About Block Producers
The role of a block producer in Mina is to achieve consensus and provide security to the blockchain. The block producer is responsible for creating new blocks that include recent transactions broadcast on the network and a blockchain proof that proves the current state of the chain is valid.
In Mina, anyone can become a block producer. There is an unbounded number of participants with the chance of producing a block proportional to the funds staked. Funds are not locked and are not subject to slashing.
In return for staking funds and generating the required blockchain proofs, blocks that are produced and included in the canonical chain are rewarded in the form of a coinbase and transaction fees, less any fees paid to purchase required transaction SNARK work.
To successfully produce a block, a block producer must have the current state of the blockchain. A block producer must have enough available compute to produce a blockchain SNARK within the slot time and be connected to peers to broadcast the generated block within an acceptable delay as defined by the network consensus parameters.
Block Producers
This section describes how to run a Block Producer on the Mina protocol.
- Getting Started - How to install and get started running a block producer.
- Connecting to the Mina Mainnet - How to connect to the Mina Mainnet.
- Connecting to the Mina Devnet - How to connect to the Mina Devnet.
- Hot and Cold Block Production - How to get started running a block producer.