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

Polkadot is a security & interoperability platform for blockchains and applications. Polkadot was founded by Gavin Wood and launched in 2020.

DOT holders own and govern the protocol. They currently take a cut of the total transaction fees paid by users (revenue). Polkadot’s investors include Polychain, IOSG Ventures, Hashkey, etc.

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Polkadot

# Polkadot Number of validators Methodology

## 1. Overview

The number of validators metric measures the total count of active validators participating in the Polkadot relay chain consensus mechanism at any given time. This metric tracks the size of the validator set, which is a key indicator of network decentralization and security. The calculation extracts daily validator counts from Polkadot's staking module and provides a time series showing how the validator set size changes over time.

## 2. Data sources

The metric relies on two primary blockchain data sources:
- **Polkadot staking module data**: Validator count information from the Polkadot relay chain's staking module, specifically tracking the `validatorCount` field from staking-related calls
- **Polkadot relay chain blocks**: Block data containing timestamps and block numbers from the Polkadot relay chain, used to properly timestamp the validator count measurements

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Raw validator count extraction
- **Purpose**: Extract validator count data from Polkadot's staking module
- **Logic**: Retrieves the `validator_count` field from Polkadot staking module calls, which represents the total number of active validators at specific block heights
- **Key fields**: `validator_count` (total number of validators), `block_number` (block height when measurement was taken)

### Component B: Block timestamp mapping
- **Purpose**: Associate validator count measurements with accurate timestamps
- **Logic**: Joins validator count data with Polkadot relay chain block information using `block_number` as the join key to obtain precise `block_timestamp` values for each measurement
- **Key fields**: `block_timestamp` (when the validator count was recorded), `block_number` (linking field between datasets)

### Component C: Daily aggregation and deduplication
- **Purpose**: Aggregate validator counts to daily granularity and handle multiple measurements per day
- **Logic**: Truncates timestamps to daily boundaries using timestamp truncation, then applies a window function with row number ranking partitioned by day and ordered by timestamp descending to select the latest validator count measurement for each day
- **Key fields**: `timestamp` (daily truncated timestamp), `number_of_validators` (final daily validator count)

### Final aggregation
- **Combining components**: The validator count data and block timestamps are joined on block number, then aggregated daily with deduplication logic
- **Currency conversion**: Not applicable for this count-based metric
- **Time aggregation**: Daily boundaries are established by truncating timestamps to day level, with the latest measurement per day selected as the representative value
- **Final calculation**: The metric outputs the daily count of active validators in the Polkadot network, with metadata fields including `product_id` set to 'Polkadot Relay Chain', `chain_id` set to 'polkadot', and `timestamp_grain` set to 'day'. A fill-forward strategy is applied to handle any missing daily data points, ensuring continuity in the time series.

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

Number of active validators securing the network.

PolkadotDOT

Number of validators

Number of validators

Competitive landscape

Chain breakdown