With the launch of the Fusion mainnet on June, 30th we find ourselves ushered into a new era of the Fusion blockchain. Perhaps you recently found out about Fusion, perhaps you are a long time fusionite looking for a refresher course on what it entails being an active part of the Fusion blockchain. Either way, let this article act as a quick summary of some of the important talking points when it comes to staking and running nodes on Fusion.
Token Swap
The first step if you want to take an active part in the Fusion network is to either swap your ERC20 FSN bought on exchanges to the native FSN token or directly buy native FSN on exchanges that support them. At the time of writing, Hotbit is the only exchange confirmed to be trading native FSN but that list is bound to grow as time passes. The native FSN token is the only one that can be used for staking and transactional gas on the blockchain. Unless you intend to stake your FSN or send transactions there is no need to swap your FSN at this point since the ERC20 FSN will continue to exist for the foreseeable future.
The swap process have already been described in detail, you find all the information you need on Fusion.org here. Two important things to note though. First, there is only one swap address and it is the one listed on Fusion.org, never trust anyone messaging you anything different. Second, never send FSN to the swap address from exchanges directly, always use an address where you control the private keys.
Staking
Now that you have completed the token swap or acquired native FSN through other means there is a good chance you are interested in staking. Let’s see what factors there are to consider before jumping in to staking.
The Fusion blockchain is utilizing a ticketed-Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm which requires stakers to run a node and buy tickets to participate in the consensus. Each ticket costs 5000 FSN which means that the minimum amount of FSN required to operate a node is also 5000 FSN.
In the event that you cannot reach the minimum amount there will still be opportunities to recieve rewards but you will have to either join one of the community operated staking pools or utilize Quantum Swap to rent out your FSN as described here.
Operating a Node — What Can You Expect?
Successfully setting up and operating a node in the Fusion network will let you be a part of keeping the network both safe and decentralized while enjoying your fair share of the generous block rewards which currently adds up to about 40% yearly ROI with about 13.5M total FSN staked. You shouldnt expect a static ROI because if the number of staked FSN were to increase then the rewards would go down and vice versa. There is a multitude of guides describing how to set up a node and most of them will be found within Fusion’s Zendesk here.
Operating a Node — What is expected of You?
It is not all glitz and glamour being a node operator. The generous block rewards come with certain demands on you as an operator. You are required setup your node on sufficient hardware, current minimum recommended specifications are 2CPU, 4GB ram and 100GB SSD/HDD. You are also expected to keep your node online and responsive at all times. There is a strict mechanism built into the ticket system which secures that only responsive nodes remains in the network by retreating the winning tickets of any unresponsive node. Tickets are bought with time-locked FSN at a length of 30 days which means that any retreated ticket results in the loss of staking ability of these FSN for the remainder of the 30 days.
If you are thinking about running multiple nodes to the same address to make sure at least one node is online at all times then think again. There is one more mechanism built in to make sure multiple nodes cannot validate the same block as this would produce a mini fork or re-org. This mechanism will retreat ALL tickets of any address found to be validating the same block twice. Do NOT run multiple nodes on the same wallet.
The only way to make sure your node does not go unresponsive is to pick a reputable vps provider and have backup node(s) available to turn on in case of any downtime on your main node. There are tools being developed that will enable you to setup automatic failover nodes but nothing readily available at this point. Currently it will be up to you, if you trust your VPS provider enough where you think manually checking responsiveness and and starting backup node if needed is safe enough.
Node Operator Cheat Sheet
- 5000 FSN / ticket (unlimited number of tickets)
- 2CPU, 4GB RAM, 100GB SSD/HDD
- Unresponsive/Offline node when ticket is picked -> loss of ticket for 30 days
- One node per wallet! (Running more than one node per wallet will result in loss of ALL tickets)
I will try to update this article if there are any more questions that often comes up in regards to staking and running nodes that isnt covered in the node setup guides but that should be it for now.
If there is anything else you might be wondering about nodes or staking feel free to stop by in Fusion Developers Community on telegram, there are always friendly faces in there willing to help.
https://t.me/FsnDevCommunity
If this guide somehow helped you and you wish to show your gratitude, feel free to do so with som eth/fsn or whatever you want to:
Donations: 0xFaFCd500C32D28d0614052E1742d150e070bDa7d [FSN/ETH]
Even if you dont, the fact that you read all of it makes it all worth it. ❤