outstanding validators with $althea delegations. To be eligible for these rewards, validators need to meet certain basic requirements.
To qualify, validators must satisfy certain baseline criteria, while additional efforts (detailed in Section 4) can greatly enhance the chances of receiving a delegation.
The Althea community welcomes any feedback on this framework. This is a living document that will evolve over time based on the Foundations initiatives and the Networks needs.
Delegation Framework
Foundation delegations will be earned, and maintained over time, by consistent, professional, and value-adding contributions to the Althea Network. While there may be some exceptions to the rule, the Althea Foundation will govern delegations to Althea validators per the following principles and parameters.
- Max and Min Validator Commission: At the network level, validators are free to set their commissions as they see fit, but Foundation delegations will take into consideration market environment, and commission rate of validators to ensure delegations are not being taken advantage of relative to the contribution of the validators efforts to the ecosystem
- Concentration & Decentralization - Althea Validators are decentralized and spread out across the world by design. As such, foundation delegations are meant to be spread out across a large number of Althea Validators who meet the delegation criteria. Special and strategic Delegations for partners are considered on a per-entity basis.
- Delegation Recipient Responsibilities - Althea Validators interested in foundation delegations must contribute proactively to the Althea community on a long-term basis.
Minimum requirements:
- Must actively vote and participate in governance, with at least 95% participation rate
- Must be present for network upgrades (within 1 week of release).
- Must participate in one progress/check-in call per quarter.
- Must demonstrate continuous operational excellence of the validator, and security.
Additional contributions that will increase the likelihood of delegation:
- Build an open-source tool that will increase demand or supply on Althea.
- Maintain open-source repositories, databases, and more (and keep them running long-term).
- Contribute to the core Althea codebase.
- Technical integrations with other projects that drive workflows that contribute to network usage.
- Business development efforts that lead to more active supply or increased demand for network resources.
- Content creation that educates Althea users or builds awareness. This could include demos, walk-throughs, or general content highlighting various aspects of Althea.
Quarterly Delegation Reviews -
Validators who receive delegations are required to check in quarterly to review contributions, discuss project updates, and review the delegation partnership.
If you have a desire to contribute on a short-term basis, please feel free to view the currently available bounties, various incentives (when applicable) or feel free to create a post on GitHub discussions if you would like to explore making a governance proposal with funding from the Althea community pool.
If you’re interested in receiving a foundation delegation, please fill out this form:
- Contact Information
- First
- Last
- What is your role within the company?
- Company Name / Website
- Twitter Handle
- Discord Handle
- Telegram Handle
- Validator Description
- Please describe your experience for running a validator and your expertise. Are you a technical validator with a passion to build tools? Are you experienced with network security?
- Country of Origin
- What or how will you be contributing to growing Althea Network for foundation delegation consideration? Please detail specifics of what you’ll be doing to grow the network so that we are able to assess accountability and for quarterly check-ins
- Examples; are you hosting rpc nodes? Are you building tooling? Are you hosting ested ibc relayers? Please list in bullet-point format what your plans are in contributing to positively impact the growth of the network
- What other projects are you currently engaged in as a Validator? (select all that apply)
- Cosmos Ecosystem
- Polygon
- Avalanche
- Solana
- None
- Other
- Are you operating your validator on your own infrastructure (Bare Metal) or on a cloud-hosted platform? If cloud-hosted, which platform?
- What else would you like to know about you?
After submitting the form, you should receive an email from community@althea.systems with next steps. If you haven’t received a reply within 14 days of submitting your application, please send a note in the #validators Discord channel with “@admin” cc-ed for further visibility, or feel free to send an email to community@althea.systems.
Core contributors, including Hawk Networks, will be supporting the Foundation’s review of submissions, and will provide recommendations for the Foundation to review, however, the decisions will be made by the Foundation team themselves.
Initial delegation requests will be received until 09/15/24 and delegation announcements on 10/01/24. Requests will then be received on a rolling basis and evaluated at least once quarterly.
Please feel free to ask any other specific questions in forum.althea.net