Validator nodes are not directly exposed to the internet: they only talk to peers they know (other validators and public sentry nodes) and do not advertise their addresses. Validators announce their sentry addresses signed with their consensus key; sentries verify the signature against the on-chain registered key and reserve priority connection slots for them. This is a network-layer mechanism, not a chain rule.
⏱️ Vote Collection (QC Close)
Close tolerance
200 ms
How blocks closed
all votes %70.8tolerance expired %29.2(last 72 blocks, as seen by the RPC node)
Sahmaran
vote counted %100.0no late votes
Ninova
vote counted %100.0no late votes
Mezopotamya
vote counted %100.0no late votes
Kawa
vote counted %70.8late in 16 blocks · p50 215 ms · p99 303 ms
Botan
vote counted %100.0no late votes
A block finalizes with votes from more than two thirds of validators; but votes that had not yet arrived at the moment of closing did not count toward participation, so a distant validator (e.g. in the US) was systematically left out for being a few tens of milliseconds late. The close tolerance fixes this: when all votes arrive the block closes immediately, otherwise it waits at most the tolerance. The safety threshold is unchanged. A high "tolerance expired" share points to one validator's infrastructure, not the network.
Empty blocks (~10 min) are normal due to on-demand production. The chain advances safely as long as the active set keeps quorum (Q = ⌊2N/3⌋+1); it does not halt even if one validator weakens.
