# Validators and staking

> What a validator is on QRL 2.0, how staking works, and how rewards and penalties keep validators honest.

If [QRL 2.0's Proof-of-Stake](/learn/proof-of-stake-on-qrl2) replaces miners with **validators**, the obvious question is: what does a validator actually do, and what's at stake? This guide answers that.

## What a validator is

A **[validator](/learn/glossary#validator)** is a participant that has locked up QRL as a security deposit and, in exchange, is allowed to take part in consensus. Its job is two-fold:

- **Propose** blocks when chosen (relatively rare), and
- **Attest** to blocks it sees as valid (frequent) — these votes are how the network agrees on the canonical chain.

Validators are identified by an index and a public key. On QRL 2.0 those keys are **post-quantum** ([ML-DSA-87](/learn/ml-dsa-87-explained)), not the BLS keys other Proof-of-Stake chains use — consistent with QRL's quantum-resistant design.

## Staking: skin in the game

To become a validator you **stake** — deposit QRL to the protocol as collateral. That deposit is the heart of Proof-of-Stake security: it gives the validator something to lose. Behave honestly and the stake is safe and earns rewards; cheat in a provable way and part of it is destroyed.

Staking your deposit is what lets the network trust a validator without trusting the *person* — the economics do the work.

## Rewards and penalties

The incentive structure is symmetrical:

- **Rewards** — for proposing and attesting correctly. On QRL 2.0 these reach validators as protocol [withdrawals](/learn/withdrawals-explained), not as mined block rewards.
- **Inactivity penalties** — small amounts lost for being offline and failing to attest. These are gentle nudges, not punishment.
- **[Slashing](/learn/slashing-explained)** — a serious penalty that burns a portion of the stake for provable misbehaviour, such as proposing two conflicting blocks. Slashing is rare and reserved for clear attacks on the chain.

## Tracking validators on Quantascan

This explorer surfaces the validator set directly. You can:

- browse the [validators page](/validators) for the leaderboard and decentralisation metrics,
- open a single validator to see its consensus performance, and
- watch validator-reward [withdrawals](/rewards) and any [penalties](/penalties).

Running a validator node itself — the hardware, the client setup, the deposit flow — is outside this explorer's scope. Start from the QRL foundation's [official documentation](https://theqrl.org).

## Where to go next

- [Slots, epochs and the beacon chain](/learn/slots-epochs-beacon-chain) — the timing validators work to.
- [Slashing explained](/learn/slashing-explained) — what gets a validator penalised.
- [Withdrawals explained](/learn/withdrawals-explained) — how rewards are paid out.