Run a Validator

Two node roles

Asentum has two distinct node roles, both shipped in the same CLI binary:

You can start as a service node (zero risk) and bond stake later to promote yourself into the validator candidate set.

Hardware requirements

Asentum is tuned for the median consumer PC. The Raspberry Pi 4 is the supported floor — it works, but it has less headroom under peak load.

OS: macOS, Linux, or Windows. Sync time from a recent snapshot: under 24 hours on the consumer PC baseline.

Install the node binary

The Asentum node ships as a single binary via a one-line install:

curl -sSf https://install.asentum.io/ | sh

The installer detects your platform, downloads the appropriate binary, verifies the signature, and installs to ~/.asentum/bin.

Run as a service node

Default mode. No staking required.

asentum init
asentum start

init creates the local data directory, downloads the latest snapshot, and configures peers. start boots the node in service mode.

Service nodes earn credits by serving useful work — RPC reads, transaction relaying, historical data. Credits enter a 7-day escrow window before becoming claimable, and are subject to random audit probes from the consensus committee. See the research repository for the full service-node economics.

Promote to validator

To become a consensus validator candidate, generate a validator key and bond at least the minimum self-stake.

asentum validator keygen
asentum validator bond --amount 500
asentum validator profile set \
  --moniker "MyValidator" \
  --commission 0.10 \
  --website https://example.com

Once bonded, your node enters the validator candidate pool. Each epoch, the protocol selects a rotating committee of approximately 100 validators by stake-weighted lottery. If you're selected, you'll start producing blocks and earning rewards on your next active epoch.

Read the full consensus mechanics in Consensus & Validators.

Rewards & slashing

Active committee validators earn three streams of income:

1. Block reward share — a fixed share of the per-block emission, split equally among the active committee.
2. EIP-1559 priority tips — the tips on transactions in blocks you propose.
3. Delegation commissions — commission (capped at 20%) on rewards generated by stake delegated to your validator.

Slashing. Misbehavior is punished:

• Double-signing (proposing or pre-committing two different blocks at the same height) is severely slashed and triggers immediate ejection.
• Prolonged downtime (missing blocks during your active epoch) is mildly slashed.
• Delegators share the slash proportionally with the validator. Picking competent validators matters.

Monitoring

Every node ships with a local validator dashboard accessible at http://localhost:3030. The dashboard shows blocks proposed, pre-vote and pre-commit activity, peer health, sync status, bandwidth usage, and reward accrual.

For programmatic monitoring, the node exposes a Prometheus metrics endpoint at /metrics.