Is staking PLS the same as staking HEX?

No. Validator staking secures PulseChain itself: PLS is deposited into the beacon-chain deposit contract and the validator must keep a node online. HEX staking is a feature of the HEX token contract — a time deposit with no node to run. See HEX staking.

Where do validator rewards go?

Consensus rewards are paid out through withdrawals to the validator’s withdrawal address; the priority tips of the transactions in a proposed block go to the fee recipient the validator sets. Base fees go to nobody — they are burned.

How many validators does PulseChain have?

46,644 active validators at beacon slot 10,862,693 (2026-10-19, 12:21 UTC), with a combined effective stake of 1,488,456,000,000 PLS. That is a count of validators, not of independent operators — one operator can run many. The number changes daily; the method to read it yourself is on Verify it yourself.

PulseChain validators: stake, keys and rewards

What does a validator do?

A validator takes part in PulseChain’s Proof of Stake, which is Ethereum’s beacon-chain protocol with different constants and a reward burn. Time is split into 10-second slots, 32 slots make an epoch of 320 seconds. In each slot one validator proposes the block and others attest to it. As on Ethereum, doing these duties earns rewards and missing them costs some of the balance.

Each validator runs two pieces of software side by side:

Layer	Official clients	What it does
Execution	go-pulse or erigon-pulse	Executes transactions and keeps the state
Consensus	lighthouse-pulse or prysm-pulse	Runs the beacon chain, proposes and attests

The official testnet guide calls go-pulse and prysm-pulse the recommended pair and lists erigon-pulse and lighthouse-pulse as alternatives. Running different clients across the network is what “multi-client” means: a bug in one client does not hit every node at once.

How much PLS does a validator need?

Parameter	Value	Meaning
Stake (maximum effective balance)	32,000,000 PLS	Balance that counts for duties and rewards
Effective balance increment	1,000,000 PLS	Steps in which the effective balance changes
Ejection balance	16,000,000 PLS	A validator that falls to this effective balance is exited
Base reward factor	64,000	Scales rewards (Ethereum: 64)
Validators needed to start the chain	4,096	Minimum at genesis (Ethereum: 16,384)
Reward credited	62.5 % of the Ethereum formula	Reward × 10/12, then × 3/4 — the reward burn

Constants from the lighthouse-pulse preset and network configuration, checked on 2026-10-17; pulsechain.com states the same 32,000,000 PLS per validator. The units are a million times Ethereum’s (32 ETH → 32,000,000 PLS), and the base reward factor is a thousand times Ethereum’s so that the percentage reward rate stays in a comparable range — explained on How PulseChain works. The reward burn is not a constant but code in both consensus clients; it is described below.

How do I become a validator?

Run a node with one execution and one consensus client from the table above, following the guides in the official repositories.
Generate keys with the official staking-deposit-cli using --chain pulsechain. It creates the validator keystores and a deposit_data file. Back up the mnemonic, the keystores and the password — the tool’s own documentation asks for exactly that. The --execution_address option sets a normal address as the withdrawal address; without it, withdrawal credentials are derived from the mnemonic. The PulseChain version is not offered as a ready binary — it is run from source or the included script.
Make the deposit at launchpad.pulsechain.com: upload the deposit data and send 32,000,000 PLS per validator to the deposit contract 0x3693693693693693693693693693693693693693. The launchpad can also be run locally from its published server.

Use only the official domains — look-alike launchpads and bridges exist. See Official links and Security.

Where do validator rewards come from?

New PLS from the consensus layer, minus the burn. Rewards for proposing, attesting and sync-committee duty are computed by the beacon chain from the constants above. Before they are credited, both PulseChain consensus clients multiply them by 10/12 and then by 3/4, so a validator receives 62.5 % of what the Ethereum formula would pay (lighthouse-pulse pulse.rs, prysm-pulse reward_burn.go). Penalties are not reduced. The reasoning behind the two factors is on How PulseChain works. On the execution layer there is no block reward; the client’s block finalisation only processes withdrawals (consensus.go).
Withdrawals. Capella has been active since epoch 3, which enables withdrawals: consensus rewards reach the validator’s withdrawal address through the withdrawals the execution client processes.
Priority tips. The part of each transaction’s gas price above the base fee goes to the fee recipient chosen by the proposing validator. The base fee itself is burned.

How many validators are there?

Reading	Value
Active validators	46,644
Combined effective stake	1,488,456,000,000 PLS
Beacon slot	10,862,693 (2026-10-19, 12:21 UTC)

Read from the beacon API (/eth/v1/beacon/states/head/validators?status=active_ongoing,active_exiting,active_slashed) of the community-run G4MM4 node, which pulsechain.com links; all 46,644 had the status active_ongoing. This counts validators, not independent operators: one operator can run many validators, and the chain does not show who runs which. The number changes daily — the calls to read it yourself are on Verify it yourself.

What about staking services?

Validator-hosting and liquid-staking services are run by third parties, not by PulseChain. They are listed without endorsement in the services directory. A service that holds your validator keys or your withdrawal address controls your stake.