# Introduction ## SafeCoin SafeCoin is a lightning-fast and efficient Proof-of-Stake blockchain network based on the Solana code base. It takes Solana’s best features like its unique Proof-of-History timing mechanism and improves upon the code to make it more accessible to a greater number of people. Its primary identifier is $SAFE, and it is also a DeFi platform that apps and other tokens can be built upon. SafeCoin has always had a belief that liberty, truth, and freedom in a digital age are built directly upon the foundations of strong decentralized security and privacy. SafeCoin is a trademarked name and is not associated with Maidsafe, Anwang’s Safe project, Musksafe, SafeX, Moonsafe, or any of the other projects that have similar names. [$SAFE](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/safecoin/) is SafeCoin’s native coin. Unlike Proof-of-Work currencies like Bitcoin, it can’t be mined. It needs to be purchased, traded for, or acquired via staking rewards (see the section on staking and validating). The projected maximum supply of SAFE is 36.2 million ## Features **SafeCoin is *****FAST*** - Thanks to Solana’s unique multithreaded architecture and Proof of History protocol, the SafeCoin network can process an incredible 65,000+ transactions per second. Other blockchains typically range from a few transactions per second (like Bitcoin) to a few thousand (like EOS and Ripple). It also has lightning-fast finality with transaction completion in under one second. Comparably, Bitcoin is at \~30-60 minutes, Ethereum is at \~5 minutes, and most other altcoins range from a few seconds to a few minutes. This makes for a highly scalable and suitable platform for a sustainable future. **SafeCoin is Affordable** - Transaction fees are significantly less than that of other blockchains. Currently, each SAFE transaction is set at 0.0001 SAFE. Unlike other blockchains, this number will not fluctuate with network activity. **SafeCoin Is Environmentally Friendly** - With the power of multi-threading, the SafeCoin network is the world's most energy-efficient crypto using only \~0.0000027kW per transaction. **SafeCoin is Accessible** - The main difference between Solana and SafeCoin is that nearly anyone can run their own validator and participate in the network. An important part of SafeCoin is being decentralized, the more people Validating, the greater the decentralization. **SafeCoin is** **Private** - SafeCoin did not have an ICO (Initial Coin Offering), IEO (Initial Exchange Offering), or any initial sales offerings and is not classed as a Security. At no point will the SafeCoin team ask for any of your personal details. **SafeCoin is a Team** - SafeCoin is led by a community of people who are passionate about the future of Cryptocurrency and the potential of SafeCoin. You will not find a ‘Team page’, but rather a community of dedicated ‘Safers’ - Come say hi in our Discord chat! # Acquiring $SAFE ## The basics SAFE can be traded at [safe.trade](https://safe.trade/). It can be transferred from one SAFE address to another, similar to other cryptocurrencies. You can also receive it as a reward for participating in the voting process (either by running a validator or staking your existing SAFE to someone else’s - this will be explained soon). Because SafeCoin did not have an IEO, there is no need for KYC (Know Your Customer) and is available to US citizens. Informative Guide from Martin - [mschillhorn.medium.com/how-to-buy-safecoin](https://mschillhorn.medium.com/how-to-buy-safecoin-safe-7a4ddda5ba5f)\ Informative Video Guide from FrankenSense - # Storing $SAFE When you initially acquire SAFE at the [safe.trade](https://safe.trade/trading/safebtc) exchange, it creates a wallet for you there. This is considered a ‘hot’ wallet, meaning it’s always connected to the Internet. The wallet on [safe.trade](https://safe.trade/trading/safebtc) is also a ‘custodial’ wallet, meaning the private keys are stored on the server. It is recommended that this should only be used for active trading and then transferred out once that’s done. It is never recommended to store any coins on any exchanges. SafeCoin has an official web-based wallet at . This wallet is also a hot wallet (connected to the internet at all times), but the difference here is that you own your private keys. This is obviously more secure and a better idea than keeping it on an exchange. The drawback is that if you lose your keys, you can’t access your funds. {% hint style="danger" %} **make sure you store your 24-word restore phrase in a safe place**. **Because if you lose these words your wallet cannot be restored and your funds will be lost**. {% endhint %} The web wallet can be made ‘cold’ (not connected to the internet) by saving your keys and deleting the wallet from the website. Cold wallets are more secure than hot wallets since they are offline, so the only way for an attacker to get at your funds is if they somehow get your private keys. The disadvantage is that you don’t have instant access to your funds - you have to restore the wallet first (thereby making it hot) by entering your private keys. If you’re holding SAFE for a while, it’s a good idea to make it cold. If you’re actively using it, it’s more convenient to keep it hot. You can also keep two wallets, a cold one and a hot one (kind of like you keep both a checking and savings account at your