SKALE Validators

SKALE is a network of Layer-1 blockchains which have zero gas fees, infinite scalability, and are built for best-in-class UX.

SKALE is unique from other blockchain networks. The SKALE Network has a pool of validators that work together to secure the network. These validators provide computation power to the SKALE Network by deploying SKALE supernodes. The collection of validators and the supernode(s) they spin up represent the entire validator network that performs work for SKALE Chains (a Layer-1 Ethereum Compatible Chain).

Each SKALE Chain in the network is operated by a group of virtualized nodes selected from a subset of the supernodes run by validators, utilizing either all or part of the supernode’s computational and storage resources [multi-tenancy].

As each supernode in the network continues to participate in their assigned SKALE Chains, they are awarded bounties based on their performance at the end of each network epoch. Each supernode is monitored by their peer supernode. When a SKALE Chain has reached the end of its lifetime, the resources (computation, storage) of its virtualized nodes will be freed so that validator supernodes may participate in newly created SKALE Chains.

Validator supernodes also receive direct payment from SKALE Chain pricing, which is “rent” paid by the chain owners/operators for this compute.

SKALE Economics

Please explore the following links to learn more about the SKALE Token Economics:

Expectations

Reliable connection to SKALE Network (low latency, high uptime)
Robust security practices and network architecture
Running the latest SKALE Node software releases
Participation in governance (when applicable)

To promote proper behavior, SKALE uses a Proof of Stake (PoS) system, requiring each supernode to stake a set amount of SKALE tokens, which can be slashed for any network-prohibited activity.

Activities not approved by the network include those which denote a failure to properly participate in each assigned SKALE Chain’s consensus, and maintain uptime and latency standards enforced by the Service Level Agreement (SLA).

Network SLAs are enforced through an algorithmic peer review system whereby each supernode is appointed 24 supernode peers to monitor and log their network participation, uptime, and latency. These metrics will be collected and averaged on the Ethereum mainnet to reward or slash supernodes according to their respective performance.

Requirements

To be added as a supernode to the SKALE Network, a prospective supernode must run the SKALE Admin, which manages all operations in the supernode and is installed with the skale-node-cli. SKALE Admin evaluates the prospective supernode to ensure that it’s upholding network hardware requirements. If the prospective supernode passes this verification step, the SKALE Admin permits the supernode to submit a request to SKALE Manager to join the network. This request contains both the required network deposit as well as supernode metadata collected by the SKALE Daemon (for example IP address, port, public key, etc.).

Once the request has been submitted to SKALE Manager on Ethereum, SKALE Manager randomly defines the prospective supernode as a ‘full node’ or a ‘fractional node’ by assigning different sizes of SKALE Chains to the prospective supernode. Full nodes have all their resources utilized for a single SKALE Chain, while fractional nodes participate in multiple SKALE Chains (multi-tenancy).

General Hardware Requirements

Important notes:

If you have any issues, you can save the logs using the skale logs dump command. It’s also useful to check logs from node-cli using skale cli logs from the docker plugin at /var/log/docker-lvmpy/lvmpy.log if there are any issues.

Block Storage

Docker has an easy way of limiting other machine resources such as CPU, memory, and volume. These resources are configurable through the docker setup. Configuring machine resources such as CPU and memory is easy to complete via the docker setup; however, configuring volume requires a few more steps.

To assist with configuring volume, SKALE Labs introduced docker-lvmpy, a simple volume driver for Logical Volume Manager (LVM) volumes written in Python to format and partition disk space per SKALE Chain.

When a validator sets up a supernode through the CLI, SKALE Admin calls docker-lvmpy to format the external and unmounted volume. Each validator in the SKALE Network must provide a non-boot external disk space, which will be used to partition the volume by the SKALE Admin.

SKALE Admin Flow SKALE Admin Flow 2

SKALE Admin calls docker-lvmpy to limit disk space per container (for example, 20GB) and splits the volume into 1/128 size partitions. Once LVM splits the container and allocates the new space to the SKALE Chain, docker-lvmpy informs SKALE Admin that the disk is limited based on the configured SKALE Chain size.

SGX (HSM)

Software Guard Extension (SGX) is an Intel® technology coprocessor ledger used for memory encryption and increasing the security of application code by storing encrypted data in the processor.

A SKALE node connects to the SGX wallet server, and then the SGX wallet connects to the wallet enclave (BLS signatures and ETH keys). Keys stored in the processor can’t be taken out, and they can only be encrypted or decrypted through the enclave. The key within the processor is secure in the enclave, and hackers can’t hack the enclave and receive the key.

Without SGX, human confirmation is necessary for transactions made in the SKALE Network. SKALE uses SGX for securing cryptographic keys by allowing supernodes to connect hardware wallets without human interaction.

SKALE uses BLS to sign blocks in consensus, and ECDSA is needed to validate regular Ethereum transactions. SKALE will have a separate wallet integration for ECDSA. SKALE will use Intel® SGX technology to store BLS signatures at the coprocessor level and let users automatically authorize transactions. Currently, other than bare-metal servers, SGX is supported for these cloud providers:

(HSMs) Ledger Nano, or Trezor can support ECDSA signatures but not BLS signatures at this time, which are used by SKALE Consensus.

Advantages of SGX Wallet

Helps developers protect sensitive data
Programmable for advanced crypto, such as BLS signatures
Doesn’t require validators to continually confirm transactions
All SKALE crypto (BLS/DKG) can be done through the SGX wallet

SKALE will have two types of SGX operations:

Local (Secure): Wallet running on the same server as the node
Network: Node talks to the SGX wallet over the SKALE Network. The validator is responsible for securing the connection.