What is node uptime?
- Author
- CRYPTO PORT Editorial
- Published
- Updated
- Reading time
- 4 min
In short
Node uptime measures how reliably a validator responded to the duties assigned to it. Under proof of stake, missed duties earn nothing, and on some chains a prolonged outage gradually erodes the stake itself. It is one of the main things to look at when choosing whom to delegate to.
Key points
- The share of assigned duties a validator actually performed
- Missed duties earn no reward
- Some chains erode the stake during long outages
- A key metric when comparing validators to delegate to
Definition
The proportion of assigned signing or proposal opportunities a validator actually fulfilled. Explorers and validator lists usually publish it.
Validators are assigned block proposals and attestations on a regular cycle. If the node is down or unreachable at that moment, the duty goes unrecorded. Uptime expresses how rarely that happens.
The consequences come in two layers. First, that duty's reward is forfeited. Second, some chains slowly reduce the stake while the outage continues — a response to the fact that an absent validator impedes network-wide agreement.
Outages are not only server failures. A botched software upgrade that stalls sync, a full disk, or a cloud provider incident all cause them. What really separates operators is whether monitoring and recovery procedures exist.
Watch out for
- · A validator with poor uptime directly reduces the rewards you receive
- · Published uptime depends on the measurement window, so check the period
- · Running a duplicate instance for redundancy invites double-signing penalties far worse than downtime