What pays for the server
Our own guide to choosing a Nimiq validator closes on a question pointed at every 0% operator, us included: the right question is not whether they mean it today, it is what pays for the server, and what happens to the policy when that answer changes. This page is that answer for ImpactZero, and it is written by the people with the most to gain from you not reading it carefully.
The validator is funded by our other work, not by fees. 0% is not a promotion with an end date; it is the commitment that this validator exists to support the tools and the people using them, and we carry its cost as part of that work.
We are deliberately not printing a monthly figure. A cost we publish is the one number on this page nobody else could check, and everything else here is built so that you can. What is worth saying about the cost is its shape rather than its size: it is the ordinary running cost of a modest dedicated server plus the attention of the people who keep it up, it is steady, and it is small next to the work that pays for it. That last part is the whole reason 0% can be a standing policy rather than an introductory rate.
What we actually run
One validator on Nimiq mainnet, running core-rs-albatross, the same open source
Rust node software the rest of the network runs. We operate it ourselves rather than
delegating that to a staking service, which is the part that decides who is awake when it
stops.
It is monitored in public. Our status page checks the node's peer to peer port once a minute, alongside this website, and publishes the result and the recent history whether or not it flatters us. The status strip on our home page is a read of that same page, so there is no second, kinder version of it anywhere. On 14 September 2026 both checks read up, with the published 24 hour uptime at 100% for each. That is a 24 hour window rather than a lifetime record, and the page will say so on a day when it is worse.
What the validator is part of
The validator is not a product with a website attached to it. It is one piece of the same project as everything else on this domain, which is what the funding paragraph above is describing from the other side:
- The validator comparison. Every validator on the network from live data, ours in the table with the rest, including the columns where we look ordinary.
- NimMap. Our graph explorer, which draws any address as the flow of value around it. How to use NimMap walks through it using our own validator address as the worked example.
- The block explorer. Blocks, transactions and addresses, for the questions a graph is the wrong shape for.
- The Learn hub. These guides, including the one that argues against our own fee at more length than this page does.
None of those need the validator to be elected, and none of them need you to delegate to it. There is one thing a delegation changes today, and it belongs in the open rather than in a footnote: a live delegation to ImpactZero unlocks NimMap's full tier for the wallet it came from, for as long as the delegation stands. We run the validator that offer points at, so read it as an offer with our own interest in it.
What 0% means, and what it does not
Three statements, in the order that matters.
It means we take no cut of the rewards we distribute. A validator fee is the operator's share of the rewards it passes on, taken off chain after the protocol has paid the batch reward to the validator's reward address. At 0% there is no share to take. That is real, and where rewards exist it is the entire honest case for a low fee.
It is a policy, not a protocol constant. There is no fee field in a Nimiq validator record. The chain stores an address, keys, a reward address, signal data, stake, deposit, staker count and state flags, and nothing at all about fees. Our fee lives in the official validators list, our listing there uses the phrase "0% fees forever", and a list is a thing an operator can edit. Nobody should read that phrase, ours least of all, as something consensus is holding in place. What we can offer in place of a guarantee is the reason behind it, which does not expire, and the fact that any change would show up in the same public list on the day we made it.
It does not mean rewards. 0% of nothing is nothing, and for us nothing is currently the accurate figure. The next section is why.
Where the validator actually stands
A single reading, taken on 14 September 2026, with the source of each line named.
| What | Reading | Read from |
|---|---|---|
| State on chain | Registered, active after a same day reactivation, not jailed, not retired | Validator record |
| Total stake behind it | About 3,570,199 NIM, from 5 stakers | Validator record |
| Of which our own | 3,412,194.03873 NIM | Our staker record |
| Share of listed validator stake | About 0.04% | Official validators list |
| Elected this epoch | No, for epoch 1346. Yes, for epoch 1345, the first time | Election block slot list |
| Published fee | 0% | Official validators list |
| Published payout type | restake | Official validators list |
| Trust score | Availability 1 for epochs up to 1343, then 0.999998527 for epoch 1344, the single late block visible as the dip; reliability and total negative for 1344 for the same reason | Official validators list |
Read the last two rows first, because they are the ones a page written to flatter us would leave out. The Validator Trust Score is built from block production history. Ours carried no entries until epoch 1344, because the fields are filled only once a validator has been selected to produce a block. On 14 September 2026 we finally were: ImpactZero was elected for the first time in epoch 1345, produced its first block, and immediately showed why the trust score exists. That one block went out late, the protocol burned the slot's reward and deactivated the validator for the following epoch, and the dip you can read in the 1344 availability figure, 0.999998527 instead of 1, is that single late block on the permanent record. We fixed the node side of it the same morning and reactivated the validator on chain, but the slot list for epoch 1346 had already been drawn without us, so we are now back to not being elected, which means there are no rewards, which means a 0% fee is currently worth exactly nothing to a staker. Choosing a Nimiq validator explains why that matters more than any fee column.
