Shardeum launched community validators on June 5th, 2025. Yes, you can run validator nodes on Shardeum. Please check the announcement blog here.
Follow our step-by-step tutorial and get started with running a node on Shardeum, in return for SHM rewards.
Validator access will progressively expand as we prioritize network security and stability. As transaction volume and user activity grow, additional validator slots will be opened to the community—gradually enabling broader, global participation in securing and decentralizing Shardeum.
While unique and crucial for network resilience and scalability, standby nodes do not directly participate in the consensus process or transaction validation in the same way active nodes do. Rewarding standby nodes without active involvement in network operations could inadvertently create vulnerabilities in the reward system. This approach might further lead to imbalances and reduce the overall efficiency and fairness of an innovative sharded network.
Note, standby nodes are used both for handling surges in network throughput, and also as part of the regular node rotation process to enhance security and decentralization. As Shardeum’s ecosystem matures, we are looking at a network with thousands of validators distributed globally. This scale means standby nodes will have consistent opportunities to be rotated into the active set, participate in validation, and earn rewards. Shardeum is still in its early days, and there’s no better time to get involved. Few networks offer a node operation process that’s this simple, affordable, and accessible. By participating early, you’ll gain the experience needed to run nodes confidently and accumulate more SHM over time.
You can find the hardware requirements for running a validator node below.
Staking requirement is 2400 SHM.
You can find the mainnet endpoint here.
Standby Nodes:
These are validator nodes standing by in the network and not currently participating in consensus. Standby validators require a minimum number of staked SHM to become active. They help scale the Shardeum network quicker when more transactions are pending. Additionally, at the end of each cycle, the oldest active validators are rotated out and replaced by randomly selected standby nodes, enhancing the network’s security. Standby nodes will earn rewards only while actively participating in validation, not during standby periods. Once a node is installed and the required stake is added, it initially joins the network in standby mode by default before transitioning to active validation.
Validator Nodes:
These are nodes that actively participate in consensus to validate transactions after transitioning from standby mode, earning SHM rewards in return. Validator nodes are lightweight, as they don’t store the full transaction history, and require only minimal hardware. The number of active validators dynamically adjusts based on network demand—scaling up or down depending on the volume of pending transactions. Nodes that misbehave or underperform may be evicted from the active set and risk forfeiting their staked SHM.
Archive Nodes:
Although Shardeum is a blockless network, individual transactions processed by validator nodes are grouped into blocks at set intervals for EVM compatibility. These batches are then sent to archiver nodes, which store the full state and history of the network. Archivers can be considered as supernodes requiring significant storage, RAM, CPU, and bandwidth. They do not participate in consensus but play a critical role in preserving network data. Running an archiver is expected to yield ~10x the rewards of a validator, reflecting the higher hardware demands. Archivers may also be required to stake SHM and are subject to penalties for issues like ungraceful exits. More details will be shared once community participation in archiving is enabled at a later stage following the mainnet launch.
Other than the aforementioned nodes, there are other types of nodes needed to move data and transactions in and out of the Shardeum as well as monitor the health of the network. These include connector nodes, relayer nodes, and additionally, a monitor server. The connector nodes provide an entry point for external wallets and clients to query and submit transactions to the network. These are the similar to RPC nodes in the Ethereum ecosystem. Relayer nodes communicate with archiver nodes or other relayer nodes to store and stream data produced by the network to downstream services used by exchanges and explorer services. These are similar to exit nodes in the Ethereum ecosystem. The monitor server is an important component here receiving status updates from active validator nodes and providing a visual view into the health of the network. You can read more about them in our whitepaper.
With GUI, you can start running a node with a few clicks of your mouse. Shardeum is one of the first L1 networks to enable user-friendly GUI feature for node validators asides from CLI.
CLI is the only interface used by the vast majority of blockchain networks. It is typically enabled for more advanced users and developers who intend to work with nodes more deeply and technically.
The community can operate archiver nodes on Shardeum approximately one year after mainnet launch.
Our rough estimate is: 32 core, 256GB RAM, 4TB SSD. Also, as mentioned in the whitepaper, archive nodes may have to stake a minimum number of SHM tokens to join the network as an archiver. Archivers are expected to receive much higher SHM rewards for running a node. Exact requirements and incentive for running an archiver will be announced in due course.
The network ensures fair and unbiased selection of nodes for consensus and validation, without prioritizing or favoring any particular node. Shardeum is a permissionless network with a leaderless consensus mechanism.
