Minimum vote-account stake is live (FG 01)

The first v4.0 gate went live at the start of epoch 408: slot 85,582,112, at 04:33 UTC on 13 October. Vote accounts now need at least 1 XNT of active stake for their votes to count toward consensus.

What it is

On X1, validators do not pay to vote; vote transactions are free. That is one of X1's big differences from Solana, where voting costs an operator a large monthly bill. The new rule ties those free votes to a small amount of stake, so a vote account with nothing behind it cannot use free block space.

Why it's good for X1

Free votes are good for decentralization, because they make running a validator cheap. The risk is that free things attract spam. A 1 XNT floor costs a real operator nothing, but it stops empty vote accounts from filling blocks with free transactions. It keeps the benefit of zero-cost votes while closing the obvious abuse.

How it went

X1 Labs reported a clean epoch: no validator above the floor lost votes, delinquent stake stayed near zero and block production was normal.

What to do

If your vote account holds less than 1 XNT of active stake, add stake. Below the floor you can still vote, but you pay fees to do it.

Sources

• The X1 Labs announcement (below)
• Feature account 9wZEoMSYpBs2BHrfTMbVV6cspAee2CGgNcMV9qQFHFSh, activation slot read from mainnet
• X1 docs on zero-cost votes: https://docs.x1.xyz/technicals/zero-cost-votes