Ethereum validator

What is an Ethereum validator server?

In a proof of stake blockchain you need validators node, which are automated servers which validate the blockchain transaction. So there are server maintained by the people who wants to help the project. The servers are linked to a wallet, where a part of transactions fee comes as a reward.

What are the hardware requirements?

The server has to be up as long as possible, to earn more and to not get penalties. Theoretically server needs to have at minimum 90-95% uptime, but if you keep it above, it's obviously better. The requirements are big storage (starting with 1TB), high network uptime and obviously infrastructure stability.

Which are the budget requirements?

To start an ethereum validator you need to block 32 ETH in the network, at the start of this project (in 2020), 32 ETH were equals to 20-30k USD, a big investment on the network. You can check the actual price on CoinMarketCap. These ETH can't be sell until the shard chains update. It's an investment in the future of Ethereum.

Decentralization

One of the most important parts of blockchains is decentralization, so it's a good practice to host this server at home, but sometimes there can be some problems, for example noise, power consumption, uptime, etc.. So, I decided to host the server on a small but stable service provider.

Client diversity

When I started the server (in 2020), there were not so many different execution clients and consensus clients. So I chose the most used which was Geth and Prysm. Today a lot of users are promoting Client Diversity, which add a second level of decentralization. In addition to diversify server locations, we should need to diversify clients, in order to not have the same problems if some clients have some bugs, etc..

Monitoring

There are different ways to monitor an Ethereum staking validator server, you can do it online, checking block validations, after that you can do it locally on the server. I installed Prometheus and Grafana on the server, to let the owner check if server is up and running.

Future

Server needs to be updated, so I continue maintaining this server. If you need a validator server or more info, contact me.