Today, we’re announcing our ‘Meet The Block Producers’ campaign, and over the coming months, we will be introducing you to the incredible Block Producers that help power the Proton Blockchain ecosystem.
What are Block Producers?
Block Producers are at the heart of the Proton ecosystem. They are independent organizations that run open-source software to record and validate the transactions of the Proton Blockchain into immutable blocks.
At any one time, there are 21 active Block Producers, who produce new blocks every 0.5 seconds, with an additional 30 Block Producers on standby. A 2/3 + 1 consensus of Block Producers is needed to write a transaction into the blockchain with 3-minute finality, during which time the transactions in the produced blocks are verified by the other active producers in rotation.
Elections are conducted every few minutes where standby producers can become active producers based on their token weighted voting. The Block Producer ranking is public and can be viewed on the homepage of the Protonscan block explorer.
What else do Block Producers do?
The primary job of a Block Producer is to allocate computational resources to validate transactions. However, they also play additional roles in the ecosystem.
They continuously provide tools and services to dApps, users, and developers, store the Proton blockchain history and make it accessible via API to wallets and applications.
Block Producers also serve as local resources to developers and users in their respective communities.
Who can become a Block Producer?
While anyone can register to become a Block Producer, gaining the ability to function as one is a diligent process. To gain permission for election, Block Producers must meet the minimum criteria set by the Proton Consortium, which includes running API, P2P, and Producer nodes with 99.99% uptime and participating in the Proton Blockchain Testnet.
Read our blog on how to become a Block Producer here.
Why is it important to vote for Block Producers?
Proton Blockchain stakers elect Block Producers by staking their $XPR coins and voting for their top four choices of Block Producers. Through this process, voting is weighted and those with the most votes earn the most XPR when actively producing.
Ideally, users vote for Block Producers that bring additional value to the network outside of their role as simply validating transactions. We started this series to help you make your staking decisions.
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