Understanding Slashing in the Crypto world

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Hi friends! how are you doing? Welcome to my blog, it's super good to have you back here. I trust you got value from my last post. I bring to you another interesting content, one that I believe you love as usual. In my previous post, we explored "Crypto Project RoadMap and it Importance", you can check out my blog to read through if you haven't.

Today, we would be looking at Slashing in Crypto, what it is and how it works.. it's actually another topic of interest I felt like sharing with y'all. I hope you guys learn one or two things from this write-up.

Introduction

Just today I was going through one of my crypto airdrop app and I saw a terminology that I didn't quite understand well, it say Slashing and it sounded like they wanted to take some action against me from the total points I've gathered so far because I've been delaying in taking certain action.

I decided to delve deeper into that terminology to understand what it means in the crypto world and of course I did a thorough job and got just the information needed. I then decided to share with us what slashing is in crypto and how it's carried out. Let's get into it right away guys.

What is Slashing?

Slashing can be defined as a penalty for trying to play the fast one on a blockchain network. In other words it the punishment given to those who wants to cheat the network. Those who suffer slashing are mostly those we refer to as validators in the Proof-of-stake network.

I think I need to talk briefly about who validators are and maybe after explaining who they are, you would know why most of them face the penalty called slashing on the PoS network.

Validators are very important figures on a blockchain network, their duty includes processing and verifying transaction and ultimately adding new block to the chain. In order words, we can say they are the ones that keep the chain functional and void of any malicious activity.

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As we can see, validators are saddled with this very sensitive role/ responsibility and of course they are been incentivized for this job because of the resources they put into achieve this very task they are saddled with. However, they are also compelled to be loyal and responsible.

This is done by making them commit quite a substantial amount of coin in the network in form of staking which is locked up. This serves as a correctional tool for any mischievous or malicious activity they might commit in the future. Failing in the place of assignment would attract the penalty called slashing.

Slashing therefore means, part of their stake would be gone automatically, it could be by automatic token burn when found wanting. There is no negotiation about it because the system is design to take action immediately it picks that any of the validators is trying to cheat the system.

Common offences that lead to Slashing

Below are some of the common reasons why validators are punished by means fo slashing. I have just three of them here, they could be more, you would have to dyor if you want more.

• Network Manipulation: Outright manipulation of consensus process or procedure would lead to the Slashing penalty. Just like I mentioned, what the validator has in stake would be slashed substantially. On network like Ethereum, the slashing persist for days and after the slashing, the validators is then allowed to pull out whatever is left and leave if he wants to.

• Downtime: Every validator is expected to be up and doing, you're not expected to be idle at any point ,neither should your commuting device suffer any downtime. If by any means you were discovered to be offline or inactive, you stand the chance of been penalized by slashing, for slowing down consensus process.

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• Double-Signing: Every validator is suppose to have it unique server but when it's discovered that the same validator is operating from an alternative service due to downtime, he could also be penalized becaue the system interpretes that as some malicious act because such act could result into conflict among nodes

Bottom Line

I believe by now you understand what slashing is and the offenses that leads to it. As my usual custom is, I would always encourage that you DYOR to be sure of every financial step you would want to take as I won't be liable for any form of loss encountered by you.

Feel free to share with me your thoughts in the comment section. Thanks for your time once again. Gracias!

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^{Disclaimer: This post is made as an education and not investment advice. Digital asset prices are subject to change. All forms of crypto investment have a high risk. I am not a financial advisor, before jumping to any conclusions in this matter please do your own research and consult a financial advisor.}

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Regards
@lhorgic♥️

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