How to Transform a Permissioned Subnet into an Elastic Subnet

Elastic Subnets are permissionless Subnets. More information can be found here.

This how-to guide focuses on taking an already created permissioned Subnet and transforming it to an elastic (or permissionless) Subnet.

Prerequisites

• Avalanche-CLI installed
• You have deployed a permissioned Subnet on local, on Fuji or on Mainnet

Getting Started

In the following commands, make sure to substitute the name of your Subnet configuration for <subnetName>.

To transform your permissioned Subnet into an Elastic Subnet (NOTE: this action is irreversible), run

avalanche subnet elastic <subnetName>

and select the network that you want to transform the Subnet on. Alternatively, you can bypass this prompt by providing the --local, --fuji, or --mainnet flag.

Provide the name and the symbol for the permissionless Subnet's native token. You can also bypass this prompt by providing the --tokenName and --tokenSymbol flags.

Next, select the Elastic Subnet config. You can choose to use the default values detailed here or customize the Elastic Subnet config. To bypass the prompt, you can use --default flag to use the default Elastic Subnet config.

The command may take a couple minutes to run.

Elastic Subnet Transformation on Fuji and Mainnet

Elastic Subnet transformation on public network requires private key loaded into the tool, or a connected ledger device.

Both stored key usage and ledger usage are enabled on Fuji (see more on creating keys here) while only ledger usage is enabled on Mainnet (see more on setting up your ledger here).

To transform a permissioned Subnet into Elastic Subnet on public networks, users are required to provide the keys that control the Subnet defined during the Subnet deployment process (more info on keys in Fuji can be found here, while more info on ledger signing in Mainnet can be found here).

Results

If all works as expected, you then have the option to automatically transform all existing permissioned validators to permissionless validators.

You can also to skip automatic transformation at this point and choose to manually add permissionless validators later.

You can use the output details such as the Asset ID and Elastic Subnet ID to connect to and interact with your Elastic Subnet.

Adding Permissionless Validators to Elastic Subnet

If you are running this command on local network, you will need to first remove permissioned validators (by running avalanche subnet removeValidator <subnetName>) so that you can have a list of local nodes to choose from to be added as a permissionless validator in the Elastic Subnet.

To add permissionless validators to an Elastic Subnet, run

avalanche subnet join <subnetName> --elastic

You will be prompted with which node you would like to add as a permissionless validator. You can skip this prompt by using --nodeID flag.

You will then be prompted with the amount of the Subnet native token that you like to stake in the validator. Alternatively, you can bypass this prompt by providing the --stake-amount flag. Note that choosing to add the maximum validator stake amount (defined during Elastic Subnet transformation step above) means that you effectively disable delegation in your validator.

Next, select when the validator will start validating and how long it will be validating for. You can also bypass these prompts by using --start-time and --staking-period flags.

Adding Permissionless Delegator to a Permissionless Validator in Elastic Subnet

To add permissionless delegators, run

avalanche subnet addPermissionlessDelegator <subnetName>

You will be prompted with which Subnet validator you would like to delegate to. You can skip this prompt by using --nodeID flag.

You will then be prompted with the amount of the Subnet native token that you like to stake in the validator. Alternatively, you can bypass this prompt by providing the --stake-amount flag. The amount that can be delegated to a validator is detailed here.

Next, select when you want to start delegating and how long you want to delegate for. You can also bypass these prompts by using --start-time and --staking-period flags.