Requirements to Run a Validator
Hardware Requirements
Avalanche is an incredibly lightweight protocol, so nodes can run on commodity hardware with the following minimum specifications.
- CPU: Equivalent of 8 AWS vCPU
- RAM: 16 GiB
- Storage: 1 TiB
- OS: Ubuntu 20.04 or MacOS >= 12
- Network: sustained 5Mbps up/down bandwidth
The node should be configured to accept incoming TCP/IP connections on port9651.
Hardware requirements may scale based on the amount of AVAX staked on the node and network activity. Nodes with significant stakes (100k+ AVAX) may need hardware that exceeds the listed specifications and may also use more bandwidth.
Stake Requirements
In addition to the hardware, running a validator on Beam requires holding a minimum amount of AVAX and BEAM tokens. Specifically, you'll need at least 2000 AVAX tokens and tbd BEAM.
The AVAX tokens need to be staked for a minimum period of 2 weeks and a maximum of 1 year.
Next Steps
If you are sure to meet all the requirements you can now go ahead and add your node as a validator.