Manage your validator

Once your validator exists, its settings are changed from its own page on the staking site. Open /validator/<consensus address> with the right wallet connected and a Manage this validator panel appears under the profile.

Everything in that panel is a transaction on the staking contract, signed by you. There is no admin who can do it on your behalf and no support request that changes any of it.

Who may change what

Two different wallets, and they do different jobs.

The operator wallet is the one that registered the validator. It changes the commission, the description and the keys. A registered agent address, if you have one, can do the same.

The consensus wallet is the one your node signs blocks with. It is the only wallet that can start and end maintenance, and it can do nothing else here.

Connect the wrong one and the panel tells you which one it wants. This split is deliberate: the key that sits on a machine somewhere is not the key that can change your commission.

One change per day

Look at Next change at the top of the panel. The chain allows one change to a validator per breathe block, which is a daily boundary, and the bar shows how far along you are.

While the cooldown runs, every form in the panel is disabled and the panel says when the next change is possible. That applies across the panel as a whole: changing your commission uses up the same slot as changing your website.

Plan around it. If you are rotating a key and correcting a link on the same day, do the key first.

Commission

Type the new rate as a percentage. The current one is shown next to the field, and three rules are checked before the button will do anything.

It cannot go above your maximum rate, which was fixed when the validator was created and can never be raised.

A single change cannot exceed your maximum change rate. That figure was also fixed at creation. It is what stops a validator from tripling its commission overnight, and it means a large increase takes several days of separate changes.

It has to actually be different. Submitting the rate you already charge is refused rather than wasting a transaction.

Raising your commission is visible to every delegator on your page. Doing it quietly and repeatedly, one maximum step per day, is visible too, and delegators can leave in a single transaction. See Manage your stake.

Name and description

The identity, website and description can all be changed here.

The name cannot. A validator's moniker is fixed when it is created, because it is the thing everybody identifies you by, and the panel says so rather than letting you try.

Keep the description short. It is stored on the chain, so every extra sentence costs gas, and it is paid by you each time you change it.

For a logo you need the validator directory instead, which is a pull request rather than a transaction. See Get your validator listed.

Rotating the consensus key

This is the key your node signs blocks with, and rotating it is the most dangerous thing in the panel.

The old address stops signing the moment the transaction lands. If your node is not already running the new key, your validator stops producing blocks immediately, and it starts missing them, and missed blocks lead to a slash.

So the order is not negotiable:

1. Put the new key on the node and make sure the node is running it.
2. Only then submit the new consensus address here.

Not the other way round, and not both at once. The form checks that the address is a well-formed address, that no other validator already uses it, and that it is actually different. It cannot check the one thing that matters, which is whether your node holds the key.

Rotating the vote key

The vote key is your BLS key, used for finality voting. Rotating it takes two fields: the new vote address and a fresh BLS proof.

The proof has to be generated with the new key, over your operator address, on this chain. It is the same command you used when you registered, with the new public key:

geth bls account generate-proof \
  --blspassword ./bls-password.txt \
  --datadir ./node-data \
  --chain-id 12216 \
  0xYourOperatorAddress \
  0xYourNewBlsPublicKey

Create your validator has the full sequence, including creating the key in the first place. Both fields take the 0x prefix.

The site checks the proof against the chain while you type, so a mismatch shows up before you pay for a transaction that would revert.

What is not in this panel

Your maximum commission rate and maximum change rate. Both are permanent, decided when the validator was created.

Your self delegation. That is a normal delegation from the operator wallet, done through the delegate form like any other.

Leaving the set. There is no exit button. Undelegating your self delegation below the minimum takes you out of the active set, which is not the same thing as a clean shutdown, so talk to us before you do it if the validator has delegators on it.