ECH0.RE Validators - End of an Era

Ecosystem
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TL;DR

Context:

Despite all my efforts and because of insufficient nominations, I’m sunsetting my ECH0.RE validators on Polkadot after around two years of service and 20 308 authored blocks.

I’m not leaving the ecosystem. I’ll continue contributing through other projects I founded, such as https://dotid.app.

The longer version

I’ve been an active member of the Polkadot community for several years and I’ve had the opportunity to run validators on both Kusama and Polkadot.

Here is my on-chain identity:

I participated in the Web3 Foundation’s One Thousand Validators (1KV) programme and later in the Decentralised Nodes (DN) programme on both networks for more than a year.

I’m proud to say that my validators were selected in every cohort (1KV, DN1, DN2, DN2.1 and DN3) until the programme was eventually discontinued.

As anyone can verify on-chain, my validators were never slashed, nominator rewards were always paid within minutes and never later than 24 hours, and my average One-T performance grade stayed at A+.

I also tried to contribute to decentralisation by choosing less common hosting locations whenever possible, including South Africa during the DN programme.

Unfortunately, after the DN programme ended, I struggled to attract enough independent nominations and my validators eventually left the active set. Since February 2026 they have generated no rewards, while I have continued paying for the infrastructure and missing out on staking rewards myself.

I kept everything running because I genuinely hoped the situation would improve. I asked for support on social media and many people nominated my validators. Thank you to everyone who did. Unfortunately, it still wasn’t enough to return to the active set.

Then I waited for the 10 000 DOT minimum nomination requirement, hoping it would remove inactive validators and make room for others, including mine. Many inactive validators did disappear, but it still wasn’t enough.

Today I no longer believe my validators will receive enough nominations to return to the active set. After six months of waiting, continuing to pay for infrastructure without receiving any rewards simply doesn’t make sense anymore.

Because of this, I’ll sunset all my validators at the end of July 2026.

If they somehow receive enough nominations to become active again before then, I’ll happily reconsider that decision. But at this point, I don’t think that’s going to happen.

Am I leaving the ecosystem?

No.

People who know me know that my involvement in Polkadot has never been limited to running validators. The validators have been an important part of my journey because they generated the income that allowed me to keep investing time into the ecosystem. For the record, I have never sold a single DOT earned from validator rewards.

Today I still contribute in several ways.

For example, I currently serve as an Identity Registrar on both Polkadot and Kusama following OpenGov approval:

More recently, I was also granted the Username Authority role on both networks through OpenGov:

These roles eventually led to the creation of dotID, the main identity hub for Polkadot and Kusama:

On dotID you can teleport funds from Asset Hub to People Chain, manage your entire on-chain identity, including your avatar, request Reasonable and KnownGood judgements, and obtain your unique .ID username, all from one place.

If you haven’t tried it yet, have a look. It’s completely free.

Guide:

This project is continuing and isn’t going anywhere. In fact, we’re now a small team with several community members contributing to it:

I’m also participating as a staking miner, helping secure the network by submitting valid election solutions every era. That work even led me to discover a bug affecting the Polkadot network, which is explained in this referendum:

Besides that, I’ll continue helping validators when I can, discussing staking topics, contributing technically, moderating this forum and participating in the ecosystem.

On a personal note, I still hold all my DOT and KSM, and once my validators are shut down, I’ll most likely become a nominator myself.

Conclusion

Running the ECH0.RE validators has been an amazing experience.

I’d like to sincerely thank everyone who nominated my validators, trusted me and supported me over the past two years.

I’d also like to thank the community for trusting me with the registrar and username authority roles. I believe these services bring value to the ecosystem and I’m grateful to be able to continue contributing through them.

This is the end of my validator journey, but it’s definitely not the end of my journey in the Polkadot ecosystem.

Thank you all.

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