mev-toolkit/The-Merge/validators.md

Notes on validators

• the validator is responsible for creating a new block and sending it out to other nodes on the network.

• to participate as a validators, a user must deposit 32 ETH into the deposit contract and run 3 pieces of software: - an execution client - a consensus client - a validator

• once activated, validators receive new blocsk from peers - the txs delivered in the block are re-executed, and the block signature is checked

• the validator then sends a vote (attestation) in favor of that block across the network

• the timing of blocks is not determined by the mining difficult anymore, but it's fixed:

  • slots (12 seconds)
  • epochs (32 slots)

• in every slot, a committee of validators is randomly chosen, whose votes are used to determine the validity of the block being proposed

• the first block in each epoch is a checkpoint