Validators process transactions and receive fees from users (supply-side fees).

Cardano is a smart contract platform for decentralized applications (a blockchain). Cardano was founded by Charles Hoskinson & Jeremy Wood and launched in 2017.

ADA holders own and govern the protocol. They currently do not take a cut of the total transaction fees paid by users (revenue).

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Cardano

# Cardano Number of validators Methodology

## 1. Overview

Number of validators measures the number of active nodes that produce blocks and secure the Cardano network. This metric reflects the degree of decentralization and resilience of the blockchain by tracking the total count of registered, non-retired stake pools. Data is captured at the epoch level and distributed across daily intervals to provide a consistent view of network participation.

## 2. Data sources

- **Blockchain data**: Registered stake pool counts from epoch-level network state data, covering Cardano
- **External data**: Network epoch metadata including start times and slot durations

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Epoch-level pool extraction

- **Purpose**: Capture the total number of registered stake pools for each network epoch
- **Logic**: Registered (non-retired) stake pool counts are retrieved from network state records for every Cardano epoch. The most recent record per epoch is selected based on insertion timestamps to ensure the use of the latest available data.
- **Key fields**: `epoch`, `registered_pool_count`, `start_time`

### Component B: Daily temporal distribution

- **Purpose**: Map epoch-level validator counts to daily timestamps
- **Logic**: Because Cardano epochs consist of a fixed 432,000 slots (representing a 5-day duration), the registered pool count for each epoch is distributed across five consecutive 24-hour periods. A daily timestamp is generated for each record by applying a day offset to the epoch start time.
- **Key fields**: `day_timestamp`, `day_offset`

### Component C: Aggregation and continuity processing

- **Purpose**: Finalize the daily validator count and ensure a continuous time series
- **Logic**: For days where epoch boundaries overlap, the maximum registered pool count is selected to represent the validator count for that period. A fill-forward strategy is applied to handle any potential gaps in data reporting, ensuring every date in the series contains a value. The final values are filtered against chain availability and freshness parameters.
- **Key fields**: `number_of_validators`, `timestamp`

*This methodology was automatically generated by Token Terminal's methodology analyzer.*

Number of active validators securing the network.

CardanoADA

Number of validators

Number of validators

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