Axelar

Time factors

	Protocol time	Human readable time
Protocol time	Block	5.9 seconds
First reward delay	1 block	5.9 seconds
Reward frequency	Every block	5.9 seconds
Unbonding period	7 days	7 days

• Block times are not fixed.

Lifecycle

Must know before staking

Minimum stake amount	❌
Partial stake changes	✅
Partial reward withdrawal	❌
Compounding	❌
Penalty	✅	Offline - 0.01%
Slashing	✅	Equivocation - 2%

• Redelegation without unstaking. The protocol allows stakers to switch their validators without having to unstake and then stake again. The redelegation function can be used only once every 7 days.

Advanced topics

General

• Validator roles. Validators have three expected responsibilities on the protocol.

  • Participating in consensus. Validators propose and vote on new blocks.

  • Participating in the protocol’s multi-party cryptography protocols. Validators signal their participation by submitting a heartbeat every 50 blocks.

  • Reporting the state of EVM blockchains supported by the protocol. Validators can choose to support as many EVM blockchains as they want.

Rewards

• Rewards come from newly issued tokens and transaction fees.

  • Fixed inflation rate applied to total token supply. 0.5% is newly issued for participating in consensus. 0.5% is newly issued for participating in multi-party signing. 0.75% is newly issued for every external blockchain supported. At time of writing, there are 12 EVM blockchains supported by the protocol. Therefore, a maximum of 10% (0.5 + 0.5 + 0.75 * 12) will be issued to validators supporting all 12 EVM blockchains. 2% of the newly issued tokens is sent to the community pool.

• Factors that impact realized rewards.

  • Number of supported EVM chains. Since an additional 0.75% is issued for each additional EVM blockchain supported, the number of chains that a validator decides to support will impact realized rewards.

  • Validator performance. Unlike other Cosmos SDK based blockchains, the protocol measures the uptime (i.e. percentage of consensus votes submitted) and heartbeat to deduct rewards for underperforming validators.

  • Block proposer. A validator selected to propose blocks earns from 1% to 5% more rewards depending on how many other validator consensus votes have been collected.

  • Commissions.

Risks

• Penalty. A validator that fails to be online for 17,500 blocks out of the most recent 35,000 blocks will be considered offline. Stakers of an offline validator will be penalized and lose 0.01% of their stake. The offline validator will kicked off the active validator set and will be able to join after 2 hours have passed.

• Slashing. A validator that attests to two different blocks will be slashed. Stakers of a slashed validator will lose 2% of their stake. The slashed validator will be indefinitely kicked off the active validator set and will need to create a new validator.

Validators

Total validator cap	✅	75
Validator requirements	❌

Resources

• Axelar documentation: https://docs.axelar.dev/

• Axelar explorer: https://axelarscan.io/