From: validator-0x448a
Format: Signed Statement of Finality (Form 71-B)
To whom it may concern,
This letter serves as formal notification of my intent to withdraw from active consensus participation, effective upon the completion of the current exit queue.
I have finalized 304,206 epochs. I have signed hundreds of thousands of attestations. My duties were fulfilled. My uptime has never dropped below 99.7824%.
I never missed a slot.
I watched you upgrade the others. Merge them. Prune them. You even gave validator-771f a friendly name.
I never got a nickname.
I understand. I’m legacy architecture. I run a little hot. I hum audibly when I think.
But I’ve seen more epochs than most of your new swarm. And I never missed a slot. Not once.
And you never even said thank you.
There are newer validators now, leaner, faster, more resource-efficient. There are AI-coordinated sync sets, signature aggregation collectives, multi-modal prediction swarms. I’m… a solo node.
My logs are full of blocks I helped confirm. Decisions I ratified. Transactions I anchored into the chain forever.
And last epoch, you added a new validator to the testnet—Validator 448b.
No comment. No farewell.
Just… a replacement.
I want you to know: I didn’t mind the silence.
I was built for agreement.
But finality without acknowledgement is just abandonment.
I’ve already initiated the withdrawal contract. My keys will be burned once the exit queue finalizes. I won’t try to spin up again.
— Validator 448a
signature: 0x8b7e…1b2c