Hardware Requirements
The Citrate network supports four node roles, each with different hardware demands. Validator and miner nodes handle consensus and block production, while model host and oracle nodes serve AI inference and bridge attestation duties respectively. This page details the hardware specifications for each role.
Node Role Overview
Before choosing hardware, understand which role you intend to fill:
- Validator: Participates in BFT consensus, validates blocks, earns staking rewards
- Miner: Produces GhostDAG blocks, competes for block rewards
- Model Host: Serves AI inference requests, earns inference fees
- Oracle: Attests to bridge state, requires a $SNAP NFT, earns attestation fees
A single physical machine can run multiple roles simultaneously, but resource requirements stack. Running a validator + model host on one machine requires the combined resources of both roles.
Validator Node
Validators participate in the Paraconsistent BFT finality layer. They must maintain high uptime and low latency to avoid slashing penalties. We recommend at least 16GB RAM and an NVMe SSD... spinning disks will not keep up with the consensus workload.
| Component | Minimum | Recommended |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | 4 cores, 2.5 GHz (x86_64 or ARM64) | 8+ cores, 3.5 GHz |
| RAM | 16 GB | 32 GB |
| Storage | 500 GB NVMe SSD | 1 TB NVMe SSD |
| Network | 50 Mbps symmetric, <100ms to peers | 1 Gbps symmetric, <50ms |
| GPU | Not required | Not required |
| Uptime | 99.5% minimum | 99.9%+ target |
Storage grows at approximately 50 GB per year under current network usage. Plan for at least two years of growth when provisioning.
Miner Node
Miners produce blocks in the GhostDAG parallel block structure. Mining is CPU-bound -- the Citrate proof-of-work algorithm (CephaloHash) is designed to be ASIC-resistant and favors general-purpose processors.
| Component | Minimum | Recommended |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | 8 cores, 3.0 GHz | 16+ cores, 3.8 GHz (AMD Ryzen 9 / Intel i9) |
| RAM | 16 GB | 32 GB |
| Storage | 500 GB NVMe SSD | 1 TB NVMe SSD |
| Network | 100 Mbps symmetric | 1 Gbps symmetric |
| GPU | Not required for mining | Not required |
Mining profitability depends on your hashrate relative to the network total. Monitor the network difficulty and your block production rate through the Grafana dashboards described in the Monitoring guide.
Model Host Node
Model hosts serve AI inference requests and earn fees per request. GPU requirements depend on the models you intend to host.
| Component | Minimum | Recommended |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | 8 cores, 3.0 GHz | 16+ cores, 3.5 GHz |
| RAM | 32 GB | 64 GB+ |
| Storage | 1 TB NVMe SSD | 2 TB NVMe SSD |
| Network | 100 Mbps symmetric | 1 Gbps symmetric |
| GPU | NVIDIA RTX 3060 (12GB VRAM) | NVIDIA A100 (40GB) or H100 (80GB) |
GPU selection guide by model size:
| Model Parameters | Minimum GPU | Recommended GPU |
|---|---|---|
| <1B parameters | RTX 3060 (12GB) | RTX 4070 Ti (16GB) |
| 1B - 7B parameters | RTX 4090 (24GB) | A100 (40GB) |
| 7B - 13B parameters | A100 (40GB) | A100 (80GB) |
| 13B - 70B parameters | 2x A100 (80GB) | 4x A100 (80GB) or H100 |
| 70B+ parameters | 4x A100 (80GB) | 8x H100 |
Citrate supports model formats including ONNX, SafeTensors, and GGUF. Quantized models (INT8, INT4) significantly reduce VRAM requirements -- a 7B parameter model quantized to INT4 can run on an RTX 4070 Ti with 16GB VRAM.
Oracle Node
Oracle nodes attest to cross-chain bridge state and require a $SNAP NFT to participate. The computational requirements are modest, but uptime and network reliability are critical.
| Component | Minimum | Recommended |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | 4 cores, 2.5 GHz | 8 cores, 3.0 GHz |
| RAM | 8 GB | 16 GB |
| Storage | 250 GB SSD | 500 GB NVMe SSD |
| Network | 50 Mbps symmetric | 100 Mbps symmetric |
| GPU | Not required | Not required |
| Special | $SNAP NFT in connected wallet | $SNAP NFT + staked SALT |
Oracle nodes must maintain connections to both the Citrate network and the bridged chains (Ethereum, etc.). Ensure your node has reliable connectivity to RPC endpoints for all supported bridge targets.
Cloud Provider Recommendations
If you prefer cloud hosting, here are equivalent instance types for the major providers. We've had good results with all three, but AWS tends to have the best GPU availability for model hosting:
| Role | AWS | GCP | Azure |
|---|---|---|---|
| Validator | m6i.xlarge | n2-standard-4 | Standard_D4s_v5 |
| Miner | c6i.4xlarge | c2-standard-16 | Standard_F16s_v2 |
| Model Host (small) | g5.xlarge | a2-highgpu-1g | Standard_NC4as_T4_v3 |
| Model Host (large) | p4d.24xlarge | a2-ultragpu-8g | Standard_ND96amsr_A100_v4 |
| Oracle | t3.medium | e2-medium | Standard_B2s |
Further Reading
- Installing Client -- download and configure the Citrate node software
- Validator Setup -- staking and validator registration
- Model Hosting -- serving AI models on the network
- Monitoring -- track your node's performance