pNode hasn’t earned

[CodedInk]

My pNode hasn’t earned in months and months. I have power cycled it many times and nothing.

[Tempestblack]

Hi @CodedInk…Welcome to the community first of all…now as to your pNode not earning…when you state “months and months”…could you be a lil bit more specific as to how much time it has been…thanks…

[Rocky]

To prevent attackers from taking control of the network, node selection to become a validator and to earn is random. This means that sometimes it takes the node only days to earn, sometimes weeks or even months like in your case.
If your pNode already earned once or a few times in the past then your pNode is surely staked and it will earn again in the future. Just sit back and relax.

If you have doubts about your pNode staking status, there are a few ways to check.

1. Using the official App.
2. Using community-developed telegram bot Nito, more info here. Recommended, I’m using this also.
3. Using RPC

[CodedInk]

Thanks I’ve been a part of the project almost since it started. I’m super familiar with how everything works. No noob here. I have multiple pNodes. One of which hasn’t earned in about 2 months. Yes I have another pNode that earns quite a bit. I use Postman and yes I have queried it and it seems to be working fine just never gets accepted. It has consistently earned far less than my other pNode over the past year and a half.

[Rocky]

I’m sorry for making such assumption.
But worry not, I believe that it is normal for a node not to earn in such a long time. I myself also have 2 nodes, 1 recently earns twice last month while the other keeps sitting there for 2 months now. I even grew impatient and unstake them both.
So, as long as your nodes are staked, they will surely earn.

[VINWOSNI]

It definitely feels like there’s a degradation in earnings lately. I have 4 pnodes and keep very detailed earnings records. Since Nov, “earnings per node average” has been on a very steady and steep decline and in January the decline picked up momentum, as of today 1 of my nodes hasn’t earned anything in 60 days:
average earnings per node:
January - 16.5354
February - 11.3705
March - 9.5346
As of today, April is at 6.9435.
I’ve only been here since May/2020 and really stand behind the project, but I am concerned. Are my numbers similar to anyone else or is there an issue at my end? that’s the question I’ve considered most often these past few months.

[CodedInk]

I will say this. I have been with Incognito since the beginning over 3 years ago. In this time I have NEVER been able to withdraw any of my fees. The only thin I have been able to withdraw is ORV that I either Staked, Bought, Or was earned. I have had validator fees that I earned and for 3 years never meet the amount needed to be able to withdraw and use it. So if in 3 years I didn’t meet the criteria how many lifetimes is it going to take before I ever see any fee earnings? At one time I had 17 nodes and between them all never got anything except PRV. I have even had my fee earnings numbers change and disappear just depends on the day. and yes I have a pnode that hardly makes anything. It was the first batch of pnodes to ever be sent out. I also have a newer batch pnode and it does just fine. Don’t get me wrong I really like this project but the killer for me was when I unplugged my 2 physical pNodes for 2 months and they kept earning even though they weren’t plugged in. Explain that one away community? Yea your pnodes will earn even when they are off line. so while there is alot of good there seems to be alot of hokyness too. Where is the Anonymous payroll platform and the other things that have been talked about. I can think of 12 ways to Sunday to be able to monetize off Incognito and none of them are being done or mentioned and I am not just spitting shit here. If anything I am SUPER saddened by what is happening This is my second post in over a year because I just didn’t want to accept that something was amiss.

[adrian]

I have NEVER been able to withdraw any of my fees

Not sure what you mean by this, the earnings from pNodes and vNodes are sent straight to your PRV address/keychain, which you can exchange on pDEX to whatever you want and withdraw externally to incognito.

At one time I had 17 nodes and between them all never got anything except PRV

https://we.incognito.org/t/many-small-transactions-cannot-withdraw/12914/6?u=adrian

when I unplugged my 2 physical pNodes for 2 months and they kept earning even though they weren’t plugged in.

This is stopping in August with the introduction of slashing. After that, only nodes actively voting in committee can get rewards.

[Mike_Wagner]

@CodedInk

I have had validator fees that I earned and for 3 years never meet the amount needed to be able to withdraw and use it. So if in 3 years I didn’t meet the criteria how many lifetimes is it going to take before I ever see any fee earnings?

Yep, the threshold is quite high for pNodes that are not privately staked.

@Peter

Hi Ross, withdrawal for pNode currently follows these rules:
1/ For stable coins: The amount must be larger than 25 micro pToken value
2/ For non-stable coins: The amount must be larger than 25 nano pToken value
Please refer to this article for more information: Withdrawing node earnings

Oddly enough – vNode operators receive pToken dust on every withdrawal.

@doc

@doc

running 4vNodes (2 since Feb) and have never had the dust stay in the node account until today

thanks for reporting this! it’ll be fixed in the release tomorrow

to confirm what @mike_wagner and @Jamie wrote too - vnodes and self-staked pnodes should be able to withdraw all dust at all times. staked pnodes using rented stake will only be able to do so once dust hits a certain minimum.

@CodedInk

Don’t get me wrong I really like this project but the killer for me was when I unplugged my 2 physical pNodes for 2 months and they kept earning even though they weren’t plugged in. Explain that one away community?

Explained in detail here. Executive TL;DR below

@Mike_Wagner

OK. SO WHY ARE PHYSICALLY OFFLINE VALIDATORS SELECTED TO COMMITTEE?

The eligibility for committee selection is “not slashed” and a properly staked 1750 PRV. Once a validator has properly staked 1750 PRV, the validator is known to the network by the BLS mining key stored on-chain in the pool of validators. There is no IP check, heartbeat or other mechanism to confirm online status of the validator’s node. The scope for this kind of validator node management will likely fall under/rely on the slashing mechanism. However as there is no active slashing, the mining key is never removed from the known pool of properly staked validators and will remain eligible for committee selection until unstaked (or slashing is activated).

And as @adrian notes, the very imminent slashing rules will remove these non-participating Nodes from the network, ending this loophole.