Child Hotkey

Child hotkeys let validators split their stake across several hotkeys. When a validator creates child hotkeys, their original hotkey becomes a parent hotkey. Any regular hotkey can become a parent or child hotkey. You don't need to own both keys - validators can use child hotkeys from other users.

Parent hotkeys can share their stake with up to five child hotkeys in each subnet . Each child hotkey gets a portion of the parent's stake to use. Child hotkeys can't share stake they get from parents with other hotkeys. However, they can still receive and share stake from nominators like regular hotkeys.

Child hotkeys use two different take rates:

• One rate for working with parent hotkeys
• Another rate for working with nominators

Parent hotkeys get rewards from the stake they share with child hotkeys. Child hotkeys earn their share for doing validation work in subnets.

Child hotkeys make the network better and safer in several ways. Large validators can delegate their stake to specialized validators through child hotkeys, removing the pressure to validate on every subnet themselves. This lets validators focus on subnets where they perform best, while delegating other subnet work to others.

Using different child hotkeys for each subnet also improves security. If someone gets access to one child hotkey, they can only affect that subnet. The parent hotkey stays safe on a different computer, protecting the validator's main stake. This setup reduces weight copying since validators can focus on specific subnets instead of trying to validate everywhere at once.