The second validator auction will take place in June. Those wishing to become a validator candidate should start the whitelisting process now. The deadline for submitting your email address is the 31st of May, 2020, at 23:59 UTC.
The Trustlines validator auction is a Dutch auction held to discover the fair price of a validator slot. Successful bidders become the set of validators for the Trustlines Blockchain for the duration of the new validator period. The people who bid for a validator slot in the auction will have their stake locked until the end of the validator period. The validators can then withdraw their stake after the locking period ends.
The auction itself is a smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain. The smart contract will not accept any other tokens than TLN as a bid. To be able to take part in the auction, an Ethereum address must have been whitelisted by the Trustlines Foundation prior to the start of the auction. Every whitelisted Ethereum address can take part in the auction once.
Once the auction starts, the whitelisted addresses will be able to take part in the dedicated auction website. The auction site will have a guided walkthrough for submitting a bid in the auction. Validators from the previous validator periods should also take part in the whitelisting process to ensure inclusion for the next round.
The number of validator slots available is planned to be 55. The minimum participation level for a successful auction is expected to be 20. The auction ends at the earliest 14 days from the start date, or when the 55th successful bid is received, whichever comes first.
If less than 20 addresses have participated at the time the auction ends, it will fail. No validator slots will be awarded, and all participants can withdraw their bids. If there are more than 20 successful bids, the auction will succeed.
When does the auction take place?
The second validator auction is expected to start on the 9th of June, 2020. The duration will be two weeks, ending on the 23rd of June.
For this auction, TLN, Trustlines Network Token, is the currency used for bidding. No ETH will be used for bidding but will be needed to pay for the transaction gas costs.
The minimum slot price is currently 32,000 TLN.
For acquiring TLN, you can check if you’re included in the Merkle Drop. Another way would be to get TLN via UniSwap V1 & V2. There could also be other places to acquire the tokens that are not listed here.
The whitelisting process for the second auction is underway
Trustworthy and pseudo-anonymous validators are crucial for securing the Trustlines Blockchain. If you believe in the vision and want to ensure a reliable infrastructure, consider becoming a validator. It's also an excellent way to gain some experience running a validator node on a blockchain.
Starting the process of becoming a validator candidate is simple. Send your email address as a Direct Message to the @tl_validator Twitter account.
Once the deadline has passed, we will perform the Proof of Sociality check and inform the candidates via email. If you do not receive an email, you are unfortunately not in the Proof of Sociality pool. We'll also notify everyone via public tweets through the @TrustlinesFound, and @tl_validator Twitter accounts afterward.
If you're still undecided, send your email address! After the whitelisting, you can decide whether to take part in the auction.
Process summary for being included in the whitelist can be found at the Trustlines Forum.
The outcome of the first validator auction
The first validator auction took place in October 2019. A total of 45 validators bid and gained a validator slot. Most of them started running a validator node and remained online, but 11 were forked out by the other validators due to inactivity in December.
The first validator period has been a successful one. The Trustlines Blockchain has been stable and secure. Block times have remained consistent with an average of 6.5 seconds, and people have been able to convert their TLN to TLC.
A Trustlines validator is a person or entity that is part of the current validator set of the Trustlines Blockchain. The validators ensure the security of the Trustlines Blockchain by validating transactions and adding blocks to the existing blockchain. Additionally, Trustlines validators monitor the Trustlines bridge to provide Trustlines Network Token to Trustlines Network Coin transfers. The validators also decide on blockchain forks, and resulting protocol changes with the rest of the Trustlines ecosystem.
The time has now come for the second auction. We hope that the first period's success will convince people to join us and become validators!
More to follow
Follow the @TrustlinesFound Twitter account or subscribe to the Trustlines Blog for more news about the auction. Join the community at the Trustlines Forum for discussions about being a validator and for posts about the whitelisting process's progress.
Trustlines Foundation
