The Unichain white paper, published on October 10, states that node operators must pledge UNI tokens on the Ethereum mainnet in order to become validators in UVN (Unichain Virtual Machine). Staking is tracked through Unichain’s smart contract, which receives notifications of staking and withdrawal operations via the native bridge. Unichain blocks are divided into fixed-length Epochs. At the beginning of each Epoch, the current staked balance is snapped, Unichain chain fees are collected, and the reward value is calculated for each staked token. Additionally, participants can stake and vote for a validator, increasing that validator’s stake weight. A limited number of validators with the highest stake weight will be considered the active set and eligible to issue proofs and receive specified rewards for that Epoch.
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