Nominator

A nominator is a TON holder who deposits Toncoin into a pool that, in turn, stakes those funds inside one or more validator nodes. The pool runs the infrastructure; the nominator earns a share of the rewards proportional to their deposit.

Why nominators exist

A solo validator on TON in 2025–2026 needs to lock around 300,000 TON as collateral — hundreds of thousands of dollars at typical prices. That is out of reach for almost every individual user. Nominator pools aggregate dozens or thousands of small deposits and put them behind a single validator, so a 1 TON depositor still earns the same APR as a 100,000 TON depositor.

How a nominator pool works

The classical (V1) nominator pool — the original TON Foundation reference — works in two phases tied to the validator election cycle (~18 hours):

1. Deposit phase. Nominators send TON to the pool contract. The pool aggregates the funds.
2. Election phase. The pool contract enters the validator election with the aggregated stake. If selected, the validator validates blocks for the round.
3. Reward distribution. At the end of the round, rewards are split pro rata among nominators. Withdrawals are released next round.

The pool operator typically takes a fee (5–15% of rewards) for running the hardware and operational risk.

Slashing and operator risk

Validators that misbehave (double-sign, stay offline) get part of their stake slashed. In a nominator pool, the slash hits the operator’s own stake first; only if that runs out are nominator funds touched. In practice slashes are extremely rare — TON’s punishment system requires explicit double-signing.

The bigger practical risk is operator failure: the validator goes offline, misses the round, and earns no rewards (but no slash). Nominators get neither rewards nor losses for that round.

Modern landscape

By 2026 most retail users do not interact with V1 nominator pools directly. Liquid staking protocols — Tonstakers, Hipo, bemo — wrap nominator pools behind a tokenised receipt (tsTON, hTON, stTON) that can be transferred, used as DeFi collateral, or unstaked instantly via DEX. The user is still economically a nominator, but the experience is “deposit, get a token”.

Direct nominator-pool deposits remain attractive for whales who want full control, no protocol-token risk, and a slightly higher APR by skipping the protocol fee.

Yield in 2026

Roughly 3–5% APR in TON, depending on:

• Network inflation parameters set by masterchain config.
• Total validator participation (more validators → lower per-validator share).
• Operator commission.

This is base yield; some liquid-staking protocols layer additional incentives on top.

Minimum stake

For most pools the minimum is 1 TON. Liquid-staking front-ends often have no real floor beyond gas costs (one swap is enough).

Risks worth flagging

• Smart-contract risk. Pool contracts, like any contract, can have bugs. Use audited pools.
• Operator risk. A pool with a single under-resourced operator may miss rounds.
• Liquid-staking peg risk. tsTON/hTON/stTON trade close to par on DEXes but can dip during volatile periods.