Overview

peaq block production relies on validators and delegators working together to ensure that transactions are propagated into blocks in a fast, reliable, censorship-resistant manner.

The main role of a validator is to create blocks and keep the state of the network up to date. After creation blocks are provided to validators on the relay chain for final approval.

The role of validators can be compared to miners in networks that use Proof of Work. However, unlike miners, validators don't improve network safety, but they're essential for maintaining network activity, ensuring it's decentralized and censorship-resistant. In essence, validators generate proofs of state changes for validators, based on the Polkadot and Kusama relay chains. They also run a complete node on both the relay chain and parachain in their respective operations.

peaq is using NPos (Nominated Proof of Stake) for block production and relies on the Relay Chain for block validation and finalization.

It's important to mention that due to the security design of the Relay Chain, dishonest validators can never finalize invalid blocks. Therefore, the maximum damage that dishonest validators can inflict is to slow down or temporarily stop the network. Provided there is a single honest validator, the parachain remains secure and fully operational. However, the speed at which blocks are created would be slower than when there's a complete group of honest and working validator nodes.

Delegators play another crucial role in the block production process by filtering the pool of validator candidates for honest, reliable validators, who show steady performance over time. Also, delegator requirements are much lower than validator's, thus decreasing the entry barrier and allowing the wider community to participate in the block creation process.

Besides, becoming a validator or delegator to participate in block production on peaq, users are encouraged to run a full node, in order to keep the network decentralized and censorship-resistant.