Validator Requirements

Technical and Economic Requirements

Running a ROKO validator isn't just spinning up a node. Time cards. ECC memory. GPS antennas. Staked tokens. Hardware enforces temporal precision. Economics enforce honest behavior.

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Hardware Requirements

Minimum Specifications

Bare minimum to participate. 8 cores process transactions. ECC RAM catches bit flips before they corrupt state. NVMe handles the I/O. 100 Mbps keeps you connected. The time card is non-negotiable - no OCP TAP, no validation.

Recommended Specifications

Production-grade setup. 16 cores handle load spikes. 32 GB RAM keeps hot state in memory. RAID storage survives drive failures. Gigabit networking reduces propagation delay. GPS antenna gives you stratum-0 time source - not dependent on network peers for temporal accuracy.

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Economic Requirements

Staking

32,000 ROKO minimum. Lock it for 180 days. This isn't a deposit - it's collateral. Misbehave and lose up to half. The stake makes attacks expensive. The lock period prevents hit-and-run.

Minimum Stake:    32,000 ROKO
    Lock Period:      180 days
    Slashing Risk:    Up to 50% for malicious behavior

Expected Returns

Block rewards plus performance bonuses. Hit your uptime targets, get the base 8-10%. Maintain tight time sync, earn the accuracy bonus. Top performers clear 15% APY. Underperformers get slashed.

Annual Return = Base Rewards + Performance Bonus + Time Accuracy Bonus
                  = 8-10%        + 0-3%              + 0-2%
                  = 8-15% APY

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Operational Requirements

Four numbers matter:

• Uptime: 99.5% minimum. Miss blocks, miss rewards.
• Time Accuracy: ±100 nanoseconds. Drift beyond tolerance, get slashed.
• Software Updates: 24-hour window. Security patches wait for no one.
• Monitoring: 24/7 recommended. Problems at 3 AM are still problems.

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See Also

• OCP-TAP Compliance
• Hardware Timestamping
• Consensus Mechanism