Build a Delegator Community

Once you have successfully set up a Paloma validator, your validator will need to attract delegators to be able to participate in consensus. This will require extra work. While delegation should not be seen as a set-and-forget staking scheme, most delegators will seek validators who allow them to delegate more passively based on a validator's reliability, trust, and comission rate.

The existing delegator community will need to know about your validator and why it should be trusted. This guide aims to give a few general guidelines on different approaches to take in building a community and attracting delegators.

Most successful validators build a reputation for their validator services, and if they are able to, build a brand around their validator services. Successful validators should participate in the community and engage as much as possible in governance, as this shows commitment to the chain and the validator taking its reposibilities seriously. Becoming a known participant throughout the ecosystem is a great way to attract delegators and solidify longevity and sustainability as a validator.

Attract Delegators

Generating confidence among delegators is key as delegators will delegate their stake to those validators that positively impact their risk and are consistent with rewards. Although validators are not required to self-bond GRAIN, all validators should have "skin-in-the-game". This can help make a validator more trustworthy.

In order for delegators to have some guarantee about how much "skin-in-the-game" their validator has, validators can signal a minimum amount of self-bonded GRAIN. If a validator's self-bond goes below the limit that it has predefined, this validator and all of its delegators will unbond.

Consider the following options to help improve your visibility and make yourself known to potential delegators:

Set up a website

Set up a website so that your delegators can find you. It is recommended that you make a custom section for Paloma delegators that instructs them how to delegate GRAIN tokens.

Announce yourself on Discord

Join the Paloma Validators Discord (opens new window) channel, and introduce yourself.

Submit a validator profile

Submit a Validator Profile to make it official.

Add a thumbnail

Create a Keybase Account (opens new window) follow the Keybase instructions to set up a PGP key, and upload a profile picture. For best continuity use the same GitHub account to verify your Keybase, and your Validator Profile.

Now link your Keybase profile to your validator. Open your validator terminal and execute this command:

palomad tx staking edit-validator \
    --identity="keybase identity"