# Who is a validator?

A validator is a participant in the MaalChain network who locks up $MAAL coins in the Maal Validator DAO and takes active part in MaalChain governance via the DAO. Validators stake their $MAAL coins as collateral to work for the security of the network and in exchange for their service, earn rewards from the validator DAO. The onus of running the node on behalf of the validators lies with Maal Data Labs.

Rewards are distributed to all validators in DAO proportional to their Maal Coins staked half yearly distributed to the wallet which holds the Validator DAO NFT. User reward balance gets updated in the DAO contract which is referred to while claiming rewards.

For more details please refer to [Maal Validator DAO](/maal-validator-dao.md) section.


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