Delegation

You don't have to run a validator to back one. How Cosmos-style delegation works on Aevum, what it pays, and what it actually risks.

TL;DR. AEV holders delegate tokens to a validator and earn a share of their rewards — no infrastructure to run. Validators with more total stake get proportionally better odds of landing in the active committee each epoch.

Aevum uses Cosmos-style delegated proof-of-stake. AEV holders delegate to a validator and earn a share of what that validator earns. No software to run, no infrastructure to manage — pick a validator you trust, sign one transaction, start earning.

What delegation is

Validators produce blocks and vote on consensus, bonding collateral that's subject to slashing if they misbehave. Delegation lets a token holder back someone else's validator — sharing in both the rewards and the risk — without operating a node or managing a validator key.

Validating means running a node, keeping it online, participating in every consensus round, carrying full operational responsibility, and earning the full reward. Delegating means picking an existing validator, adding your stake to their voting power, and earning a slice of what they earn.

Why it matters

• Idle AEV can earn a return instead of sitting in a wallet
• It lowers the bar for who can meaningfully back a validator — you don't need to be technical and wealthy
• It brings in operators who have the skill to run good infrastructure but not the capital to self-bond alone
• It aligns token holders' incentives with the health of the network they're holding

How it works

1. Hold AEV in a wallet
2. Browse validators through the wallet UI, a block explorer, or the CLI
3. Pick a validator and a delegation amount
4. Sign a delegation transaction, bonding the tokens
5. Those tokens count toward the validator's voting power and become non-transferable
6. Earn a share of rewards every epoch
7. Claim rewards any time with a withdrawal transaction
8. Undelegate any time — tokens enter a ~14-day unbonding period before they're transferable again

A worked example

Validator "Foothill": 50,000 AEV self-bonded, 10% commission, 150,000 AEV delegated, 200,000 AEV total voting power. Delegator "Sam" delegates 5,000 AEV.

In an epoch that earns 100 AEV: commission takes 10% (10 AEV) off the top. The remaining 90 AEV splits pro-rata across the full 200,000 AEV — Foothill's self-bond earns 50,000/200,000 × 90 = 22.5 AEV, Sam earns 5,000/200,000 × 90 = 2.25 AEV, and the rest goes to other delegators proportionally. Foothill nets 32.5 AEV total (self-bond share plus commission); Sam nets 2.25 AEV.

Slashing for delegators

A misbehaving validator gets slashed across all its bonded stake, proportionally — including every delegator's share.

Example: Foothill gets hit with a 5% downtime slash. Total bonded is 200,000 AEV, so 10,000 AEV is removed. Foothill's own loss is 5% × 50,000 = 2,500 AEV. Sam's loss is 5% × 5,000 = 250 AEV.

Shared slashing is what makes delegators actually shop for quality instead of chasing the highest advertised yield. Delegation is not risk-free yield — you're taking on real economic exposure to a validator's competence and honesty.

Parameters

How to choose a validator

• Uptime history — consistent, boring uptime
• Slashing history — how often they've been penalized
• Self-bond ratio — how much of their own stake is on the line
• Commission rate — lower generally favors you, but a suspiciously low rate can be a bait-and-switch
• Commission history — has the rate been changed often, or recently
• Total voting power — smaller validators help decentralisation
• Communication and reputation — accountable operators have stronger incentives to stay that way

Risks and tradeoffs