Swell has integrated SSV Network’s Distributed Validator Technology (DVT) into our tech stack.
More than 4000+ Swell validators have been onboarded to SSV Network over the past few weeks, marking an important milestone on our journey to delivering the most robust restaking network for Ethereum.
SSV Network’s Distributed Validator Technology allows us to increase the efficiency of liquid staking on Swell, whilst bolstering decentralization as we continue to gradually reduce centralization vectors across our node operator set.
This holds significant strategic importance for Swell, enhancing the resilience and security of the protocol by preventing the concentration of power and potential collusion.
Enhanced operator diversity and stability
Swell’s Node Operator set for swETH – Blockscape, Hashkey, RockX, Infstones, SNC, DSRV, Stakely, and Kiln – is selected for not only reliability and security, but also to maximize diversity and decentralization across clients, geographies, and infrastructure setups.
By integrating with SSV Network, Swell has further reduced centralization across the node operator set, minimizing the risk of network failure or manipulation by reducing reliance on a single entity, and boosting network stability by balancing workloads across different operators.
What is ssv.network?
ssv.network is a Distributed Validator Technology (DVT) network that enables the splitting of a validator key and thus duties to multiple trust minimized node operators that are located worldwide.
Together, the operators manage the validator on behalf of the staker while only possessing a fraction of the validator key, which in and of itself is insufficient to submit duties or be malicious.
Operators need to reach ¾ consensus (in a cluster size of 4 operators) in order to submit any duties to the beacon-chain. This grants the validator with a few benefits, including heightened key security, massively improved client-diversity, and most importantly – fault tolerance.
The consensus mechanism in SSV allows 1 operator to be completely offline without affecting the validator’s uptime. This means that even if one operator experiences an outage, hardware or software issues, or even encounters a client bug, the validator remains fully operational.
Naturally, the Beacon Chain incentivizes validators to be as resilient as possible, as a validator gets penalized if it goes offline. With SSV’s fault tolerance, more uptime directly translates to more rewards!
Utilizing the aforementioned professional node-operator set allows Swell to fine-tune and maximize its staking operations to ensure a sufficiently decentralized, resilient and Ethereum-aligned setup for its validators.
