Nominator
A TAO or ALPHA holder who stakes with a validator to earn a share of that validator's dividends, without validating themselves.
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.
MINIMUM STAKE
There is a minimum required stake to be a nominator. Nominations below this threshold get cleared automatically by the blockchain to free up storage. At the time of writing, this minimum is approximately 0.002 TAO
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).
DELEGATE TAKE
The delegate take can range from 0% to 18%. Each validator sets their own take. A lower take means more dividends go to nominators, which can attract more stake. A higher take means the validator keeps more but may attract less delegation.
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.