# Radstakes Validator is Moving for Decentralisation **URL:** \ **Category:** Validators\ **Tags:** staking, validators\ **Created:** [31 May 2022 13:56 UTC](https://radixtalk.com/t/radstakes-validator-is-moving-for-decentralisation/486 "2022-05-31T13:56:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Faraz](https://radixtalk.com/user_avatar/radixtalk.com/faraz/32/334_2.png) [@Faraz](https://radixtalk.com/u/Faraz)\ **Post date:** [31 May 2022 13:56 UTC](https://radixtalk.com/t/radstakes-validator-is-moving-for-decentralisation/486/1 "2022-05-31T13:56:34Z")
Recently, the Stakesafe team published their validator dashboard which provided some great insights into the way in which stake is concentrated amongst node runners. You can check out their dashboard here: [Radix Network Dashboard - Stakesafe](https://validators.stakesafe.net/) One of the biggest concerns was the concentration of validator nodes hosted at Hetzner Online - accounting for 27.8% of all stake! Radstakes has run our primary validator node on a dedicated server at Hetzner for the last 9 months where the performance has been excellent and the costs reasonable (hence it’s popularity amongst other savvy node runners). However, this does make us nervous. Whilst our node was hosted in Finland (which is much less popular compared to their Germany data centres) it effectively puts a large amount of network control in the hands of one server provider - not ideal from a decentralisation perspective. > I’m therefore pleased to say that we are currently evaluating a number of alternatives, which will be based either in a completely un-represented data centre, or one in which less than 5% of stake resides. We will also locate this server in a country with less than 5% of the total network stake. We are committed to the long term success of Radix and hope that these actions might inspire other node-runners to follow suit, in the interest of decentralisation. Whilst it might cost us more, we’re determined to keep our 2% fee in place until at least Babylon so there won’t be any adverse affect on our stakers’ return. Once we’ve made the switch we’ll follow up with a proper announcement, but in the meantime we hope that all stakers will continue to stake responsibly and take these factors into consideration. For more info on sensible staking, check out this thread: [How to choose Validators](https://radixtalk.com/t/how-do-i-choose-which-validators-to-delegate-stake-to/140) Also consider validators who follow the code of conduct: [Validator Code of Conduct](https://radixtalk.com/t/validator-code-of-conduct/320) ---
**Author:** ![Mattia](https://radixtalk.com/user_avatar/radixtalk.com/mattia/32/64_2.png) [@Mattia](https://radixtalk.com/u/Mattia)\ **Post date:** [31 May 2022 14:49 UTC](https://radixtalk.com/t/radstakes-validator-is-moving-for-decentralisation/486/2 "2022-05-31T14:49:47Z")
Well said Faraz, Hetzner indeed has way too much stake. I hope this will push other node runners to consider moving away to less used providers as well. 4 of the top 10 validators are running on Hetzner, moving even some of them to other providers will easily change the situation. ---
**Author:** ![Zoddo](https://radixtalk.com/user_avatar/radixtalk.com/zoddo/32/417_2.png) [@Zoddo](https://radixtalk.com/u/Zoddo)\ **Post date:** [2 June 2022 16:08 UTC](https://radixtalk.com/t/radstakes-validator-is-moving-for-decentralisation/486/3 "2022-06-02T16:08:28Z")
Thank you for the insights and detailed explanation. Also thumbs up for the right decision. I think I already stake to 10+ nodes and I’m small fish but prefer decentralization and support that as much as I can. ---