bank). If you have a computer or virtual machine with Linux, you can also set up a local wallet. This wallet is hot when your machine is connected to the internet, and cold when it’s not. You own the keys to this wallet. This one is trickier to set up, a bit more secure than a web wallet since an attacker would need access to your computer, but not as convenient since you also need access to that computer when you want to move your SAFE. Finally, You can also transfer your SAFE to a staking wallet where you can earn rewards via staking (there’s a big section on that further on). Like the local wallet, the staking wallet can be hot or cold depending on the connection status, and you own your keys. Since getting funds out of the staking wallet takes time anyway, it’s recommended that it be kept cold as much as possible. Additionally, you can store SafeCoin on a Ledger hardware wallet a guide on how to store $SAFE on Ledger can be found here # Transaction Fees Every time a transaction happens on any blockchain network, a small fee is charged to process that transaction. Half of that fee gets paid to the computer that processes the transaction (called a validator - more on this later), and the other half gets burned as a deflationary mechanism, increasing the likelihood of holding and price stability. Currently, transaction fees for SAFE are extremely low compared to other currencies. and come in at 0.0001 $SAFE # General Staking Information ### What is a Proof-of-Stake network? SAFE is a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain network. Unlike Proof-of-Work (PoW) networks like Bitcoin which rely on mining (a computer, or miner, competing with other miners to solve a complex math problem for the right to write a block to the blockchain), the computers on a PoS network use voting and staking to validate the transactions. These computers are called **validators**, they can increase their **stake** (or number of SAFE assigned to them) to increase their rewards. ### What is Staking? Staking is the act of assigning (also known as delegating) SAFE coins to a validator. You are **not** **giving the validator access to remove your coins from your account**, you are simply putting them in a locked account (that belongs to you) that allows the coins to increase the stake weight and voting weight of the Validator. In return, you get a portion of the staking rewards that the validator receives. If you are running a validator, you can stake your own SAFE to it, and also have others stake their SAFE to it (which you can charge a fee for). The more SAFE you get delegated to your validator, the more staking rewards you get (which are divided among you and all the delegators), and the better the odds that you receive a block reward for writing a block to the ledger (which does not get shared with others delegating to you). If you are not running a validator, you can stake your SAFE to someone else’s validator for a fee known as commission. This fee is a percentage of the staking rewards, you don’t have to pay upfront. The fee helps cover the costs of running the validator. When you stake your SAFE to a validator, you get a portion of the staking rewards equal to the percentage of the overall stake that your coins make up (minus the percentage from the validator fee if you’re staking to someone else’s validator). There is a staking ‘warm up’ period (currently up to \~2 days) when you first delegate coins. During this period, the coins aren’t earning rewards or being counted toward the stake, and you also can’t freely move them. This further helps to prevent fraud and attacks. Once warmed up (activated), the coins earn rewards until you wish to remove them and initiate a ‘cool down’ period, which is the same type of event as a ‘warm up’ period, but in reverse. Once the cooldown period is complete, the coins are no longer delegated or associated with the validator, and you can freely move them. # Staking Requirements ### What do I need in order to delegate? Some amount of SAFE that you don’t need immediate access to as there is a windup period of 1 epoch before your $SAFE will start earning rewards and a 1 epoch cooldown period before your $SAFE is unlocked after unstaking. ### Is there a minimum amount of SAFE needed to stake? No, you can stake as little or as much as you want. It’s recommended to spread your stake across multiple validators. This is to avoid having ‘all your eggs in one basket if a validator stops operating. so your coins still earn rewards. Additionally spreading your Stake helps with the decentralization of the network. {% hint style="info" %} When a validator stops operating your coins are not lost. Just unstake and restake them to start earning rewards again. Because of this, it is important to pick a stable validator so you don't miss out on 2 epochs worth of staking rewards (windup and cooldown period) {% endhint %} ### Does it cost anything to stake SAFE? There’s no initial cost, but most validators keep a percentage of the staking rewards earned by your stake (called a validator fee or commission). This validator fee is visible before you delegate your stake to a validator. {% hint style="info" %} Most validators charge a commission of anywhere between 8-15% {% endhint %} # Staking Setup ### Here you can find some helpful tools and guides that help you Stake your $SAFE Medium Article By Martin