flare-stake-tool-test

Flare Stake Tool

The repo contains a cli app for adding (staking) FTSO validators on Flare and Coston2 networks. FTSO validators are data providers for Flare Time Series Oracles (FTSO) on respective networks. By submitting price signals and competing for the reward they earn a certain weight, which allows them to add their validator node for a limited time with exactly the earned weight. Adding a validator node is equivalent to opening a staking session for the prescribed duration with a staking amount equal to the prescribed weight, earned by the data providing activity. The amount (weight) is between 1 and 10000 FLR (or C2FLR). A validator can get (or calculate) their staking amount on this repository.

Installation

Installation of the cli app is done by running

npm install @flarenetwork/flare-stake-tool --global

Or, for development purposes, you can first clone the repo with

git clone https://github.com/flare-foundation/p-chain-staking-code.git

and then set up the app with

yarn
yarn build
npm link

C-chain and P-chain

Flare has three chains - X-chain (exchange chain), C-chain (contract chain), and P-chain (platform chain). For stake flow, we use C-chain and P-chain. An account on each chain is defined by a public-private key pair. The addresses on each of the two chains are derived from the public key. Note that each chain has different address representations. On the P-chain there is no standard format and usually Bech32 format is used, while on the C-chain the usual Ethereum format is used (to comply with Ethereum Virtual Machine).

Stake flow

A usual stake flow works as follows.

• User wants to add a validator node by staking for a given duration and amount from his account (defined by the private key).
• Funds usually reside on the C-chain account and have to be exported from the C-chain.
• Exported funds can then be imported to the corresponding P-chain account.
• Funds on the P-chain account can be used to start staking (adding a validator node).
• After the period (duration) ends, the validator is automatically removed (staking is finished).

CLI app usage

To use the flare-stake-tool cli app, one has to first obtain a private key (either a length 64 hexadecimal or cb58 format) and paste it into .env file (make sure that you run the app on a secure machine), that has the following format

PRIVATE_KEY_HEX = ""
PRIVATE_KEY_CB58 = ""

The app is stateless and requires users to provide a path to their .env file, which has to be passed to a global option --env-path. Another global option is --network, which can be set to either flare or costwo (default is flare).

To obtain the derived C-chain and P-chain addresses, along with the associated public key, use

flare-stake-tool info addresses --env-path /path/to/.env

To perform full stake flow, run the following scripts

flare-stake-tool crosschain exportCP -a <amount> -f <fee> --env-path /path/to/.env
flare-stake-tool crosschain importCP --env-path /path/to/.env
flare-stake-tool stake -n <nodeId> -d <duration> -w <amount/weight> --env-path /path/to/.env

Above, amount specifies the funds to export / stake (in FLR / C2FLR), fee is an optional parameter that specifies the fee of a transaction (in FLR / C2FLR), duration is the staking time (in seconds), and nodeId is the id of the node being deployed as a validator.

Checking whether a validator has been added successfully can be done by fetching lists of both pending and current validators. This is done by running

flare-stake-tool info validators

Funds can also be returned from P-chain back to C-chain by running the following scripts

flare-stake-tool crosschain exportPC -a <amount> --env-path /path/to/.env
flare-stake-tool crosschain importPC -f <fee> --env-path /path/to/.env

Above, amount and fee are optional. Omitting amount drains the P-chain of all funds.

Note that methods affecting the P-chain (importCP and exportPC) always use a fixed fee of 0.001, while methods affecting the C-chain (exportCP and importPC) have variable fees and can thus be either set or else calculated automatically.

Testing locally with go-flare node

This code can be tested locally on the localflare network, using a node with code sourced from here.

First, add a private key with some funds on C-chain into .env - you can use a well-funded test account with the private key 0xd49743deccbccc5dc7baa8e69e5be03298da8688a15dd202e20f15d5e0e9a9fb.

Then, you have to hardcode your validator configuration hash directly into the node code. Say you want to use the node with id NodeID-DMAS3hKKWMydmWGmGd265EYCoV7zFWEHK to stake 10000 FLR for a duration of 1512000 seconds. To calculate the hash, run

flare-stake-tool hash -n NodeID-DMAS3hKKWMydmWGmGd265EYCoV7zFWEHK -w 10000 -d 1512000 --env-path /path/to/.env --network localflare

The above produces 2b52aae672d041ec5ec597bb72b6c1815f01f2b895ed5cddb42c45ca0e629317. Add this hash to the array here in your cloned go-flare repo. Now you can setup the node(s) as described in here.

Staking requires first exporting funds from C-chain, importing them to P-chain, and then stake them by adding a validator node with specific configurations to the network. This is done by running the following scripts

flare-stake-tool crosschain exportCP -a 10000 -f <fee> --env-path /path/to/.env --network localflare
flare-stake-tool crosschain importCP --env-path /path/to/.env --network localflare
flare-stake-tool stake -n NodeID-DMAS3hKKWMydmWGmGd265EYCoV7zFWEHK -w 10000 -d 1512000 --env-path /path/to/.env --network localflare

In case of errInsufficientFunds error, try raising the fee when exporting funds.

Versions

Some info on upgrading to a new version.

• Build the project with yarn build
• Check that lib can be created npm pack
• Bump to next version npm version [<newversion> | major | minor | patch | premajor | preminor | prepatch | prerelease | from-git]
• Publish with npm publish
• Make sure to push to git with git push