Register in Symbiotic¶

Introduction¶

One of Tanssi's core propositions for builders is that it provides Ethereum-grade economic security to every Tanssi-powered network, regardless of its TVL, userbase, or the specifics of the use case. Tanssi's design offers developers a shared security model, alleviating them from having to source enough economic security or negotiate with operators to run nodes opting in for their networks.

The Tanssi protocol achieves this by integrating with external security providers, such as Symbiotic. In this model, different vaults associated with Tanssi provide economic security, and reliable operators provide validation services to the Tanssi network.

In every session, the Tanssi protocol determines how many validators are required to support the entire ecosystem. With the number of validators, the protocol picks those with the higher delegated stake from the allow-listed ones.

This guide will walk you through the steps to successfully register your node as a Symbiotic operator.

Checking Prerequisites¶

Before registering as an operator, ensure you have already set up the node and it is running.

To follow this guide, you must interact with smart contracts. There are several ways to interact with the smart contracts:

• Using the Symbiotic CLI
• Using Etherscan
• Using Safe for multisig setups

In any case, you'll need to sign the transaction using the account you intend to use for the node. You can choose between different options to do so:

• Using the account's private key directly (although this method is not recommended)
• Using a hot wallet, such as MetaMask
• Using a cold wallet, such as Ledger

The following section outlines the steps for installing the Symbiotic CLI, if that's your method of preference.

Set Up the Symbiotic CLI¶

The Symbiotic CLI is a tool for interacting with Symbiotic's core smart contracts. It is written in Python, so you'll need to install the Python interpreter and pip, Python's package installer:

 sudo apt-get install python3 && \
 sudo apt install python3-pip

brew install python3

Now, with Python installed, download the Symbiotic CLI and its dependencies:

git clone https://github.com/symbioticfi/cli.git && \
cd cli && \
pip3 install -r requirements.txt

Run the following command to check if the installation was successful:

python3 symb.py --help

The terminal should show a long list of the CLI available commands:

Register as an Operator¶

The Symbiotic protocol keeps a registry of all operators. Before being able to secure Tanssi-powered networks, node operators must register as operators in the Symbiotic protocol using one of the methods described in the following sections.

Register Using the Symbiotic CLI¶

If you correctly installed the Symbiotic CLI and you want to sign the transaction using a Ledger device, then run the following command, replacing INSERT_OPERATOR_ADDRESS with your account:

python3 symb.py register-operator --ledger --ledger-account INSERT_OPERATOR_ADDRESS

python3 symb.py register-operator --ledger --ledger-account INSERT_OPERATOR_ADDRESS --chain sepolia

If you want to sign the transaction directly using the account private key, then run the following command, replacing the INSERT_PRIVATE_KEY parameter:

python3 symb.py register-operator --private-key INSERT_PRIVATE_KEY

python3 symb.py register-operator --private-key INSERT_PRIVATE_KEY --chain sepolia

Register Using Etherscan¶

You can interact with Symbiotic's smart contracts using Etherscan and sign the transaction using a browser wallet (MetaMask, for example).

Go to the contract's page by opening the link:

Click on Connect to Web3, and select your preferred wallet (e.g. MetaMask):

Once connected:

1. Expand the registerOperator function
2. Click on Write, and sign the transaction

Register Using Safe for Multisig Setups¶

If you have a Safe account, then open the Transaction builder and insert the following contract address:

Finally, pick the registerOperator function and sign the transaction.

Check the Registration Status¶

You can quickly check your registration status on Etherscan. Open the following link:

On the contract's page:

1. Select the isEntity function
2. Paste your operator's account
3. Click on Query

If your operator was registered correctly, you'll get a true result, and otherwise, false

You can also verify your registration status using the Symbiotic CLI running the following command, which prints true or false for any given operator address:

python3 symb.py isop INSERT_OPERATOR_ADDRESS

python3 symb.py isop INSERT_OPERATOR_ADDRESS --chain sepolia

And the output looks like:

Submit Metadata¶

Once your operator is successfully registered, you can add metadata (e.g., logo) to improve its visibility on the Symbiotic website.

To submit your operator's metadata, head to the Symbiotic metadata repository:

Create a fork of this repo and, within the operators directory, create a new directory named after your operator's address. Within your operator's directory, add your logo.png and a file named info.json with the following fields, replacing the values with your own:

{
    "name": "INSERT_YOUR_OPERATOR_NAME",
    "description": "INSERT_YOUR_OPERATOR_DESCRIPTION",
    "tags": [
        "operator"
    ],
    "links": [
        {
            "type": "website",
            "name": "Website",
            "url": "https://INSERT_YOUR_WEBSITE_URL"
        },
        {
            "type": "website",
            "name": "X",
            "url": "https://INSERT_YOUR_X_URL"
        }
    ]
}

Finally, open a pull request. The Symbiotic team will review it and merge it.