Proxy Accounts
A "feature" that allows one account to perform specific actions on behalf of another account. This lets you keep your TAO and ALPHA in a secure offline account while using a more accessible account for daily use.
Proxy accounts solve a common problem, where you want to perform regular transactions without exposing your main account to security risks. The proxy does that by drawing attention away from your primary account as it uses its own private key for the transactions. A proxy account can only perform the specific types of actions you allow, while your main account stays protected.
SIGNING TRANSACTIONS
Signing proves you authorize a transaction by using your account's private key. With proxies, the proxy account signs transactions instead of your main account, protecting it's private key.
| What it can do | |
|---|---|
| Any | All transactions including transfers |
| Non-Transfer | All transactions except transfers |
| Transfer | Only TAO/ALPHA transfers |
| Staking | Only adding/removing and moving stake |
The "Staking "-Proxy is by far the most common type. It allows you to manage your staking, adding or removing stake, changing which validators you stake to without ever exposing your main account. This proxy type cannot transfer your TAO or ALPHA to other accounts, providing protection while maintaining full staking functionality. Even if your daily-use device (thus account) gets compromised, the tokens remain secure.
Creating a relationship between your main account and proxy accounts requires a deposit because they use storage space on the blockchain. This storage must be maintained by every node validator on the blockchain, making it costly. The deposits ensure users only create proxies they actually need. When you remove a proxy, the storage is freed and your deposit returned back.
The system uses two deposit components: a base deposit of 0.06 TAO for having any proxies, and 0.033 TAO for each individual proxy you create.
Your first proxy reserves 0.093 TAO total (0.06 + 0.033). Adding a second proxy would reserve 0.126 TAO in total (0.06 + 0.033 + 0.033). These amounts are reserved from your account during the proxy's lifetime and returned when you remove the proxy/proxies.
PROXY ACCOUNT LIMIT
The blockchain allows only up to 20 proxies per account, though most users will only ever need one or two. Each additional proxy adds the same per-proxy cost.
Pure proxies are accounts created by the blockchain rather than existing accounts assigned as proxies. Unlike regular proxies where you assign an existing account with its own private key, pure proxies are newly generated "keyless" accounts (without a seed phrase ), that can only be controlled through the proxy relationship.
Pure proxies cannot sign transactions themselves because they have no private key. They can only perform actions when controlled through the proxy relationship by the controlling "main" account. This makes them useful for creating specialized accounts that serve a specific functions, without directly exposing the account that controls them.