The Umee team is very proud to announce the official launch of the Umee Validator Delegation Program! The Umee mainnet went live on February 15th, with an initial group of genesis validators, who performed flawlessly, in the launch of the official Umee Network!

If you are a validator and interested in receiving delegation, please look no further! The Umee validator community will be expanded in the coming months to foster the growth of a committed and active validator ecosystem through our Validator Delegation Program. Umee’s core interests reside in ensuring that voting power and delegations are distributed in a decentralized manner throughout the network. The Umee Validator Delegation Program is being launched to maintain a healthy network and to engage key members of the community for their contributions to the Umee ecosystem!

Foundation Delegation Criteria

Are you a validator and interested in securing delegation from the Umee Foundation? First things first, you will need to fill out and submit the Umee Validator Delegation Program application form.

Validators must first meet the minimum mainnet requirement (running a mainnet node) to be eligible for delegation. Additionally, validators should showcase their involvement in the Umee ecosystem, and how they have, or in the future will contribute in a positive way to the Umee network. The Umee team highly values active community members making key contributions to the Umee ecosystem, and will highly consider such contributions in making delegation selections. Let’s take a look at what the Umee team is looking for during the evaluation period:

Required: Actively running a validator on Umee’s mainnet

• Pertains to validators both inside and outside the active set

During Umee’s evaluation period:

1. Validator uptime must be 95% or greater (those in the active set) — Validators moving inside and outside the active set due to stake size will be considered on a case by case basis.
2. Validators must have a commission rate set no lower than 2%, and no higher than 10%.

Umee will take snapshots during its validator evaluation period to ensure these requirements are being met at all times.

Required: Updated Validator Profile in Discord

1. Validators must have an updated profile in the #validator-profile discord channel.
2. Validators must use the provided template (pinned message in channel):

• VALIDATOR NAME
• WEBSITE (if any)
• BIO (give some info on yourself / organization)
• UMEE VALIDATOR LINK

Highly Valued: Umee Ecosystem Contributions

Validators who are committed to adding value through contributions to the Umee ecosystem will be highly considered.

The following categories are key areas Umee may consider:

• Active participation in governance
• Technical contributions: building tooling critical to the Umee network, contributing to the Umee SDK, etc.
• Present an in depth look into your validator security/monitoring/alerting systems and infrastructure
• Analytics: block explorers, dashboards, analytics, etc.
• Community and marketing contributions: moderating community, hosting events, running local communities, awareness campaigns (via articles, videos, etc.)
• Business development contributions: sourcing in leads for collaborations, especially around DeFi
• Influencers: Influencers with large communities who can help expand Umee’s reach to their audiences and can also attract delegations (refrain from spam, it will not be considered)
• Embrace, lead by example, and promote the Umee community values
• Any other areas that are beneficial to the Umee ecosystem

Timeline and Evaluation Period

Applications for Umee’s Delegation program will run on an ongoing basis. In the first year, we will evaluate delegation on a quarterly basis.

To be qualified for Umee delegation for the second quarter of 2022, from April to June, applications will run from February 17th - March 20th. Validator delegations will be granted around the first week of April. The evaluation period will run from March 21st until the delegation date.

All delegations and amounts are ultimately at the sole discretion of Umee. Umee has the right to not grant delegation to any validators, regardless of their eligibility in their application and compliance with minimum eligibility requirements. Umee does not have to disclose any reasoning behind their decisions to grant, or not grant delegation to any validator.

Delegation Considerations

Delegation periods will initially run every 3 months after the first delegations are made during the first week of April. The next delegation period will commence in July of 2022. Umee Foundation delegations will derive from Umee’s community and ecosystem token allotments.

After securing delegation, a validator still must maintain compliance with the minimum mainnet criteria (uptime, commission rate) in order to keep their delegation, or risk un-delegation by the Umee Foundation. An exception here is voting power, specifically if a validator’s voting power crosses the threshold of the foundation’s original eligibility criteria after they have received delegation. In this case, they will not be penalized through un-delegation, however, they will be unqualified to participate in further Umee delegation programs if they are over Umee’s voting power threshold at that current time.

If a validator who has secured delegation misbehaves at any time, becomes slashed or jailed, or is not keeping up with the mainnet parameter requirements, Umee Foundation reserves the right to undelegate previously granted stake, or a portion of granted stake at any time. Umee’s evaluation period for validators that are granted delegation will run continuously, and snapshots will be taken on an ongoing basis. Delegation that is taken away for not keeping up with requirements will be added back to the Umee Foundation.

Umee Foundation delegations are not permanent obligations in any manner. Umee reserves the right to undelegate stake at any given time, for any reason it deems without providing an explanation beforehand. All delegation decisions are ultimately at the discretion of the Umee Foundation.

Closing Thoughts

Umee welcomes all validators to apply for delegation, whether currently in the active set or not.

To recap, for Umee Foundation delegation eligibility:

1. Submit the Umee Validator Delegation program application.
2. Abide by the mainnet requirements listed above during Umee’s evaluation period.
3. Share and provide examples of how you are, or how you plan to contribute and add value to Umee’s ecosystem to elevate your chances of receiving delegation.

We look forward to launching this program and working with all validators within the Umee ecosystem. Thank you and we look forward to reviewing all applications!

About Umee

Umee is a cross chain DeFi hub that interconnects between blockchains.

As a base layer blockchain, applications and money lego primitives can be built on top of Umee to access cross chain leverage and liquidity. The Umee Blockchain facilitates interoperability between the Cosmos ecosystem, Ethereum network, side chain architectures, layer two scaling solutions, and alternative base layer protocols. As a Cosmos SDK blockchain, the Umee Network is interoperable with blockchains including Terra, Crypto.com, Binance Chain, Osmosis, Secret Network, and 30+ other chains, plus Ethereum, from Day 1.