IOTA’s latest blog post delves into the important roles of Validators and committees within the network. The post emphasizes that IOTA 2.0 is equipped to handle adversarial validators, which could lead to adversarial misbehavior.
Validators play a critical role in maintaining the blockchain network by contributing directly to the ledger’s progress and security in exchange for rewards. In IOTA 2.0, validators are nodes that issue validation blocks to facilitate agreement on the ledger state and the set of valid blocks in the Tangle. To learn more about validators, their selection, and rotation, you can refer to the Wiki article provided by IOTA.
The publication highlights that IOTA 2.0 relies on Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) to secure its network. Each epoch, a committee selection procedure determines a subset of validators responsible for carrying out the consensus protocol. These validators are known as committee members for the epoch.
Validators and committees serve several essential roles. They prevent double-spending and malicious manipulation of consensus. Additionally, epoch committees promptly approve blocks with transactions to ensure efficient ledger progress and reduce the number of blocks required for consensus agreement. This decentralized democracy ensures a fair and inclusive validation process.
In IOTA 2.0, there is no minimum stake requirement to become a validator, allowing for easy participation by numerous nodes. Users can also implicitly participate by delegating their stake to a trusted validator, increasing their chances of being elected to the committee. This promotes a more democratic and inclusive validation process.
The blog post also discusses the responsibilities of validators, which primarily involve issuing validation blocks. These blocks must meet specific criteria to provide quality services. For example, the time difference between consecutive validation blocks must be within a certain timeframe.
Epoch committee members utilize a tip selection algorithm with an increased number of parents and commit to regular committing slots. The validation blocks should align with the preferred reality of the issuer and not represent conflicting votes for two transactions. If a conflicting vote is detected, it is not counted in the consensus protocol.
Despite the measures in place, IOTA acknowledges the possibility of adversarial misbehavior due to the handling of adversarial validators in IOTA 2.0. Examples include manipulation of slot commitment chains, competing chains, incorrect chain extensions, and censoring valid blocks. However, honest validators will still reference these valid blocks, making it challenging for adversarial validators to successfully censor them.
Currently, IOTA is trading at $0.148265, experiencing a 3 percent surge in the last 24 hours.
If you’re interested in learning more about IOTA, the blog post recommends checking out the Buy IOTA Guide, IOTA Wallet Tutorial, and the 24-hour MIOTA Price.