Oh, le prestige of representing yourself

Raiblocks (XRB) is a unique cryptocurrency focused on blazing fast, completely free, massively scaleable peer-to-peer payments with minimal energy consumption. For more details check out the FAQ and very readable Whitepaper.

This guide is focused on how to use your own RaiBlocks node as an account representative.

If you are not already running a node, see my other guide How to run your own RaiBlocks node on DigitalOcean (also applicable to other VPS providers, e.g. Vultr or Linode).

What is an account representative?

A good representative is always online to vote. — RaiBlocks FAQ

Every RaiBlocks account has a designated representative which is simply the wallet address of a full node that should always be online and ready to vote.

You can read more in the RaiBlocks FAQ in the section titled “How does RaiBlocks achieve consensus?”.

Why use your own node as a representative?

The more users that run their own 24/7 node and make themselves their own representative, the more distributed and resilient the RaiBlocks network becomes.

Let’s do this.

Step 1: Create a wallet and account

SSH into your Linux node and check that you don’t already have any wallets created:

$ rai_node --wallet_list

This should return nothing. That’s good. Let’s create a wallet:

$ rai_node --wallet_create

EACE1D952AFBF60CBE463F824A07786F95D0ZA141DFZZ2D5930AX51A6A31B337

Copy the wallet ID that is returned and use it to create a new account:

$ rai_node --account_create --wallet=EACE1D952AFBF60CBE463F824A07786F95D0ZA141DFZZ2D5930AX51A6A31B337

Account: xrb_3fq3j4ie6du6xwqjuw4tit1ws3z869whaxq9so7dqq6g5jj54xbuhbdpn8m1

The account that is returned is what you will use as your new representative.

Step 2: Lookup your current representative

Just for fun, before you change your account representative, let’s view your current representative.

Open your RaiBlocks app, copy your account ID, paste it into the Surf the chain field at RaiBlocks.net and hit enter.

Copy your account ID from RaiBlocks wallet

Paste your account ID into “Surf the chain”

Check out your current account representative

On the next page, beneath the current balance of your account, you should see your current account representative listed. Keep this browser tab open.

Step 3: Change your representative to your own node

NOTE: There is no danger to changing your account representative. If you make a mistake you can easily change it back to any account listed on the RaiBlocks.net Representatives List. That said, please make sure you’ve safely stored your wallet seed.

Back in your node’s terminal, let’s copy the account ID you previously created:

$ rai_node --wallet_list

Wallet ID: EACE1D952AFBF60CBE463F824A07786F95D0ZA141DFZZ2D5930AX51A6A31B337

xrb_3fq3j4ie6du6xwqjuw4tit1ws3z869whaxq9so7dqq6g5jj54xbuhbdpn8m1

Copy the account ID starting with xrb — then, in the RaiBlocks app, go to Settings, and under Account representative paste this account and click Change representative. You should see confirmation message “Representative was changed”.

Click Back to view your account history and shortly you should see a new block of type “Change”.

Representative change block

Step 4: Relish in the grandeur of having your own representative node

Refresh your account page on the RaiBlocks.net chain explorer and you should see that your account’s representative has changed.

Within an hour you should also see your account listed on the RaiBlocks.net Representatives List.

Congratulations, you’re famous now — fortune will soon follow. 😎