on How to Stake SafeCoin $SAFE: [https://mschillhorn.medium.com/how-to-stake-safecoin](https://mschillhorn.medium.com/how-to-stake-safecoin-safe-ca23b52ef341)\ \ YouTube video by FrankenSense on how to stake SafeCoin $SAFE: Validator List & Statistics Dashboard by Ghadras: (Advanced Tool)\ \ Araviel.io Validator leaderboard by Ara [https://araviel.io](https://araviel.io/)
# Staking Benefits ### Why should I stake my $SAFE? Staking is a great way to earn passive income in the form of $SAFE. Staking your $SAFE will also help towards the network’s voting process, keeping the network running, and increase decentralization if the stake is spread out evenly over the network. ### Why would I want to delegate rather than run a validator? **No up-front costs:** Running a validator requires that you dedicate resources to a computer 24 hours a day 7 days a week 52 weeks a year. This means increased electricity costs (though not *nearly* as much as mining a Proof-Of-Work cryptocurrency). If you’re running a Full-History (not pruned) node, it also requires 2TB of SSD storage every year to keep the entire ledger. If you don’t have your own computer, you can rent one (called a VPS or VDS), but that costs a monthly fee too. In addition, you will be spending $SAFE on voting fees cutting into the validators profitability. **Easier:** If you own a validator, you also have to pay attention to it and make sure it stays up and running which means performing regular maintenance on it, etc. If you’re delegating, you can easily place some SAFE in a staking account and check in on it every once in a while to see what kind of rewards you are accumulating. # General Validating Information ### What is a SAFE Validator? A validator is a piece of software that runs on a computer or virtual machine that *validates* the SafeCoin ledger (keeps it consistent with other validators) and produces new blocks on the SafeCoin blockchain. This is essentially a piece of the backbone of the SafeCoin network that you can run on your own computer. You can run a validator in one of two configurations. A **full history node** keeping 2TB (Annually) of the ledger on your computer or a **pruned node** keeping only 20GB of the ledger. The only difference (as of this writing) is how much drive space you want to allocate to the ledger. Running a validator is an important part of being a community-based decentralized network and will help to ensure smooth network operation. In addition to this, if your validator creates a block (as the leader) it will be rewarded, and that doesn’t need to be shared with those that delegate SAFE to your validator. The chances of your validator minting a block are random but with probability based on their delegated stake amount and reliability. # Requirements ### What do I need to run a SAFE Validator? * At least a 2-Core CPU with AVX Support (mostly Intel and AMD processors post-2011 - just Search online to confirm your processor has “AVX Support” - required for operation * 8GB RAM * 20GB SSD storage for a pruned node, 2TB SSD storage for a full history node * Linux (it’s possible to run this in a virtual machine with extra setup) * Some SAFE that’s delegated to your validator * As there is a voting fee, you will need to maintain a voting balance of SAFE. This amount will vary based on how much SAFE has been delegated to your validator. This balance is not automatically replenished. * A reasonably fast and steady Internet connection (5mbps) ### Why would I run a pruned Validator node vs. a Full-History node? Running a Full-History node on the network helps increase the decentralization of SafeCoin. A Full-History node records and maintains a full copy of the SafeCoin ledger. As of right now, there are no extra rewards for running a Full-History node, but that is in discussion. # Validator Setup ### How do I set up a Validator? Here are the instructions: [https://SafeCoin.org/validator-set-up-instructions/](https://safecoin.org/validator-set-up-instructions/) ### What’s all this VPS stuff in the Validator instructions? VPS or Virtual Private Server is a remote machine offered by an internet hosting service. Typically these services provide fast internet, high security, and reliability in uptime - great for running a validator. This is kind of like a middle ground option - you are still running your own validator, but you’re doing it on someone else’s hardware so all of the costs associated with the upkeep of hardware, electricity, etc, are bundled into a monthly fee. This is a great option if your electricity bills are high or you don’t have hardware resources you can dedicate to running a validator at home. ### How do I change my Validator public name? When someone stakes to your validator a list of validators to select from will appear, by default your validator in this list is your VoteID. You are able to change this, making it easier for someone to find your validator. An in-depth guide can be found here: [Validator Identity](/guides/validator-identity) # Rewards & Voting Process ### When do I start receiving block rewards? You will receive a block reward at the successful completion of minting a block. Using the SafeCoin explorer you are able to select the block that you led and see your rewards. ### What are votes? A validator votes to show that it agrees with the published transactions on the network through the Proof-Of-History