Wind-down and sale to StakeSafe (August 2026)
On 21 August 2026 at 15:47 UTC Avaunt announced in the main Radix Telegram channel that it is closing its validator operations: "After six incredible years of running the Avaunt Staking validator, the time has come for us to close down operations." The post dates the company's involvement to the Olympia betanet and sets a handover date: on 28 August 2026 all services migrate to StakeSafe, with delegators encouraged to keep their delegation in place. Avaunt is not leaving the ecosystem; the announcement says it is "just focussing on our non-Validator activities".
Two follow-up messages from the same account, minutes later, set out what delegators have to do, which is nothing: "No action required from any delegators, your stake will remain delegated to the validator and in your complete control", and "We're just transferring the Validator to StakeSafe". The node changes operator rather than the delegations changing node: the validator component and the stake delegated to it stay where they are, and what changes hands is control of the component, which on Radix means its owner badge.
The transfer had already finalized, thirteen minutes before the announcement
An earlier version of this page read the validator from the Radix Gateway at epoch 336,990 on the evening of 21 August, found its name, its info_url and its 2% fee all unchanged, and concluded that nothing about the transfer had been executed on ledger. That was wrong, and the reason is worth naming: a validator does not change hands by changing its own fields. It changes hands when its owner badge moves, and that badge is an ordinary non-fungible sitting in an ordinary account, so the evidence lives in the badge's location and in the transactions that present it, not in anything the validator displays. Read that way, the whole handover fits inside one afternoon.
- 14:31:47 UTC (state version 552,803,398) – Avaunt's operating account
account_rdx169ldq…yp8j8f5w4presents the owner badge[834bcbdc…24a2beb0]and callsupdate_key, rotating the validator's consensus key. That account had exercised this badge continuously since 28 September 2023, across thirty owner transactions, and this was its last act as owner. - 14:36:18 UTC (552,804,042) – the same account withdraws the badge and sends it to a second Avaunt-controlled account.
- 15:34:27 UTC (552,824,072, txid_rdx1g52wlj5np7zgf3a…) – the sale. One atomic transaction composed from two subintents: the badge leaves the Avaunt account and 1,456,311 XRD arrive in it, a further 43,689.33 XRD goes to the fee component of Atomix, and a third account pays the 0.84 XRD network fee. The buyer's side of the ledger reads 1,500,000.33 XRD out, badge in.
- 15:47 UTC – the Telegram announcement above.
Two things follow from the accounts involved. The buyer's account is the same one that holds and exercises StakeSafe Amsterdam's owner badge, which it used on 16 August 2026 to queue that node's own fee rise and to begin unlocking its owner stake, so the counterparty is StakeSafe's operating account rather than an unidentified buyer. And the venue is Atomix, the peer-to-peer subintent trading dApp Avaunt itself built and launched in October 2025: the company sold its validator through its own product, and the 3% platform fee that trade paid is 210 times everything Atomix had collected in fees up to that point.
What the new owner has done since
Both acts fall on 26 August 2026 and both are signed from the buyer's account with the badge it now holds:
- 20:47:04 UTC –
update_feeat0.25. The validator fee goes from 2% to 25%, effective at epoch 342,482. - 20:48:52 UTC –
start_unlock_owner_stake_unitsfor 294,848 stake units, released at epoch 346,514.
Read at epoch 338,910 (28 August 2026, 11:06 UTC) the validator is still registered, still accepting delegated stake, still charging 2%, and still carries the name "⏩ Avaunt Staking ⏩ ShardSpace.app" with info_url pointing at avaunt-staking.com and an icon served from that domain. It holds 142,149,029.36 XRD at rank 9 of the 188 registered validators, down from 148,936,095 XRD and rank 8 at the announcement: 6.79 million XRD, 4.6% of the delegation, withdrawn in the week since. At the network's measured pace of roughly 288 epochs a day, the fee rise lands around 9–10 September 2026 and the owner-stake release around 23–24 September.
Delegators who do as the announcement asked and leave their stake in place therefore move from one of the cheapest large nodes on the network to a 25% fee in mid-September. StakeSafe's own two validators have the identical 25% queued at epochs 339,608 and 339,609, days away; the detail is on the StakeSafe page. Nothing about the fee rise was in the announcement, and nothing on the validator's public face says it is coming.
