Orbs, a public blockchain infrastructure designed for mass-use applications and tight integration, announced the release of a single nominator smart contract in the Telegram Open Network (TON), a decentralized layer-1 zone blockchain.
In the TON blockchain network, validators can use a single nominator, which provides an isolated cold wallet to protect their validation process. This feature is especially useful for validators with sufficient self-stake to independently validate without requiring a third-party nominator. This feature is intended to enhance validator independence, security, and protection against gas-spending attacks. In blockchain technology, nominators are individuals or entities that participate in the proof-of-stake consensus algorithm. This is done by staking their cryptocurrency holdings to support the security and transaction processing of the network.
Nominators essentially nominate a validator to represent their stake in the network and receive rewards on their behalf. In turn, validators are responsible for validating transactions and adding new blocks to the blockchain. This process is critical to the security and efficiency of the blockchain network, as it ensures that only legitimate transactions are processed and recorded on the blockchain. A smart contract typically involves two or more parties agreeing on a set of rules or conditions that must be met before the contract can be executed. These rules are encoded into smart contracts that automatically execute when specified conditions are met, transferring funds or assets between the parties involved.
The single nominator smart contract provides an option for the core team nominator pool smart contract. The alternative was developed internally to provide security for validators who stake funds. The Single Nominator Tool is now available to the community as a free open source product. Orbs added that single nominator contracts provide protection against attack methods by separating validator nodes’ hot wallets from principal stake funds. This separation protects funds from gas spending attacks and allows owners to change validator addresses if a wallet is compromised. Additionally, the contract provides the ability to withdraw stakes in emergency situations, such as voter upgrades.
The contract has been audited by Web3, blockchain and smart contract security firm CertiK, which recently announced a partnership with TON to audit future projects on the network.