consensus method. This provides consensus on transactions put forward by the leading validator. ![](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/5IVgQ_5ysD2w1Nlw5D8nF0GhftQIZdbhRquQj0epiHbwuuYb9N6Dbjpn0livFVHNy9X7sNADPnC678s_TarL2IndSWXePX69WxoXyDIkjTB1bF2wpA-n2uVb33rz0Iyz_cfvLp73) ### Why do I care about how many votes my Validator has? Voting is one great indicator of how your validator is performing, a machine with higher successful votes indicates stability and performance. More votes also equate to more reward in proportion to activated stake. ### What is a Leading Validator? A leading Validator, also known as the ‘Leader’ is responsible for adding entries to the blockchain ledger. It does this through organizing transactions in an efficient Proof-of-History order and then submitting this to the rest of the validators on the network for consensus. The leading validator is randomly selected and can be ousted if ⅔ or more of the validators reject the proposed block. The leader is changed out periodically as to not give anyone computer too much power and give all validators a chance at earning rewards. All other validators know who the leader should be before they are selected so no one can ‘fake’ being the leader. ### What is the difference between an identity account, a voting account, a local wallet, and a staking account? **Validator Identity** - This is your unique ID for your validator on the network. It is also the account that pays for voting fees and receives rewards from block production. You’ll always need to keep some SAFE in here (there is no set amount needed, yet without any SAFE you are not able to participate in voting). We’d suggest keeping a minimum of 10 SAFE per 10000 SAFE staked. Please note, this account will not automatically replenish and requires being manually topped up to continue voting. **Voting Identity** - This is the account that votes as a part of the network's Proof-Of-History consensus algorithm. If running a validator this is where your commission will be located **Local Wallet** - For storage of your personal, non-staked SAFE. This should be stored on a different computer than the validator ID and voting ID accounts. **Staking Account** - Where your stake is locked in & delegated to a validator. This is also where your rewards from staking will automatically be placed, thus adding them to your total staked coins is compounding. This should also be stored on a different computer than the validator ID and voting ID accounts. ### How does the SAFE flow between all these accounts? ![](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/J83u1Ew9hNUHxTCupCj3fd-kk-O1vE7kMW1Zc0a2x-tAzeoAelj4mT-AKdjTjZ6uUNgbl9ip1qnZPwqRzuvw2l8te4w8pJghy4hpzhalBlNWhqJo7JVMRVPve7gWdBira-ODrQll) When you set up a new validator, you create the four accounts listed above. You start out by putting some SAFE in your **Validator Identity Account** to pay for voting fees. Then you move SAFE from a **Cold Wallet** into your **Staking Account** (a minimum of 10,000 SAFE is recommended to stay profitable if running a validator) so that it can add influence to the validator. It is recommended that your staking account is located on another computer, or at least a different virtual machine if it must reside on the same computer as the validator. There is minimum or maximum limits on how much stake is attached to a Validator. You want to make sure you have enough to stay profitable as suggested above. The staking account can be created on any computer or virtual machine that can run Linux. As your validator runs, it generates staking rewards that are proportionate to the amount of SAFE you have staked to your validator. These rewards get paid out from the network to all of the delegators that are currently staking to your validator (yours and any external delegators you have helping you). Over the course of this process, your validator votes to help maintain the integrity of the ledger. Voting costs a certain amount of SAFE, and that comes out of your Validator Identity Account. That you need to replenish if it gets low. At some point, your validator may be selected to be the leading validator (Leader) and it writes a block to the ledger. It then receives a reward of half the transaction fees from that block (called a block reward). This block reward is paid out to your Validator Identity Account. The staking reward is based on the total amount of SAFE staked, successful votes, and a predetermined inflationary rate. A block reward is set at 50% of transaction fees associated with the block produced. Commission (or validator fee) is set by the validator owner. # Staking FAQ ### What happens to my $SAFE if the validator I stake to ceases to operate? Your coins are still in your staking wallet, so they don’t go anywhere. If the validator ceases to operate, you just stop getting rewards as long as your SAFE is staked to it. To start earning rewards You just unstake them initiating a ‘cool-down’ period, after the cool-down period has ended you can delegate them to a different validator. (Cool-down periods take 1 Epoch) ### Are there any penalties for removing your stake, or is there a minimum amount of time you need to keep it staked? No, there are no penalties or minimum timeframes for staking. ### Are there any reasons not to stake? When staking you will not be able to access your SAFE immediately. The