Running a Validator on SSV

Validators can be created to run on the SSV network or can be migrated from a currently running validator client to an SSV cluster. This section provides a simple guide of the process of running a validator on the SSV network.

New Validator

As described in the SSV New Validator Documentation, the general procedure is a two step process:

1. Generate validator keys and deposit Ethereum
2. Register the validator to SSV and split the validator key

The first step follows the standard process for creating an Ethereum validator. The general approach is to use the Staking Deposit CLI to generate keys and create a deposit json, then use the Staking Launchpad to deposit the Ethereum. Each link contains more detailed information on the process.

The second step is the same process as migrating a validator and is covered in the next section.

Migrating a Validator

The steps involved in migrating a running validator are covered in the Migrating a validator SSV documentation.

The procedure involves connecting to the SSV Webapp and choosing a set of operators that you would like to run your validator. This will form an SSV cluster. Once a set of operators are chosen you then need to split your validator's private key into shards specific to each operator.

SSV offers a distributed key splitting mechanism which is outlined in their documentation. Anchor offers key splitting functionality also, which can be done via the anchor keysplit command.