If you’re a token holder, you likely want to actively participate in securing the protocols you support. But running nodes that participate in blockchain networks is very difficult to do yourself.

Bison Trails enables you to run your own Participation Cluster—a dedicated validator node and the supporting infrastructure for staked participation in multiple Proof of Stake networks—without technical knowledge or an in-house team of engineers. In exchange for helping secure the network, you can earn participatory rewards on the tokens staked to your node cluster.

Earning rewards on tokens staked to your dedicated cluster

If you run your own Participation Cluster, you can earn participatory rewards in two ways: directly from self-bonded tokens staked to your node cluster and indirectly from your community’s stake delegated to your node cluster.

All rewards earned by your node cluster—self-bonded and delegated—will be determined by your protocol’s reward rate and once calculated, reduced by the Bison Trails Participatory Fee. Your reward earnings from delegated stake is based on the Validator Fee, the fee you charge delegators for delegating to your node cluster (see “Setting a Validator Fee for your delegators” below for more information).

For most protocols, reward calculations and distributions are hardcoded into the blockchain, so Bison Trails cannot control or guarantee reward earnings.

Here’s how this works:

Run your own staking-as-a-service business with Bison Trails

If you have a strong community of crypto enthusiasts, you don’t need to be technical to run your own staking-as-a-service business. Invite your community to delegate their tokens to your node cluster. The Bison Trails enterprise-grade platform will manage and monitor your cluster for you, so you can be confident in its reliability on behalf of your delegators. They can participate in securing the network, and earn rewards, without running their own Participation Cluster. In return, you, the node operator, also earn rewards on delegated tokens via your Node Operator Fee.

Setting a Validator Fee for your delegators

Once you’re a Bison Trails customer, you’ll want to attract delegators to your node cluster by setting the Validator Fee competitively with other validators in the network.

When using Bison Trails to manage your cluster, the total rewards earned will be reduced by the Validator Fee applied to rewards earned by your delegators. Your Validator Fee equals your Node Operator Fee plus a small Bison Trails Participatory Fee applied to all rewards earned by your delegators.

The Validator Fee is visible to your delegators in the network validator list; your Node Operator Fee is not. Here’s a guide to help you set an attractive Validator Fee for your delegators and calculate your Node Operator Fee:

Earning rewards by delegating to Bison Trails’ public validators

If you do not have sufficient tokens to run your own Participation Cluster, you can delegate your stake to Bison Trails’ enterprise-grade non-custodial public validators by following our delegation guides.

A Bison Trails Service Fee is applied to all rewards earned on the validator. Here’s how this works:

Contact Us for Pricing

Learn More

• Check out our Bison Trails’ public validator delegation guides.
• If you opt to run your own Participation Cluster, it will be subject to Bison Trails Master Service Agreement. Additionally, all validator node activity is governed by our Terms of Service, Delegation Agreement, and Privacy Policy.
• Read the twitter thread from Bison Trails' CEO, Joe Lallouz, on how the Bison Trails platform enables anyone to participate in blockchains and automates their participation. "Anyone can be their own voice and [offer] their own StaaS company with a couple clicks, powered by reliable infra..."

1/ Blockchains (crypto networks) are really complicated technology, economic and political systems.🤯

We've been erroneously bucketed in the past alongside staking-as-a-service companies by a number of #crypto investors and media outlets. That's👌, the diff is really important.

— Joe Lallouz 🏍💨 (@JoeLallouz) August 5, 2020

Bison Trails: Pioneering Blockchain Infrastructure®

Bison Trails is an Infrastructure-as-a-Service company, based in New York City, specifically focused on blockchain participation. We’ve built a platform for anyone who wants to participate in new chains effortlessly (e.g. by running Cosmos Validators, Tezos Bakers, and Libra Validators, etc.)—without having to invest time and resources into developing any of the engineering, protocol, dev ops, or security competencies in-house. Our goal is for the entire blockchain ecosystem to flourish by providing robust infrastructure for the pioneers of tomorrow.

THIS DOCUMENT IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. PLEASE DO NOT CONSTRUE ANY SUCH INFORMATION OR OTHER MATERIAL CONTAINED IN THIS DOCUMENT AS LEGAL, TAX, INVESTMENT, FINANCIAL, OR OTHER ADVICE. THIS DOCUMENT AND THE INFORMATION CONTAINED HEREIN IS NOT A RECOMMENDATION OR ENDORSEMENT OF ANY DIGITAL ASSET, PROTOCOL, NETWORK OR PROJECT. HOWEVER, BISON TRAILS (INCLUDING ITS AFFILIATES AND/OR EMPLOYEES) MAY HAVE, OR MAY IN THE FUTURE HAVE, A SIGNIFICANT FINANCIAL INTEREST IN, AND MAY RECEIVE COMPENSATION FOR SERVICES RELATED TO, ONE OR MORE OF THE DIGITAL ASSETS, PROTOCOLS, NETWORKS, ENTITIES, PROJECTS AND/OR VENTURES DISCUSSED HEREIN.

THE RISK OF LOSS IN CRYPTOCURRENCY, INCLUDING STAKING, CAN BE SUBSTANTIAL AND NOTHING HEREIN IS INTENDED TO BE A GUARANTEE AGAINST THE POSSIBILITY OF LOSS. THIS DOCUMENT AND THE CONTENT CONTAINED HEREIN ARE BASED ON INFORMATION WHICH IS BELIEVED TO BE RELIABLE AND HAS BEEN OBTAINED FROM SOURCES BELIEVED TO BE RELIABLE BUT BISON TRAILS MAKES NO REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, AS TO THE FAIRNESS, ACCURACY, ADEQUACY, REASONABLENESS OR COMPLETENESS OF SUCH INFORMATION.

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