This project is a demonstration of the Cosmos-Hub with basic staking functionality staking module designed to get validators acquainted with staking concepts and procedures.

Currently, the validator set is updated every block. The validator set is determined as the validators with the top 100 bonded atoms. Currently, all bonding and unbonding is instantaneous (no queue). Absent features include, delegation, validator rewards, unbonding wait period.

go get github.com/cosmos/gaia 
cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/cosmos/gaia
make all

See the cosmos-sdk documentation for more.

Gaia-1 is a community test-net which can be used to test setting up a cosmos validator node. Supplimentary to this tutorial you can also follow this video.

To work on the Gaia-1 you will need some tokens to get started. To do this first generate a new key:

MYNAME=<your name>
gaiacli keys new $MYNAME
gaiacli keys list
MYADDR=<your newly generated address>

Then enter your key into this utility with your key address and it will send you some fermion testnet tokens :). Fermions are the native staking token on Gaia-1 - see below for how to check your balance.

Now, to sync with the testnet, we need the genesis file and seeds. The easiest way to get them is to Fetch and navigate to the tendermint testnet repo:

git clone https://github.com/tendermint/testnets $HOME/testnets
GAIANET=$HOME/testnets/gaia-1/gaia
cd $GAIANET

Now we can start a new node in the background - but note that it may take a decent chunk of time to sync with the existing testnet... go brew a pot of coffee!

gaia start --home=$GAIANET  &> gaia.log &

Of course, you can follow the logs to see progress with tail -f gaia.log. Once blocks slow down to about one block per second, you're all caught up.

The gaia start command will automaticaly generate a validator private key found in $GAIANET/priv_validator.json. Let's get the pubkey data for our validator node. The pubkey is located under "pub_key"{"data": within the json file

cat $GAIANET/priv_validator.json 
PUBKEY=<your newly generated address>  

If you have a json parser like jq, you can get just the pubkey like so:

PUBKEY=$(cat $GAIANET/priv_validator.json | jq -r .pub_key.data)

Next let's initialize the gaia client to start interacting with the testnet:

gaiacli init --chain-id=gaia --node=tcp://localhost:46657

And check our balance:

gaiacli query account $MYADDR

We are now ready to bond some tokens:

gaiacli tx bond --amount=5fermion --name=$MYNAME --pubkey=$PUBKEY

Bonding tokens means that your balance is tied up as stake. Don't worry, you'll be able to get it back later. As soon as some tokens have been bonded the validator node which we started earlier will have power in the network and begin to participate in consensus!

We can now check the validator set and see that we are a part of the club!

gaiacli query validators

Finally lets unbond to get back our tokens

gaiacli tx unbond --amount=5fermion --name=$MYNAME

Remember to unbond before stopping your node!

Here is a quick example to get you off your feet:

First, generate a new key with a name, and save the address:

MYNAME=<your name>
gaiacli keys new $MYNAME
gaiacli keys list
MYADDR=<your newly generated address>

Now initialize a gaia chain:

gaia init $MYADDR --home=$HOME/.gaia1 --chain-id=test 

This will create all the files necessary to run a single node chain in $HOME/.gaia1: a priv_validator.json file with the validators private key, and a genesis.json file with the list of validators and accounts. In this case, we have one random validator, and $MYADDR is an independent account that has a bunch of coins.

We can add a second node on our local machine by initiating a node in a new directory, and copying in the genesis:

gaia init $MYADDR --home=$HOME/.gaia2 --chain-id=test
cp $HOME/.gaia1/genesis.json $HOME/.gaia2/genesis.json

We need to also modify $HOME/.gaia2/config.toml to set new seeds and ports. It should look like:

proxy_app = "tcp://127.0.0.1:46668"
moniker = "anonymous"
fast_sync = true
db_backend = "leveldb"
log_level = "state:info,*:error"

[rpc]
laddr = "tcp://0.0.0.0:46667"

[p2p]
laddr = "tcp://0.0.0.0:46666"
seeds = "0.0.0.0:46656"

Great, now that we've initialized the chains, we can start both nodes in the background:

gaia start --home=$HOME/.gaia1  &> gaia1.log &
NODE1_PID=$!
gaia start --home=$HOME/.gaia2  &> gaia2.log &
NODE2_PID=$!

Note we save the PID so we can later kill the processes.

Of course, you can peak at your logs with tail gaia1.log, or follow them for a bit with tail -f gaia1.log.

Now we can initialize a client for the first node, and look up our account:

gaiacli init --chain-id=test --node=tcp://localhost:46657
gaiacli query account $MYADDR

Nice. We can also lookup the validator set:

gaiacli query validators

Notice it's empty! This is because the initial validators are special - the app doesn't know about them, so they can't be removed. To see what tendermint itself thinks the validator set is, use:

curl localhost:46657/validators

Ok, let's add the second node as a validator. First, we need the pubkey data:

cat $HOME/.gaia2/priv_validator.json 

If you have a json parser like jq, you can get just the pubkey:

cat $HOME/.gaia2/priv_validator.json | jq .pub_key.data

Now we can bond some coins to that pubkey:

gaiacli tx bond --amount=10fermion --name=$MYNAME --pubkey=<validator pubkey>

We should see our account balance decrement, and the pubkey get added to the app's list of bonds:

gaiacli query account $MYADDR
gaiacli query validators

To confirm for certain the new validator is active, check tendermint:

curl localhost:46657/validators

If you now kill your second node, blocks will stop streaming in, because there aren't enough validators online. Turn her back on and they will start streaming again.

Finally, to relinquish all your power, unbond some coins. You should see your VotingPower reduce and your account balance increase.

gaiacli tx unbond --amount=10fermion --name=$MYNAME
gaiacli query validators
gaiacli query account $MYADDR

Once you unbond enough, you will no longer be needed to make new blocks.