Download the installation file

Please download the latest installation file from here for Windows, macOS (only supports > 10.15.x catalina), or Ubuntu Linux. If you prefer to run your guardian node on Mac or Linux from the command line, please follow the instructions here.

Install and launch the Guardian node

When you run the Guardian Node app for the first time you'll see a welcome screen with instructions:

Click "Continue", then create your GN password and click "Create Node". You may see a Windows message asking you to allow access for the Theta app; click "Allow access" to continue. You can also choose which folder you want to the Guardian Node to save data to.

Allow your Guardian Node to sync to the Theta blockchain. This first time can take some time as you process all the blocks since the latest snapshot available (typically should be less than 10 minutes).

Once your node has synced, you'll see the summary of your node under Guardian Node Holder (Summary). You'll use this to stake your THETA tokens to your Guardian Node. If you need to stake tokens using the QR code, please click on the QR code image to enlarge it first, and then you'll be able to scan it.

Stake to the Guardian node

Now that you have the summary of your node, you can proceed to stake some tokens to it to make it a full guardian node. Please follow the instructions here for the steps to stake from Web Wallet here. If you want to stake from your Mobile Wallet, please follow the steps here.

Verify the Guardian node

After completing the staking transaction the Guardian Node app will display your current stake, total TFUEL earnings, session TFUEL earnings, and your node connectivity.

You can verify the staking transaction was completed by entering your wallet address or staking address in the Mainnet block explorer. You can also verify your earnings in the Theta Wallet. Remember to select Mainnet from the drop down menu.

TFUEL earning

The Guardian Node app will display your total TFUEL earnings and session TFUEL earnings, or you can also see all of your TFUEL earnings earned by checking your wallet address in the Mainnet block explorer. Guardian Node TFUEL earnings are awarded every 100 blocks, or approximately every 10 minutes in a probabilistic method. At each 100 block checkpoint, there are 200–300 stakers randomly selected (weighted by their stake) to divide the block rewards. A large staker (ex. with 100K+ THETA stake) should expect to receive a reward every 2.5–3 hours or so (not guaranteed, just expectation). A 100K staker should have at least 98% likelihood to receive a reward every 10 hours. Conversely, a 1,000 THETA staker may only see a TFUEL reward once per month, analogous to a small Bitcoin miner with low hashrate. For the same block though, two stakers with the same stake may NOT receive the same amount of reward. While all nodes will earn TFUEL proportional to their stake over time, it means there can be significant variations in the timing and size of TFUEL rewards between different users.

Withdrawing your stake from the Guardian node

If at a later time you wish to withdraw your stake tokens from the Guardian node, please follow the instructions here.