Staking & Validator Economics
Specter is a proof-of-stake network built on CometBFT consensus. That means the chain's security comes from validators who stake GHOST and risk losing it if they misbehave. Here's how the economics work.
How CometBFT Consensus Works
CometBFT (formerly Tendermint) is a Byzantine Fault Tolerant consensus engine. In plain terms: a set of validators take turns proposing blocks, and the rest vote on whether to accept them. As long as more than two-thirds of staked power is honest, the chain is secure.
This gives Specter instant finality — once a block is committed, it's final. No waiting for confirmations, no risk of reorganizations. For a privacy chain, this matters: you don't want a reveal operation to be rolled back after the secret is already exposed.
Validator Parameters
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Minimum validators | 50 |
| Target validators (Year 1) | 150 |
| Minimum self-delegation | 100,000 GHOST |
| Maximum commission rate | 20% |
| Commission change delay | 72 hours |
| Unbonding period | 21 days |
| Downtime slashing | 0.01% of stake |
| Double-sign slashing | 5% of stake |
Validators
Validators are the backbone of the network. They run full nodes, propose blocks, vote on consensus, and in return earn rewards.
What it takes to be a validator:
- Run a full Specter node with reliable uptime
- Self-delegate a minimum of 100,000 GHOST
- Maintain infrastructure (compute, bandwidth, monitoring)
- Stay online and participate honestly in consensus
What validators earn:
- Block rewards — New GHOST distributed to validators who propose and sign blocks
- Transaction fees — A portion of gas fees from every transaction in the blocks they produce
- Commission — A percentage (up to 20%) of rewards from tokens delegated to them by other holders
Delegation
You don't need to run a validator to earn staking rewards. Any GHOST holder can delegate their tokens to a validator of their choice.
When you delegate:
- Your GHOST is staked on your behalf by the validator
- You earn a share of the validator's rewards, minus their commission rate
- You retain ownership of your tokens — they're staked, not transferred
- You can undelegate at any time (subject to a 21-day unbonding period)
Delegation is how the network scales its security beyond just the validator operators. The more GHOST delegated across the validator set, the more expensive it becomes to attack the chain.
Fee Distribution
When a block is produced, the transaction fees collected in that block are distributed among validators and their delegators:
- Proposer bonus — The validator who proposed the block receives a small bonus
- Validator commission — Each validator takes their stated commission percentage
- Delegator share — The remaining rewards are distributed proportionally to all delegators based on their stake
This creates a clean incentive: validators compete on uptime, reliability, and commission rates to attract delegators. Delegators pick validators who perform well and charge fair rates.
Slashing
Honest behavior isn't just incentivized — dishonest behavior is penalized. CometBFT includes slashing conditions:
- Double signing — If a validator signs two different blocks at the same height, 5% of their stake (and their delegators' stake) is slashed. This is the most severe penalty, and the validator is permanently tombstoned.
- Downtime — If a validator is offline for an extended period and misses too many blocks, they are temporarily jailed and face a 0.01% slash. They can unjail after correcting the issue.
Slashing is the stick that complements the carrot of rewards. It ensures validators have skin in the game — literally, their own tokens are at risk.
Relayer Incentive Design
IBC relayers are critical infrastructure — they shuttle packets between Specter and other Cosmos chains. Without reliable relayers, cross-chain communication breaks down. The protocol dedicates a 40 million GHOST incentive pool to ensure relayer operations are economically sustainable.
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Relayer incentive pool | 40,000,000 GHOST |
| Distribution model | Per-packet rewards |
| Minimum relayer bond | 10,000 GHOST |
| Fee recapture rate | 50% |
| Minimum success rate | 95% |
How it works:
- Relayers register by bonding a minimum of 10,000 GHOST
- Rewards are distributed on a per-packet basis — the more packets a relayer successfully delivers, the more they earn
- Relayers must maintain a 95% minimum success rate to remain eligible for incentive rewards
- 50% of IBC relay fees are recaptured and recycled into the incentive pool, extending the program's lifespan
- The bonding requirement ensures relayers have skin in the game and can be penalized for persistent failures
Why This Matters for Privacy
A privacy chain has higher security requirements than a general-purpose chain. If consensus is compromised, an attacker could potentially censor reveal operations, reorder commitments, or disrupt the Merkle tree.
CometBFT's instant finality and strong slashing conditions make these attacks economically irrational. Validators are paid well to be honest, and they pay dearly if they aren't. That's the security model that lets Ghost Protocol operate with confidence.