Nominator

A nominator (also called a delegator) is someone who stakes their tokens with a validator. By doing so, they increase the validator's effective stake, which gives that validator more influence in Yuma Consensus. In return, the nominator receives a proportional share of the dividends the validator earns.

Nominators do not score miners or submit weights. Their role is to choose which validators to back with their stake.

When a nominator stakes on the root subnet, their TAO remains as TAO and increases the validator's root TAO stake. When staking on any other subnet, the TAO gets exchanged for the subnet's ALPHA token through the subnet's pool (the nominator's position is then held in ALPHA).

Validators earn ALPHA dividends from each subnet they validate. Before distributing to nominators, the validator deducts their delegate take )a configurable percentage that defaults to 18%). The remaining dividends are split proportionally among all stakers (including the validator's own stake) based on how much each account has staked.

A nominator staking twice as much as another nominator with the same validator receives roughly twice the dividends (after the validator's take).

The main decision a nominator makes is which validator to stake with. Factors that matter include the validator's delegate take, which subnets they validate, whether they hold a validator permit on those subnets, and how consistently their weights align with consensus (which affects how much they earn in dividends).

Staking with a validator that loses its permit or stops setting weights means reduced or no dividends for that subnet. Nominators should monitor their validators and restake if needed.