**Author:** ![Faraz](https://radixtalk.com/user_avatar/radixtalk.com/faraz/32/334_2.png) [@Faraz](https://radixtalk.com/u/Faraz)\ **Post date:** [2 June 2022 16:22 UTC](https://radixtalk.com/t/radstakes-validator-is-moving-for-decentralisation/486/4 "2022-06-02T16:22:08Z")
Great to hear Zoddo. Hopefully more of the community will make the right decision for decentralisation 👍 ---
**Author:** ![Fred\_Liebenberg](https://radixtalk.com/user_avatar/radixtalk.com/fred_liebenberg/32/125_2.png) [@Fred\_Liebenberg](https://radixtalk.com/u/Fred_Liebenberg)\ **Post date:** [17 August 2022 09:26 UTC](https://radixtalk.com/t/radstakes-validator-is-moving-for-decentralisation/486/5 "2022-08-17T09:26:05Z")
Does anyone know where StakeSafe sourced the information about validator server provider and country? ---
**Author:** ![Mattia](https://radixtalk.com/user_avatar/radixtalk.com/mattia/32/64_2.png) [@Mattia](https://radixtalk.com/u/Mattia)\ **Post date:** [17 August 2022 09:35 UTC](https://radixtalk.com/t/radstakes-validator-is-moving-for-decentralisation/486/6 "2022-08-17T09:35:49Z")
I imagine they acquire the IP address of the validator nodes from the logs of a fullnode and then just use a GeoIP database for the location and provider. ---
**Author:** ![Fred\_Liebenberg](https://radixtalk.com/user_avatar/radixtalk.com/fred_liebenberg/32/125_2.png) [@Fred\_Liebenberg](https://radixtalk.com/u/Fred_Liebenberg)\ **Post date:** [17 August 2022 09:42 UTC](https://radixtalk.com/t/radstakes-validator-is-moving-for-decentralisation/486/7 "2022-08-17T09:42:35Z")
Thanks for the quick reply Mattia. Sorry if this is a stupid question, but how would you go about finding the logs of a fullnode? Do you need to be a validator to get this? ---
**Author:** ![Mattia](https://radixtalk.com/user_avatar/radixtalk.com/mattia/32/64_2.png) [@Mattia](https://radixtalk.com/u/Mattia)\ **Post date:** [17 August 2022 09:47 UTC](https://radixtalk.com/t/radstakes-validator-is-moving-for-decentralisation/486/8 "2022-08-17T09:47:45Z")
No, you just have to spin up a Radix node, you don’t have to become a validator or have any stake delegated. See here: [https://docs.radixdlt.com/main/node-and-gateway/node-introduction.html](https://docs.radixdlt.com/main/node-and-gateway/node-introduction.html) Once your node is fully synced, you should be able to match the validator address with its IP from the logs, usually located in /etc/radixdlt/node/logs/radixdlt-core.log (on Linux). These might help you too: > [@How to convert a Node Id (02... or 03...) from the Radix log file into a Validator Address (rv...)?](https://radixtalk.com/t/how-to-convert-a-node-id-02-or-03-from-the-radix-log-file-into-a-validator-address-rv/63): > > The Node Id reported in the Radix Node logs is a compressed public key - it starts with either 02 or 03 and is 33 bytes long. To convert it into a Validator Address then just bech32 encode it with a human readable part of rv. import bech32 hrp = "rv" node\_id = "03d781270fcebe921a9517ead7f79ec4761a4dc80e2b8b705bc1f47938e1421305" # Convert hex string into bytes public\_key = bytearray.fromhex(node\_id) # Convert from array of 8 bit unsigned integers to array of 5 bit unsigned integers public\_key… > [@How to convert a Node Address (rn...) into a Validator Address (rv...)](https://radixtalk.com/t/how-to-convert-a-node-address-rn-into-a-validator-address-rv/62): > > Both the node address and the validator address are Bech32 encodings of the same compressed public key with different human-readable parts (hrp). import bech32 node\_address = "rn1q22ts4wderfhzham0vnzs93g68d5hal3g8yyvv06re8sn88er9ud7us2dgj" print("Node Address:", node\_address) # Extract Node HRP (rn) and Public Key \_hrp, public\_key5 = bech32.bech32\_decode(node\_address) # Re-encode Public Key with Validator HRP (rv) validator\_address = bech32.bech32\_encode("rv", public\_key5) print("Validator A…