BPoS Voting System

BPoS (Bonded Proof of Stake) is the consensus mechanism that selects which validators produce and confirm blocks on the ELA main chain. Community members stake ELA, vote for validators, and earn rewards proportional to their stake. This page covers the technical mechanics.

Validator Lifecycle

Validator Registration

To register as a validator, submit a RegisterProducer transaction (type 0x09):

Field	Description
OwnerKey	Producer owner's public key
NodePublicKey	Node's public key (for DPoS P2P)
NickName	Display name
Url	Information URL
Location	Country code
NetAddress	Node IP:Port
StakeUntil	Block height when stake unlocks

Eligibility

Validators need 80,000+ staking rights to be eligible for block production.

Validator Management Transactions

Transaction	Code	Purpose
RegisterProducer	0x09	Register as a validator
UpdateProducer	0x0b	Update profile info
CancelProducer	0x0a	Cancel registration
ActivateProducer	0x0d	Reactivate after inactivity
ReturnDepositCoin	0x0c	Reclaim deposit after cancel

Vote Weight Calculation

BPoS (After Height 1,405,000)

Vote weight uses a logarithmic time-lock multiplier — longer commitments earn more influence:

weight = log10((LockTime - CurrentBlockHeight) / 7200 * 10)
effectiveVotes = stakedELA * weight

Where 7200 blocks is approximately 10 days at 2-minute block time.

Legacy DPoS v1 (Before Height 1,405,000)

Vote weight equaled the raw ELA amount. No time-locking.

BPoS Staking Transactions

Transaction	Code	Purpose
ExchangeVotes	0x62	Convert ELA to stake votes
Voting	0x63	Cast BPoS votes with lock time
ReturnVotes	0x64	Return staked votes
VotesRealWithdraw	0x65	Execute vote return
DposV2ClaimReward	0x60	Claim voter rewards
DposV2ClaimRewardRealWithdraw	0x61	Execute reward withdrawal

Validator Selection

Every election round, the validator set is recalculated by ranking all validators by total staking rights:

Configuration:

• ~70 community-elected validators (variable; see nodes.elastos.net)
• 12 Council validators (always active, claimed by council members)
• Backup candidates fill in on failures via ForceChange()

Block Production Rotation

Validators take turns proposing blocks by rotating a duty index:

1. On-duty validator broadcasts a DPOSProposal with the block hash
2. Other validators validate and broadcast DPOSProposalVote (accept/reject)
3. When 2/3+1 of active validators vote to accept, a Confirm is formed
4. The confirmed block is final — no reorganization is possible

Inactivity Penalties

Condition	Consequence
Missed 1,440+ duty rounds (~2 days)	Producer enters Inactive state
Double signing / conflicting proposals	200 ELA deducted from deposit; can re-register by posting a new deposit
Evidence submitted	Permanent on-chain record of misbehavior

Staking via NFT Tickets

When users stake ELA for BPoS, they receive NFT tickets on ESC via the StakeTicket contract:

1. User stakes ELA on the main chain
2. User calls StakeTicket.claim() on ESC with the main chain tx hash
3. Contract verifies multi-sig via precompiled contract at address 1003
4. An ERC-721 NFT is minted representing the stake position

Relevant ESC precompiles:

Address	Purpose
1000	Current active BPoS validators
1003	Pledge bill multi-sig verification
1004	Main chain tx to NFT token ID mapping
1005	Full NFT metadata
1006	BPoS NFT payload version