What is Validation? #
Validation is the process of verifying transactions before they are added to the blockchain. This process involves collecting transaction data, determining whether the transactions meet protocol requirements and whether the transactions are legal or not.
What is Validator? #
A Validator is responsible for operating nodes in the PoS consensus mechanism and verifying transactions on the blockchain. After validating transactions, Validator will receive rewards from the network in the form of transaction fees.
For example: If a Validator participates in staking on the Casper Network, their reward will be $CSPR coins, which is the cryptocurrency of Casper Network project.
- Read more: What is Proof Of Stake (PoS)?
Differences between Miners and Validator #
Miners #
With the Proof of Work (PoW) consensus mechanism, the nodes’ operators are the miners. For miners, they need to equip specialized computer devices, with good configuration, and high computing power to participate in the algorithm race that PoW creates. The miner who solves the algorithm the fastest will create a block for that blockchain and receive a reward from the network.
Validator #
The main task of a Validator is to stake a certain amount of coins into the system. This amount of coins is considered their share in the system and enables them to have the right to validate certain blocks. Furthermore, if any fraudulent activity occurs during the validation process, they will immediately lose the staked amount of coins (this is called a penalty, which is not present in PoW). Of course, after successfully creating a new block, they will receive a reward in the form of transaction fees from that block.
Weight of a Validator #
In PoS, we know that there are two popular methods for selecting Validators:
- Randomized Block Selection: By searching for Validators with the lowest Hashrate along with the highest stake amounts.
- Coin Age Selection: By selecting nodes based on the time their tokens have been staked. The age of the coin is calculated by multiplying the number of days the coin has been staked by its quantity.
Therefore, the likelihood of being selected to create a block as a Validator depends not only on the amount of coins staked but also on the age of those coins. Typically, after staking coins, Validators will need to wait for a period of time ranging from a few hours to a few days for the coins to “mature”. The more coins and the older they are, the higher the weight. The higher the Weight, the higher the likelihood the Validator will receive the next blocks.”