Delegation Flow and Lockup Periods

On the Arcium Network, for an Arx node to become active, the Node Operator must first make a self-delegation of at least the MINIMUM_SELF_DELEGATION_PER_1000_CLUSTERS constant amount of stake in order for their node to become active. This activates the Node and enables it to join up to 1000 Clusters. For more on the details of activation via the self-delegation, see the Node Operation Incentives section.

Subsequently, stake delegations may be made to active Arx nodes by either Node Operators themselves or 3rd-party delegators. All types of stake delegations contribute towards unlocking the computational (hardware) capacity of the node in order to make it eligible to receive computational work, see the Overview section for more on this. Delegations of stake to Nodes become active at the beginning of the next epoch after they are staked.

Token rewards distribution follows the Arcium Network's epoch cycle, meaning that rewards are compounded at the end of each epoch. When an Arx node is placed into a Cluster and participates in the execution of a Computation, the reward from the execution is assigned on a pro-rata basis to all of the delegators (the Node Operator or 3rd-party delegators) to that particular node. Delegators may then choose to undelegate these rewards, in which case they unlock at the beginning of the next epoch and can then be withdrawn from the Arcium Network Solana program. Stake that remains delegated gets automatically compounded at the beginning of the next epoch. However, if a delegator opts to undelegate more stake than they were rewarded in the current epoch or to change their delegation target node to a different Arx node (called a "redelegation", which switches the delegation target in a single operation), then a one complete epoch delay is applied.