Public mainnet Firestarter node participation requires at least 10,000 PIPE staked through LovePIPE per node. There are no individual node rewards or payouts. These checks describe ordinary admission and ongoing routing eligibility.
| Check | Requirement | Effect of Failure |
|---|---|---|
| LovePIPE position | Node wallet owns LSTs representing at least 10,000 underlying PIPE at each finalized hourly observation. | Observation fails; insufficient ownership removes an active node from routing. |
| Wallet identity | The Solana wallet is the node's persistent identity, with one wallet per node. | A position in another wallet cannot qualify this node. |
| Qualification coverage | Every UTC hour in one complete UTC calendar month has a valid passing observation. | The month does not qualify; a new complete valid month is required. |
| Enrollment | Valid enrollment and authority for the intended control plane and mesh. | Node cannot participate in the mesh. |
| Health and reachability | Node remains reachable, healthy, and able to serve authorized work. | Routing or placement excludes unavailable nodes. |
| Capacity and integrity | Storage meets the selected policy's capacity, verification, and durability requirements. | Affected storage is not eligible for placement or requires repair. |
| Optional external S3 | Compatible release, successful backend qualification and continuing audits. | External capacity remains unavailable or is suspended. |
| Administrative status | Node is enabled and not blacklisted. | Participation stops; unblacklisting and valid qualification are required for re-entry. |
Health and storage checks apply as the service runs. The calendar-month rule applies to LovePIPE qualification; it is not an earnings settlement window. Ordinary public admission is invite-only and also requires the 10,000 PIPE LovePIPE position plus a complete valid month. Private bootstrap exemptions may exist; they are administered by the protocol, are not a public enrollment path, create no rewards, and do not change the public 10,000 PIPE requirement.
See Tokenomics, Node Operations, and LovePIPE.