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Solutions for Node Operators

Monitoring for Validators and Node Operators

Slashing is game over - institutional validators and RPC providers need monitoring that speaks blockchain, not just HTTP.

24+
Chains supported
50+
Nodes per team (avg)
0
Slashing events (monitored operators)
99.9 %
Uptime SLA target

The Problem

Generic monitoring tools were not built for validators

  • Slashing triggered by undetected downtime that generic HTTP monitors completely miss. The Cosmos Network documentation on validators explains the exact downtime windows and double-sign conditions that trigger slashing - conditions that require protocol-aware monitoring, not generic HTTP checks. Cosmos validator documentation
  • Missed attestations and proposals compound silently until reward losses become significant.
  • Scaling to 50+ nodes across multiple chains breaks every off-the-shelf monitoring pipeline.
  • Protocol-specific alert conditions - like Cosmos double-sign risk - need custom logic to detect.

The BlackTide Solution

Monitoring that understands how validators fail

  • Sync status, missed blocks, and peer count tracked per validator in real time - no custom scripts.
  • Slashing risk early warning fires per-protocol before the condition escalates to a penalty.
  • Scale to any number of nodes across 24+ chains without additional DevOps infrastructure.
  • Alert thresholds customizable per chain so Cosmos and Ethereum validators have separate policies.
  • Enterprise operators running 50+ nodes across multiple chains benefit from a unified API for bulk operations: bulk monitor creation, CSV import of node endpoints, and programmatic alert configuration - all available in BlackTide without additional DevOps infrastructure to maintain. Cosmos validator setup guide

Capabilities

Built for operators who run the chains others depend on

From missed attestations to slashing risk - every metric that matters to a professional validator operator.

Validator Sync Status

Track block height, peer count, missed attestations, and missed proposals per validator with sub-minute resolution across all supported chains. For institutional operators running delegated staking services, per-validator metrics are critical for SLA reporting: each validator's uptime, missed attestations, and block production statistics are tracked independently so you can report to delegators with confidence.

Slashing Risk Early Warning

Per-protocol detection of conditions that precede slashing events: double-sign risk on Cosmos, inactivity leak on Ethereum, and custom thresholds for each chain. The Cosmos SDK slashing module defines jail conditions based on a configurable percentage of missed blocks over a sliding window. BlackTide monitors the missed block counter and fires an alert when the trend line is on track to breach the jail threshold - typically giving you 15–30 minutes to intervene.

Multi-Chain Scale

Monitor 50+ validator nodes across 24+ chains from a single dashboard. No extra agents or DevOps work required - just add your RPC endpoints. Bulk import via API or CSV lets you onboard 50+ validators in under 10 minutes. BlackTide's remote probing model means there is nothing to deploy on your infrastructure - each node is simply a URL and a protocol type.

Per-Chain Alert Thresholds

Set distinct peer count minimums, sync lag limits, and restart policies for each chain. Ethereum and Cosmos validators have very different failure modes. Ethereum consensus clients (Lighthouse, Prysm) and Cosmos SDK validators have fundamentally different failure modes and recovery times. Per-chain thresholds prevent false positives: a Cosmos restart that takes 30 seconds is routine; a Lighthouse restart that takes 5 minutes during high validator activity is an alert.

On-Call Routing

Route slashing risk alerts to the on-call engineer immediately. Routine restart notifications go to the ops queue. Full PagerDuty and Opsgenie support. For staking providers with delegator SLAs, routing slashing risk alerts directly to the SLA management team - separately from the ops team's operational alerts - ensures the right people are notified immediately without creating noise in the wrong channels.

RPC Provider Uptime

Maintain your 99.9 % SLA for paying customers by monitoring all your RPC endpoints at 60-second intervals with latency and error rate tracking. For operators who also provide RPC services to clients, BlackTide tracks latency percentiles (P50, P95, P99) and error rates alongside availability - giving you the data to back up your SLA claims and identify degraded endpoints before clients report issues.

Use Cases

How validator teams use BlackTide

From solo stakers to institutional operators running hundreds of nodes.

Institutional validator - Cosmos at scale

An institutional operator monitors 200+ validators across 15 Cosmos SDK chains. Per-chain sync lag and double-sign detection alerts route to an on-call rotation via PagerDuty.

Ethereum solo staker - attestation tracking

A solo staker catches missed attestations within 60 seconds. Before BlackTide, compounding misses went unnoticed for hours and resulted in meaningful reward losses.

RPC provider - SLA enforcement

An RPC provider monitors 8 EVM endpoints per-region with latency thresholds. When any endpoint degrades, a status page update publishes automatically to paying customers.

Common questions from validator teams

Do you support exotic chains like Sei or Berachain?
BlackTide supports 24 chains natively including Cosmos SDK, EVM, Cardano, and Midnight. For chains not yet listed, reach out - we can add new chains through our custom executor framework.
How does it scale to 50+ nodes?
Each node is a separate monitor in BlackTide. Bulk import via API or CSV lets you add 50 nodes in minutes. There is no per-node agent to deploy - BlackTide polls your endpoints remotely.
Is there an integration with TenderDuty?
TenderDuty handles Cosmos-specific missed block detection; BlackTide adds multi-chain coverage, incident management, and status pages on top. Many teams run both and route TenderDuty alerts into BlackTide for unified incident tracking.
What's the minimum check interval?
The minimum check interval is 60 seconds on all plans. Enterprise plans can unlock 30-second polling for critical validators on high-stakes chains.
Can I export data to my own observability stack?
Yes. BlackTide exposes a metrics API compatible with Prometheus remote_write and OTLP. You can forward alert events to any webhook endpoint and ingest them into Grafana, Datadog, or your own stack.
How does BlackTide handle nodes behind a firewall?
If your validator nodes are behind a firewall (as they should be for security), you can whitelist BlackTide's probe IP ranges to allow health check traffic without exposing your nodes to the public internet. BlackTide publishes its probe IP ranges in the documentation, and you can configure your firewall rules to allow only BlackTide's probes to reach the JSON-RPC and REST API ports. This is the recommended setup for institutional operators who require network isolation between their validator signing keys and external traffic.

Get started today

Never lose rewards to undetected downtime.

Monitoring built for the operators keeping the chains alive.