Galaxy Node Operator Infrastructure Update

TL;DR

This proposal seeks DAO approval for Galaxy’s planned infrastructure update during the Curated Module v1→v2 migration. As part of this migration, the Galaxy Lido validator and signing stack will transition from the current Vouch/Dirk setup to its internal SOC 2 Type II-compliant staking platform. The transition would take place within the protocol-standard CMv2 consolidation process, allowing Galaxy to place the new 0x02 validator keys on its internal platform from the outset, without a separate key rotation.

Proposal

Galaxy’s participation in the Lido Curated Module began following its July 2024 acquisition of CryptoManufaktur (CMF), which brought CMF’s engineering expertise and established Lido infrastructure into Galaxy’s operations. At the time of the acquisition, Galaxy committed to bringing any material infrastructure changes back to the Lido DAO for review.

CMF was originally onboarded with an infrastructure stack based on Vouch and Dirk. Galaxy now intends to move its Lido validators onto the infrastructure stack utilizing Lighthouse, multiple beacon clients, and Web3Signer, hosted on Galaxy’s internal SOC 2 Type II-compliant staking platform. This will effectively complete the migration of validator operations from CMF’s legacy setup to Galaxy's infrastructure and dedicated ETH Staking team, which will continue to operate the platform and provide full Blockchain Engineering SRE coverage, including alerting, incident response, and on-call rotations spanning Galaxy’s global footprint. The Validator team would still retain responsibility for operator management, on-chain configuration, and on-chain actions. Per Galaxy, this configuration would preserve the same core security properties as the current Vouch/Dirk setup, including key isolation, slashing protection, and remote signing, while reducing maintenance complexity and lowering long-term operational costs of ownership for Galaxy.

Galaxy also commits to supporting the broader Lido operator ecosystem by contributing to Lighthouse circuit breaker testing and development, evaluating the Vero multi-node validator client, advancing client diversity practices, and sharing relevant operational findings with the broader operator community on the Research Forum.

Planned infrastructure changes

Galaxy plans to move its Lido validator and signing stack to its internal SOC 2 Type II-compliant staking platform. The proposed architecture uses:

• Teku/Besu as the primary consensus/execution node pair, with two additional backup node pairs per cluster for redundancy and disaster recovery;
• Lighthouse as the validator client;
• Web3Signer as the remote signing service;
• MEV-Boost for sourcing block payloads from external builders via approved relays, in line with applicable Lido block proposer and relay policies.

The platform is hosted on bare-metal servers across three geographic regions: APAC, EU, and US.

The validator cluster will be fully isolated and connected to full nodes over segmented network layers using HTTPS and firewall access controls. No other workloads will share the same environment or nodes. Validators will be organized into pods sized to limit blast radius.

CMv2 Migration Context

Galaxy intends to perform this transition during the CMv1 → CMv2 migration window, when Curated Module Node Operators are required to generate new 0x02 validator keys and migrate through the standard consolidation process. Galaxy would use this required key generation window to place the new validator keys on its internal staking platform from the outset.

CMC Considerations

The Lido Curated Module Committee has reviewed the proposed Galaxy’s infrastructure update and has not identified material security, reliability, client diversity, or operational concerns arising from the proposed migration that would warrant ceasing the operator’s participation in the Lido on Ethereum Curated set. The CMC considers the proposed changes justified in the context of the CMv2 migration and views Galaxy’s commitments to circuit breaker testing, Vero evaluation, and client diversity monitoring as meaningful contributions to the broader Lido Node Operator set. The full CMC conclusion is published on the Research Forum and provides further guidance for voters.

Voting Options

A vote "For" indicates agreement with this proposal. If "For" wins, Galaxy will proceed with the described infrastructure update during the CMv1 → CMv2 migration window.

A vote "Against" indicates disagreement with this proposal. As the range of potential concerns or remediation options may vary, a vote "Against" entails further discussion to determine what specific actions, if any, should be considered and potentially brought to a subsequent vote.