The rest of this page
The history section below reflects the company's own website, which has not been updated since 2023 and still advertises "$5M+ staked, 400+ delegators". The node has been co-branded with ShardSpace, the Radix staking and portfolio dashboard, which is where the validator's presentation to delegators has lived; the avaunt-staking.com site is still online but is a 2023 artefact, its footer reading "Copyright © 2023" and its Radix section still announcing that "Radix is now LIVE". What becomes of the ShardSpace co-branding now that the badge has moved has not been stated.
The Radix Dashboard product described below is gone: radixdashboard.com no longer serves it. The domain resolves and answers over plain HTTP with a parking page (last modified 2 June 2026) and times out entirely over HTTPS, so the section below is cited to an archived snapshot rather than the live host.
Avaunt Staking Services is a company that specializes in cryptocurrency staking services, facilitating the operation of validator nodes on a variety of blockchain projects. As a validator operator, Avaunt Staking Services enables token holders, also known as delegators, to delegate their tokens to the company's nodes. In return, these delegators receive a portion of the network rewards. As of 2023, Avaunt Staking Services manages validator nodes on several networks including Avalanche, Radix, and the SSV Network.
Overview
Avaunt Staking Services was established to cater to the shift from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanisms in the blockchain industry. PoS, unlike PoW, relies on a network of validator nodes and staked collateral to secure the network, rather than computational energy. Avaunt Staking Services provides a platform where individuals and entities can delegate their staking tokens to a validator, earning a percentage of the validator's revenue in return.
In addition to their primary staking service, Avaunt also offers IT and AV consultancy, with over 20 years of experience in IT infrastructure project delivery, and web design & development services, encompassing branding, design & build, hosting & domain registration, social media, SEO, and marketing.
History
As of 2023, Avaunt Staking Services is accepting delegations on the Avalanche Network and Radix. They have over $5 million staked across more than 400 delegators and are active on three networks, with plans for expansion.
Mission
Avaunt Staking is community-focused, with a mission to help each and every project grow and provide transparency to the delegator community.
Products & Services
Avaunt Staking
The company provides secure infrastructure, high availability cloud hosted infrastructure, secured in multiple data centres across the globe and monitored 24/7. They are also a trusted validator on some of the biggest Proof of Stake networks. Delegators play a critical role in the system, as they show support for reputable validators. Running a Validator Node requires a high level of technical knowledge and commitment to ensure that a consistent quality of service is maintained.
Radix Dashboard
https://www.radixdashboard.com
Consultancy
In addition to staking services, Avaunt offers IT and AV consultancy with 20+ years of experience, specializing in IT Infrastructure project delivery. They also provide web design and development services including branding, design & build, hosting & domain registration, social media, SEO & marketing.
Supported Networks
As of 2023, Avaunt Staking Services supports the following networks:
Avalanche
Avalanche is an open-source platform that facilitates the launch of highly decentralized applications, new financial primitives, and interoperable blockchains.
Radix
Radix is a decentralized network designed to provide developers with a platform where they can build rapidly without the threat of exploits and hacks, and without scaling being a bottleneck.
SSV Network
SSV.network is a decentralized staking infrastructure that enables the distributed operation of an Ethereum validator, providing simple and scalable access to decentralized ETH staking.
Staking Process
For token holders interested in becoming delegators with Avaunt Staking Services, the process generally follows these steps:
- Token holders delegate their staking tokens to a validator node managed by Avaunt Staking Services.
- Once the tokens are delegated, they are added to the validator's staking pool.
- Rewards, which are paid in the native network token, are distributed to the delegator's wallet at the end of each epoch (a fixed period of time unique to each network).
Delegators share both the revenue and the performance risk of their validator. The specific penalty differs by network, and the generic description of slashing — a proportion of delegated stake destroyed — does not apply on Radix, which uses emissions-based penalties instead: an underperforming validator and its delegators earn fewer rewards, but staked XRD is never destroyed. Slashing does apply on the other networks Avaunt operates on.
Security and Trust
To maintain a high level of service, Avaunt Staking Services operates high availability cloud-hosted infrastructure, secured in multiple data centers across the globe and monitored 24/7. The company prides itself on its commitment to the delegator community, providing transparency and actively contributing to the growth of each project.