Since November 2023, Hypha has worked with AADAO to give testnet validators the opportunity to earn ATOM for participating on the ICS testnet. This Testnets Incentives Program is meant to incentivize high quality validator performance on the ICS testnet on a per-period basis, with periods resetting every 5-6 weeks.
The ICS testnet is public, meaning that anyone can join, run a validator, and learn about gaia node operations and new features on the Cosmos Hub.
However – only active mainnet validators who run all Top N consumer chains are eligible for payments from TIP.
- Join the ICS testnet by following the instructions here
- Register using the Google form here
- Stay tuned for Testnet Wednesday events by following our schedule here (and in Discord)
- Track validator participation using the Google sheet here
You can register by filling out our Google form. You only need to register once (unless either your mainnet or testnet validator address change).
In order for us to track your participation, we need to have an on-chain way to confirm that your mainnet validator and testnet validator are associated with one another (otherwise, some random person could claim to be a mainnet validator and claim the incentives)!
We accept two ways of proving this:
- Memo: Using your mainnet validator wallet, send a trivial amount of ATOM to our multisig address (
cosmos1078gmgntta9qguve7c52dhxrs45xumjvcwrutd). In the memo field, put the cosmovaloper address of your testnet validator. Do NOT put the address of your mainnet validator. - Email: Using the email in your mainnet validator’s security contact, email [email protected] and tell us the cosmovaloper address of your testnet validator . Reminder -- you can edit your security contact using the following command:
gaiad tx staking edit-validator --security-contact <contact info> --from <self-delegation address>
Each period, we evaluate the following five criteria:
- Criteria 1: Be an active mainnet validator. Submit proof via our Google form
- Criteria 2: Validate all available Top N consumer chains secured by the Cosmos Hub (Neutron and Stride) with assigned consumer keys (i.e., do not reuse your Hub key).
- Criteria 3: Remain unjailed on the provider chain for the entire period.
- Criteria 4: Participate in every Testnet Wednesday event according to event criteria (e.g. sign within five blocks of a major upgrade, sign by a designated block after an upgrade).
- Criteria 5: Run a testnet infrastructure setup that closely mimics mainnet.
Validators can typically track all criteria except for Criteria 4 (participation) using their own monitoring and awareness of their options. We publish results for Criteria 4 (participation) in this public Google Sheet throughout the period and erase it at the end of a period after payments have been made.
We occasionally make exceptions for an entire event for Criteria 3 (jailing) and Criteria 4 (participation) depending on how the testnet is behaving.
- Exceptions for Criteria 4 (participation) mean we will remove an event and not count it at all. This sometimes happens if we give incorrect instructions or fail to announce an event with enough lead time.
- Exceptions for Criteria 3 (jailing) occur when there’s a widespread event that impacts many validators. For example, if a bug is discovered during an upgrade and it leads to many validators being jailed, we might make an exception and not count that jailing incident for the period.
We also sometimes make exceptions for:
- Intentional experimentation communicated in advance. For example: trying to double sign and getting tombstoned for it, trying a new cosmovisor setting and missing a 5 block signing window because it doesn’t work.
- Quick diagnosis and resolution of issues, possibly involving submitting logs for debugging. For example, being jailed due to a faulty snapshot, informing the snapshot provider, unjailing, and emailing [email protected] within 24 hours (~15,000 blocks) of being jailed to explain the situation.
Once a period is completed and payments have been made, there will be no changes made retroactively.