Validator
A validator is one of nine nodes that propose and sign blocks on chain 2800, where a block becomes final once six of them have signed it.
A validator is a node with the right and the duty to take part in consensus. It proposes new blocks, checks blocks proposed by others against the protocol rules, and signs the ones it accepts. On a proof-of-authority chain like this one, the validator set is a known list of identified signers rather than an open mining or staking market, so agreement comes from counted signatures, not from computational work.
Chain 2800 runs QBFT consensus with ten validators and a block roughly every 500 ms. A block is committed only when seven of the ten validators sign it; that commit is what gives the chain its finality, since a committed block is not replaced by a competing branch. These consensus signatures are classical ECDSA secp256k1. The chain does not claim post-quantum consensus.
Each validator also holds a Falcon-512 key, one of the 10 entries (9 until 2026-09-11) in the on-chain signer registry. Since block 13,014,000, every anchor block header (every 32nd block, every 128th from 17,225,968) carries a seal certificate of validator Falcon-512 signatures over the parent block, at least 6 per scheme today (3 until 2026-08-21) and in practice 7 to 9, the configured cap being 9, and a 32-byte digest of that certificate sits inside the data covered by the block hash. That mechanism is the post-quantum anchor.
The chain is also validated by a second, independently implemented client running alongside the producing one, so no single codebase decides on its own what the chain is. See client diversity.
Verify it yourself
Verify it yourself: POST {"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"eth_getBlockByNumber","params":["latest",false]} to https://rpc.aere.network, then repeat with the preceding heights as hex block numbers until you have 32 consecutive blocks, and count the distinct "miner" addresses across the results: you will find nine.