Tiers & Requirements

CS Nodes are divided into 4 performance tiers. Each tier has specific collateral, hardware, and network requirements. The benchmark daemon (csbenchd) automatically verifies your hardware before your node can join the active network.

Tier Overview

                         CS Node Tiers
    ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
    │                                                    │
    │  FOTON     ●●●●●●●●●●●●●●  Enterprise  500K CS    │
    │  NEUTRON   ●●●●●●●●●       High        100K CS    │
    │  ELETRON   ●●●●●           Mid          25K CS    │
    │  PROTON    ●●              Entry        10K CS    │
    │                                                    │
    └────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

PROTON — Entry Tier

Collateral: 10,000 CS
Block Reward Share: 5% per block (split among all active PROTON nodes)

Who is it for?

• Individuals new to node operations
• Smaller investors looking to participate in the network
• Home servers or entry-level VPS

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ELETRON — Mid Tier

Collateral: 25,000 CS
Block Reward Share: 10% per block (split among all active ELETRON nodes)

Who is it for?

• Experienced node operators
• Mid-range dedicated servers or cloud VMs
• Users wanting greater reward share per node

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NEUTRON — High Tier

Collateral: 100,000 CS
Block Reward Share: 20% per block (split among all active NEUTRON nodes)

Who is it for?

• Professional operators and infrastructure providers
• High-bandwidth dedicated server environments
• Users targeting the highest practical yield-per-node ratio

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FOTON — Enterprise Tier

Collateral: 500,000 CS
Block Reward Share: 40% per block (split among all active FOTON nodes)

Who is it for?

• Enterprise data centers and infrastructure companies
• Operators targeting the largest single-node reward share (40% of block reward)
• Providers of premium CS Cloud hosting capacity

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Full Comparison Table

Parameter	PROTON	ELETRON	NEUTRON	FOTON
Collateral	10,000 CS	25,000 CS	100,000 CS	500,000 CS
vCPU	4	8	16	32+
RAM	8 GB	30 GB	61 GB	122+ GB
GPU	—	—	—	24+ GB
Storage	220 GB SSD	440 GB SSD	880 GB SSD	1760+ GB SSD
Bandwidth	25 Mbit/s	50 Mbit/s	100 Mbit/s	1 Gbit/s
Block Reward Share	5%	10%	20%	40%

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Hardware Verification

Before a CS Node is allowed to join the active network, the csbenchd daemon benchmarks the machine:

The benchmark daemon runs on localhost:26225 and is never exposed to the internet. Its results are signed and submitted to the blockchain as a benchmark transaction.

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Collateral Requirements

How collateral works

1. Send the exact collateral amount to a new wallet address
2. Wait for 100 block confirmations (~3.3 hours at 2 min/block)
3. Note the transaction ID and output index (UTXO)
4. Reference it in your node startup transaction

Important rules

• The collateral must be in a single UTXO (one transaction output, not split)
• If you spend the collateral UTXO, your node deactivates immediately
• You can move your collateral at any time — the node will restart once the new UTXO reaches 100 confirmations

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Network Ports

Port	Protocol	Purpose	Visibility
26124	TCP	CS Daemon RPC	localhost only
26125	TCP	CS P2P Network	public
26225	TCP	Benchmark Daemon RPC	localhost only
8080	TCP	CS Mage Web Panel	localhost / VPN

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Next Steps

• Rewards & Halving Schedule — How block rewards are distributed
• Setting Up a CS Node — Complete setup guide
• What are CS Nodes? — Back to overview