Creating a Validator

Before you can create a validator on the blockchain you need a fresh wallet to use for your validator account.

Creating a new validator wallet

This section will walk you through making a brand new wallet. If that's what you'd like to do you can follow that.

Option B: Using an existing wallet instead

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You can also import an existing wallet in a variety of ways. Take a look at the output of the command ./hmy keys below to see your options.

./hmy keys
Manage your local keys
Usage:
hmy keys \[flags]
hmy keys \[command]
Available Commands:
add                   Create a new keystore key
check-passphrase      Check if passphrase for given account is valid.
export-ks             Export the keystore file contents
export-private-key    Export the secp256k1 private key
generate-bls-key      Generate bls keys then encrypt and save the private key with a requested passphrase
generate-bls-keys     Generates multiple bls keys for a given shard network configuration and then encrypts and saves the private key with a requested passphrase
get-public-bls-key    Get the public bls key associated with the provided private bls key
import-ks             Import an existing keystore key
import-private-key    Import an existing keystore key (only accept secp256k1 private keys)
list                  List all the local accounts
location              Show where `hmy` keeps accounts & their keys
mnemonic              Compute the bip39 mnemonic for some input entropy
recover-bls-key       Recover bls keys from an encrypted bls key file
recover-from-mnemonic Recover account from mnemonic
remove                Remove a key from the keystore
save-bls-key          Encrypt and save the bls private key with a requested passphrase
Flags:
\-h, --help   help for keys
Global Flags:
\--file string   Path to file for given command when applicable
\-e, --ledger        Use ledger hardware wallet
\--no-latest     Do not add 'latest' to RPC params
\--no-pretty     Disable pretty print JSON outputs
\-n, --node string   <host> (default "<http://localhost:9500>")
\-v, --verbose       dump out debug information, same as env var HMY_ALL_DEBUG=true
Use "hmy keys \[command] --help" for more information about a command.

For example, if you'd like to recover your wallet from a mnemonic phrase, run the following command.

./hmy keys recover-from-mnemonic [myUserAccount] --passphrase

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Add your linux user account name in place of [myUserAccount] - We use serviceharmony as our user name.

You can also replace recover-from-mnemonic with the importing option of your choice on the list above.

After you've created a wallet or imported an existing wallet successfully you can view your registered validator wallet address with the following command.

./hmy keys list

Copy the entire command. Extra white spaces in the command could cause errors. Name, identity, details, security-contact and website need to be put in double quotes if there are more than one word separated by space (example --name "John the validator").

Our suggestions

You will want to setup your logo for the validator. Here's the Adding A Validator Logo section of the official guide that will get you set up with an identity string. We suggest including the identity string in your create-validator command.

With that in mind, the only extra item we suggest to include is the --identity information. Here's an example with a fake address and information as an example.

Example on Mainnet w/ 1 BLS key

./hmy --node="https://api.s0.t.hmny.io" staking create-validator \
    --validator-addr one1rka0v5rct0857f2f*6ahn0cyd89uvravr3yjw --amount 10000 \
    --bls-pubkeys a243b3a090063bae6aeca9215*05de1a94a033c50ab98ed98c50ab98ed984c9cf23513585e1af0cc4c9cf23513585e1af0cc \
    --name "My Awesome Validator" --identity 05de1a94a0*33c50ab98ed98 --details "All your validator notes that show up on the staking.harmony.one site" \
    --security-contact "myemail@address.com" --website "your-website.com" \
    --max-change-rate 0.1 --max-rate 0.1 --rate 0.1 \
    --max-total-delegation 100000000 --min-self-delegation 10000 --passphrase --gas-price 100

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Copy the entire command above and edit it yourself. Extra white spaces in the command could cause errors.

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Decide on your max-change-rate and max-rate before sending your command. These cannot be modified once created.

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Here's all of the options you will customize before sending your create command.
validator-addr - Your Validator wallet with 10001+ coins available to delegate at least 10k.
amount - Must be at least 10k. Have extra one available for fees. 1 $ONE is enough currently.
bls-pubkeys - Your BLS public key
name - The name you want listed on the validator staking page
identity - Your validator logo string you made earlier
details - The details you want on the validator staking page
security-contact - Your email address
website - Your website or social media account
max-change-rate - Maximum you can adjust your rate in a 24 hour period max-rate - Maximum rate you can charge as a fee on your validator rate - Your current fee rate
max-total-delegation - The max $ONE that can be delegated by one single wallet
min-self-delegation - Must be at least 10k, you can leave this at 10k.

Creating a Validator

Creating a new validator wallet#

Option B: Using an existing wallet instead#