Pause Validating¶
Introduction¶
If you need to temporarily stop participating in Polkadot staking activities without fully unbonding your funds, chilling your account allows you to do so efficiently. Chilling removes your node from active validation or nomination in the next era while keeping your funds bonded, making it ideal for planned downtimes or temporary pauses.
This guide covers the steps for chilling as a validator or nominator, using the chill and chillOther extrinsics, and how these affect your staking status and nominations.
Chilling Your Node¶
If you need to temporarily step back from staking without unbonding your funds, you can "chill" your account. Chilling pauses your active staking participation, setting your account to inactive in the next era while keeping your funds bonded.
To chill your account, go to the Network > Staking > Account Actions page on Polkadot.js Apps, and select Stop. Alternatively, you can call the chill extrinsic in the Staking pallet.
Staking Election Timing Considerations¶
When a node actively participates in staking but then chills, it will continue contributing for the remainder of the current era. However, its eligibility for the next election depends on the chill status at the start of the new era:
- Chilled during previous era - will not participate in the current era election and will remain inactive until reactivated -Chilled during current era - will not be selected for the next era's election -Chilled after current era - may be selected if it was active during the previous era and is now chilled
Chilling as a Nominator¶
When you choose to chill as a nominator, your active nominations are reset. Upon re-entering the nominating process, you must reselect validators to support manually. Depending on preferences, these can be the same validators as before or a new set. Remember that your previous nominations won’t be saved or automatically reactivated after chilling.
While chilled, your nominator account remains bonded, preserving your staked funds without requiring a full unbonding process. When you’re ready to start nominating again, you can issue a new nomination call to activate your bond with a fresh set of validators. This process bypasses the need for re-bonding, allowing you to maintain your stake while adjusting your involvement in active staking.
Chilling as a Validator¶
When you chill as a validator, your active validator status is paused. Although your nominators remain bonded to you, the validator bond will no longer appear as an active choice for new or revised nominations until reactivated. Any existing nominators who take no action will still have their stake linked to the validator, meaning they don’t need to reselect the validator upon reactivation. However, if nominators adjust their stakes while the validator is chilled, they will not be able to nominate the chilled validator until it resumes activity.
Upon reactivating as a validator, you must also reconfigure your validator preferences, such as commission rate and other parameters. These can be set to match your previous configuration or updated as desired. This step is essential for rejoining the active validator set and regaining eligibility for nominations.
Chill Other¶
Historical constraints in the runtime prevented unlimited nominators and validators from being supported. These constraints created a need for checks to keep the size of the staking system manageable. One of these checks is the chillOther extrinsic, allowing users to chill accounts that no longer met standards such as minimum staking requirements set through on-chain governance.
This control mechanism included a ChillThreshold, which was structured to define how close to the maximum number of nominators or validators the staking system would be allowed to get before users could start chilling one another. With the passage of Referendum #90, the value for maxNominatorCount on Polkadot was set to None, effectively removing the limit on how many nominators and validators can participate. This means the ChillThreshold will never be met; thus, chillOther no longer has any effect.
| Created: October 16, 2024