warmup currently takes up to \~2.5 days or 1 epoch. The ‘cool-down’ period is until the current epoch ends from the time of initiation. ### Why is there a validator fee (commission)? A validator requires an outlay of money upfront. By paying out a portion of your share of the rewards, you are helping to keep the validator running and doing its job without taking on the costs and maintenance of running your own validator. It’s important to note that the validator fee comes out of the rewards only, NOT out of the coins you have delegated. ### Can you give me an example of how the fee works? Let’s say a validator has 10,000 total SAFE staked and you have delegated 5,000 of it. This means you have a **50%** share in this validator. The person running the validator sets the commission fee to **10%**. Let’s imagine a validator received 200 SAFE in staking rewards. Since you have a 50% stake, you get a 50% share of the rewards (100 SAFE) minus the 10% commission (10 SAFE), so you end up with 90 SAFE. (200x.5x.90) ### Do you get block rewards when staking? You can only actively participate in the voting process if you run a validator. If you’re delegating SAFE, you are helping to improve the validator’s voting power, but you don’t receive any of the block rewards if the validator is chosen to receive one (this is one of the perks of running a validator - Block rewards only make up a very small percentage of a validators income. # Validator FAQ **Validator Tracking** **Validator Statistics** (validator selection at the top left of the page) **Validator List & Statistics** (updates every two minutes) **Various Detailed Guides** By MrCoins Included in this guide are instructions for automatic rebuild, restart and log management + Automating the start up and restart process. There are many other cli-command Instructions as well **Check SafeCoin Balance On Validator** ``` ~/Safecoin/target/release/safecoin balance ``` **Validator List** ``` ~/Safecoin/target/release/safecoin validators ``` **Current Epoch Info** ``` ~/Safecoin/target/release/safecoin epoch-info ``` **Catch-Up Command** ``` ~/Safecoin/target/release/safecoin catchup ~/ledger/validator-identity.json ``` **Deactivate Stake & Start Cool-Down** ``` // Some code~/Safecoin/target/release/safecoin deactivate-stake --stake-authority --fee-payer ``` **Withdraw From Stake Account (after cool-down)** ``` ~/Safecoin/target/release/safecoin withdraw-stake --withdraw-authority --fee-payer ``` **Update Commission Rate** ``` ~/Safecoin/target/release/safecoin vote-update-commission ledger/validator-vote-account.json <15> ledger/validator-identity.json ``` **Vote Account Voting Statistics** ``` ~/Safecoin/target/release/safecoin vote-account ``` **Truncate The Log File** ``` truncate -s 0 ~/safecoin-validator-*.log ``` **Recover Your Private Key From The Seed Phrase** (when prompted enter seed words separated by spaces) ``` ~/Safecoin/target/release/safecoin-keygen recover -o recovered.json ``` **Transfer From Vote Account** ``` ~/Safecoin/target/release/safecoin withdraw-from-vote-account ``` **Check Skip Rate** ``` ~/Safecoin/target/release/safecoin block-production | grep ``` **How to delegate to a validator using the SafeCoin cli-tools and a local wallet on Ubuntu 20.04** You must proceed through Step 4 of the Validator Set Up Instructions (Stop before funding 10 SAFE to the Validator) in order to Delegate from the cli-tools. **Please proceed under caution if you are unfamiliar with these instructions**. **# Create Local Wallet** ``` ~/SAFE/target/release/safecoin-keygen new -o ~/ledger/wallet.json ``` **# Set Config To Default To Local Wallet** ``` ~/SAFE/target/release/safecoin config set --keypair ~/ledger/wallet.json ``` **# Send Some Funds To The Local Wallet Address & Check Balance** ``` ~/SAFE/target/release/safecoin address ~/SAFE/target/release/safecoin balance ``` **# Create Local Stake Keypair** ``` ~/SAFE/target/release/safecoin-keygen new -o ~/ledger/stake-account.json ``` **# Create & Fund Stake Account** ``` ~/SAFE/target/release/safecoin create-stake-account ~/ledger/stake-account.json --from ~/ledger/wallet.json --stake-authority ~/ledger/wallet.json --withdraw-authority ~/ledger/wallet.json --fee-payer ~/ledger/wallet.json ``` **# Delegate To The Vote Account Of Your Chosen Validator** ``` ~/SAFE/target/release/safecoin delegate-stake ~/ledger/stake-account.json --fee-payer ~/ledger/wallet.json --stake-authority ~/ledger/wallet.json ``` # Validator Identity Please reference if you have any issues. The information below is to change the publicly visible name, display picture, and website of your validator.
![](https://docs.safecoin.org/unknown.png) ### Setup 1. Create an account on [keybase.io](https://keybase.io/) 2. Download the KeyBase application and set up your profile (your profile picture will be your validator picture) 3. Upload a folder in your KeyBase public directory called safecoin and inside that folder create a file called\ validator-\ (not your VoteID) 4. Confrim you can access this file “\/safecoin/validator-\” 5. On your validator - create an empty file called validator-validator-\ (does not specify where) 6. run command ```bash ~/Safecoin/target/release/safecoin validator-info publish "" -n -w "https://your-website.com" ``` Copy Remove -w “[https://your-website.com](https://your-website.com/)” if you do not wish to add a website.