Validator Selection Strategies

To choose the validators in the xx network, you will first need to follow Nominating Validators page.

Once you know all the steps to nominate, you can follow this article.

This article can help you to save a lot of XX coins. Some people nominate "boot node" who not even run cMixx and give almost no reward with more than 1M xx coins staked. Boot nodes share less than 40xx instead of about 250xx per era. Cumulative lost for these nominators since November 2021 is more than 10k XX whatever their stake due to huge team stake. And it's the same for bad validators who run always below average every era you lost rewards and these validators hurt the network.

Select some validators

For select the right validators, you should first check the commission percentage which is an important parameter. This percentage is the price you pay to the validator for each era based on the number of XX received. So sort from lowest to highest 2% (which is the minimum percentage allowed) to 18% maximum percentage allowed by the team to use the team multiplier (red bar). The 20% and above are hidden by default with "no 20%+ comm". You shouldn't take validators above 18% because there are already many good validators to choose from this range.

This is an example of validators with 20%+ that you shouldn't nominate.

To help you choose after this first sort, try to check the nominators column without the red icons on the left (oversubscribed means there are too many nominators due to the limit of 256 per validator / blocks nominations icon means that this validator refuses to be nominated / the slashed icon is for people who have more than one node or a configuration error or not enough time before switching to another gateway or cMixx on another computer so check these validators carefully before choosing them)

For the nominator column (in the middle of this graph): the first number is for the current nominators selected for this era and the second number is for all nominators that name this node. You can easily filter out people who are above the "avg staked"; they already have too many nominators, so they don't need you and it's not really good for you.

Below I share four strategies: one for poorer nominators with low stakes (less than 50k), one for richer nominators (100k or more), one for a validator with a nominator stake, and the last one for nominate and forget.

After that, you have the most important step. NEVER appoint a validator that performs poorly and can harm the entire network, because it is your responsibility to eject these poorly performing validators from the network!

Low stake nominators strategy

To get the best validators for you, try to catch some people in the waiting list with the highest "own stake". This means lowering the total stake of the nominators so that you have fewer competitors on the side of the nominators with the lowest possible commission percentage to keep the best daily reward. People in the waiting list is a good strategy because most of the time have a low number of nominators without enough stake to get elected. Another strategy is to take a validator with only one great nominator at the "avg staked" or below because the threshold can be even a little lower than average. Never nominate too many validators with this strategy but choose 1 or 2 running validators only and every good validators in the waiting list.

Richer nominators strategy

Your best strategy is to take the lowest possible own stake with the lowest commission or try to add your nominator's stake + validator own stake to reach the "avg staked". Phragmen will eliminate all other nominators and split the rewards only between you and the validator. To find out that, just look at the "avg staked" number in the Targets tab. This strategy should be checked almost daily to see if your validator has changed commission percentage and not have any problems, but forcing your total stake on one or two validators with a low commission percentage will increase your daily rewards. For limited risk, choose a validator in the 9-18% range who probably won't move their commission value too much.

Validators strategy

If you have a TM, set 18% and choose only your own validator, lowering your TM value as much as possible. You need a little less "avg staked" than what you can find at the top of the "Targets" tab.

If you don't have a TM and enough coins, push the percentage as high as possible and select your own node until you reach a little less than "avg staked" and don't select any other nominators. If you are at "avg staked" number on your validator with no other nominators than your nominator. You need to create a second wallet for create a second nominators and select the "low stake" or "richer" nominator strategy.

Nominate and forget strategy

Nominate a maximum of 16 nodes, but check each validator (last step) and retain only those validators that have performed at or above average for more than 30 eras and whose commission is between 9% and 18% or whose commission percentage has not changed in the last 60 eras.

NEVER nominate bad validators

This is the most important step. Your job is to remove bad validators from the network and replace them with good validators that do not cause problems for the network. This action will allow you to earn more rewards each time. Before nominate any validators, click on the icon in the "stats" column to check the rewards received at every eras and the validator is consistently performing at or above the average on the rewards graph at the bottom left of the page.

An example of an excellent validator with consistent results over time. On this graph, the green line represents the actual result of the validator which is really perfect and never touches the average line (red). Never select validators that are always below this average line and watch out for validators that fall below the average (red) line too often on this graph but is grey on the page.

This is an example of a bad validator that is consistently below average and that no one should nominate. This validator should be replaced with a better validator that doesn't hurt the whole network every era and also gives you more rewards.

This is an example of a good validator that performs above average when elected but has frequent dropouts from elected list giving reward graph frequent drops to zero marked with green squares. Notice that all reward drops to zero marked green corresponds with "elected stake" graph also dropping to zero, which means validator just did not get elected for that specific era. The only validator performance related drop is marked with red rectangle. This validator is a good to nominate.

The second thing to look at is the commission graph on the right. Some validators attract nominators by setting a low percentage, but after certain periods of time that percentage increases and can even exceed 80% for some validators, so be very careful with these validators and it's best to not select them. The best validators are stable and the line on the right is flat at 18% or less or move between 0% (not elected) and back to their old flat percentage.

validator who isn't performing well due to regularly below average performance and double commission for no reason. Nominators should not nominate him and choose another validator with less percentage and above average results.

Another example of validator changing commission rate frequently from 18% to 100% in order to deceive nominators. Nominators should look for other reliable validator.

So to take this last step:

- look at these graphs all the time before nominate someone that's very important and take only the validator that stays equal or above the average rewards with minimal points below the average as possible (if the reward point is at 0, this validator is not elected and it's not important. You can see that the commission graph stays at 0% during these times, but at 10% commission and low reward, then validator is performing poorly in that era).

- see that the commission is as flat as possible