The second row worth sitting with is the third one. Most of the stake behind this validator is ours: of about 3.57 million NIM total, 3,412,194.03873 NIM is a delegation from our own wallet, and that balance has not moved by a single luna since it was created on 11 September 2026. We would rather show you an unmoved number than a projection.
Payout policy: restake, and why there is no schedule to publish
Our listing publishes two things about payouts and both are worth reading exactly. Fee 0%, and payout type restake. Restake is defined in the validators list itself as rewards being automatically restaked: they raise the delegated balance of the staker they belong to rather than arriving as a separate payment. It is continuous, and there is nothing further for a staker to configure.
Our entry publishes no payout schedule, and that is the schema working as intended rather
than an omission. The schedule is a cron field attached to the direct payout
type, where it says how often NIM will be sent. A restake validator has no send to schedule.
The practical consequence for a staker: if we are ever elected, the signal you see is your
own staker balance rising, not a transaction landing in your wallet.
How to stake NIM covers where to watch that.
This is not our first registration, and not our first election
ImpactZero is not our first registration. We ran one in 2025 and wound it down. We registered again in September 2026, earned our first election on 14 September 2026, and are back to waiting for the next one. The 2025 sequence is on chain, and we would rather walk you through it than have you find it:
| When | What the chain records |
|---|---|
| 25 July 2025 | 100,000 NIM funds the validator address, then a Create validator transaction |
| 13 August 2025 | Deactivate validator, then Retire validator |
| 17 August 2025 | Delete validator, the deposit returns, and it moves out to an ordinary address |
| 11 September 2026 | 100,000 NIM comes back from that same address, and Create validator follows 49 seconds later |
| 14 September 2026 | First election (epoch 1345, slot 212), first block produced, a late block penalty burns that slot's reward and deactivates the validator for the next epoch, a reactivation lands the same morning, and the validator misses the epoch 1346 slot list |
That is a complete validator lifecycle followed by a second start, and it is drawn arrow by arrow in how to use NimMap, which uses this exact address as its teaching example. It is published here for two reasons. A reader who finds a deactivate and a delete on an operator's address with no explanation attached has every reason to read the worst into it. And a transparency page that skips the awkward month is not a transparency page.
How to check every line of this
Five public places, and they are the same five we read to write the page.
- The validator record. State flags, total stake and staker count for the ImpactZero address, from any Nimiq node or explorer.
- Our own delegation. The staker record for the wallet we delegate from, which is where the 3,412,194.03873 NIM figure comes from and where it would show up if it changed.
- The registration history. The transaction list for the validator address, or the same thing drawn in NimMap.
- The published policy. Our entry in the official validators list: fee, payout type, and the trust score fields.
- The node. The status page, for whether it is up right now.
Which of those you should weigh most is worth saying out loud. The first three are chain data, and nobody can rewrite them, us included. The last two, our listing and our status page, are ours. We are telling you which is which rather than presenting all five as equally independent, because that distinction is the whole skill this hub is trying to hand over.
If you are deciding where to delegate at all, read choosing a Nimiq validator and run its checklist against us. How to stake NIM covers the mechanics wherever you end up, our validators page lists everyone from the same live data, and the rest of the guides are on the Learn hub.
All live figures on this page are a single reading taken on 14 September 2026 and will have moved since. Nothing here is financial advice, we publish no price figures anywhere on this site, and nothing on this page promises a reward.