1.7 KiB
meshnet-validator
Optimistic fraud detection (ADR-0003, penalty amended by ADR-0015): the validator re-runs a random ~5% sample of completed inference requests against a trusted reference node and, on divergence, submits a slash proof and forfeits the node's pending balance.
Why the penalty deters cheating
There is no upfront stake. Settlement is periodic (US-033), so a node always has an unpaid pending balance — that balance is the collateral.
At a sampling rate p, a cheater is caught on average once every 1/p
fraudulent jobs, so cheating is unprofitable when:
penalty > per_job_gain / p # p = 0.05 → penalty > 20 × per_job_gain
With the production settlement period of 24h, the pending balance at any moment approximates a full day's earnings — hundreds to thousands of jobs — which is far above the 20× bar. Each catch also records a strike; three strikes ban the wallet (registration rejected, excluded from routes, unpaid pending never settled), and the probationary period (first N jobs unpaid) makes re-entry with a fresh wallet costly.
Two operational notes:
- Shortening the settlement period shrinks the collateral. Period changes must weigh chain overhead against deterrence.
- A cheater immediately after a payout has little to forfeit — the strike/ban ladder covers that window.
Usage
ValidatorProcess(
contracts=contracts, # registry/validation boundary
billing=ledger, # BillingLedger — enables forfeiture
reference_node_url="http://...",
sample_rate=0.05,
)
Remote validators can instead call the tracker's privileged
POST /v1/billing/forfeit endpoint (non-empty Authorization header).