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Fund Your Node

Fund Your Node​

Bee nodes require varying amounts of either xDAI or xBZZ funds, depending on the node type and use case. The amount and type of tokens required depend on the following factors:

xDAI Requirements​

xDAI is required to pay for gas fees on the Gnosis Chain. There are four categories of transactions that require xDAI for on-chain interactions:

1. Buying Postage Stamp Batches (Light / Full Nodes)​

Postage stamp batches must be purchased to upload data to Swarm. The fees for issuing stamp batches are minimal. For example, this stamp batch creation transaction cost only 0.00050416 xDAI.

Additionally, xBZZ is required based on the volume of storage purchased—see the xBZZ section below for details.

2. Stake Management Transactions (Full Nodes Only)​

Stake management transactions include:

Each of these transactions requires a small amount of xDAI to pay for Gnosis Chain gas fees. For example, this staking transaction added 10 xBZZ in stake (denominated in PLUR as 1e16 PLUR (100,000,000,000,000,000 PLUR). The xDAI cost for the transaction was minimal—only 0.00026872 xDAI.

See the section below for details on required xBZZ stake amounts.

3. Storage Incentives Transactions (Full Nodes Only)​

Full nodes with at least 10 xBZZ in stake are eligible to earn storage incentives. They may choose to double their reserve size and stake a total of 20 xBZZ to maximize earning potential.

Participating in storage incentives requires nodes to wait for their neighborhood to be selected and then send on-chain transactions for a chance to earn xBZZ.

There are three types of storage incentive transactions: commit, reveal, and claim (details here). Each requires only a small amount of xDAI and typically occurs a few times per month. However, over time, xDAI may need to be replenished if depleted.

As an example reference, the gas costs from several months ago were:

Note that while the gas costs today are roughly similar to the examples above, gas fees may change over time due to potential network congestion and a variety of other factors.

4. Bandwidth Incentives Transactions (Light and Full Nodes)​

When initializing a new light or full node, deploying a bandwidth incentives contract (also called a SWAP contract) is required. The xDAI gas fees for this are minimal.

For example, this SWAP contract deployment transaction cost only 0.00058154 xDAI.

xBZZ Requirements​

xBZZ is used to pay for storing and retrieving data on Swarm. It is required for three categories of transactions:

1. Buying Postage Stamp Batches (Light / Full Nodes)​

To upload data, postage stamp batches must be purchased. The required xBZZ amount varies based on:

  • Storage volume needed.
  • Storage duration required.

Stamp batches use two parameters: depth (determines data capacity) and amount (determines storage duration). See this page for details on selecting appropriate values.

2. Staking (Full Nodes Only)​

A minimum stake of 10 xBZZ is required to participate in storage incentives. Nodes opting for reserve doubling may stake 20 xBZZ to optimize earnings.

3. Bandwidth (SWAP) Payments (Light / Full Nodes)​

Bandwidth payments are required for downloading and uploading data.

  • Ultra-light nodes: Free-tier downloads only; no uploads.
  • Light and full nodes: Must deploy a SWAP contract before making bandwidth payments.

The SWAP contract deployment fee is minimal—for example, this transaction cost 0.00018542 xDAI.

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Cost Estimates for Bandwidth Payments

  • Downloading 1GB: ~0.5 xBZZ in SWAP payments.
  • Uploading: Requires a funded SWAP contract.

Running a full/light node with swap-enable turned on allows nodes to earn bandwidth incentives by providing bandwidth to others. Actual xBZZ costs depend on network activity and should be actively monitored.

Token Requirements Based on Node Type and Use Case​

The amount of xDAI and xBZZ required to run a Bee node depends on the node type and intended use case. While no tokens are required to run an ultra-light node, both light and full nodes require some xDAI for gas fees and xBZZ for data transactions.

Token Requirement Table​

| Use Case | Supported Node Type | Amount of xDAI Required | Amount of xBZZ Required | | --------------------------------------- | ------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --- | | Free tier downloads (no uploads) | Ultra-Light, Light, Full | None | None | | Downloading beyond free tier | Light, Full | A small amount such as ~0.1 xDAI is more than enough to deploy the SWAP/chequebook contract | ~0.1 xBZZ is enough to get started uploading smaller amounts of data, but more will be required once entering the GB range | | Uploading Data | Light, Full | ~0.1 xDAI is more than enough for both the initial SWAP/chequebook deployment transaction and the postage stamp batch purchase gas fees | ~0.1 xBZZ will be enough to upload and store a small amount of data for a short period, but considerably more xBZZ is required to store larger amounts of data for a longer time(scales with uploaded volume) | | Staking | Full | 0.1 xDAI is a reasonable minimum for getting started, more is recommended for long term operation. Staking related transactions occur several times a month and can cost up to around 0.001 xBZZ per transaction. | 10 xBZZ (minimum required stake, 20 xBZZ is required for staking with a doubled reserve). Stake is generally speaking not withdrawable. | | Participating in storage incentives | Full | Small amount of xDAI (for commit, reveal, claim transactions) | 10 xBZZ (minimum required stake) | | Bandwidth (SWAP) payments | Light, Full | ~0.0005 xDAI (for initial SWAP contract deployment) | Scales with bandwidth usage (~0.5 xBZZ per GB downloaded) | |

This table provides a general guideline, but actual xDAI and xBZZ usage will depend on individual node activity and transaction fees at the time.

A Node's Wallet​

When your Bee node is installed, a Gnosis Chain wallet is also created. This wallet is used by Bee to interact with the blockchain (e.g. for sending and receiving cheques, or for making purchases of postage stamps, etc.).

Chequebook​

When your node has downloaded enough content to exceed the free tier threshold, then cheques are sent to peers to provide payment in return for their services.

In order to send these cheques, a chequebook must be deployed on the blockchain for your node, and for full speed operation it can be funded with BZZ. This deployment happens when a node initialises for the first time. Your Bee node will warn you in its log if there aren't enough funds in its wallet for deploying the chequebook.

You can configure the amount of xBZZ to be sent from the node's wallet using the swap-initial-deposit option. It is 0 xBZZ by default, but it is recommended to deposit more xBZZ it you intend to download / upload any significant amount of data, as your node will exceed its free bandwidth threshold otherwise.

Joining the Swarm (mainnet)​

Basic Deployment​

If you want to get your Bee node up and running as easily as possible, then you can set its swap-initial-deposit value to zero. This means that your node's chequebook will not get funded with xBZZ, meaning that other nodes will only serve it within the free tier bandwidth threshold.

Since gas fees on the Gnosis Chain are very low, you won't need much xDAI either to get started. You may acquire a small amount for free by using the official Gnosis Chain xDAI faucet xDAI Faucet. The required amount is a function of the current transaction fee on chain, but 0.01 xDAI should be more than enough to start up your node.

You can use the Blockscout block explorer to inspect what's going on with your wallet by searching for its Gnosis Chain address.

Full node​

If you want to run a full node, or upload a lot of content, then you may need more xDAI for gas. To acquire this, you may convert DAI on the main Ethereum network to xDAI using the Gnosis Chain bridge, or buy xDAI directly using fiat.

To find out what your node's Gnosis Chain address is, you can use the /addresses endpoint (the jq part of the command is and optional but recommended tool to make it easier to read json output):

curl -s localhost:1633/addresses | jq
{
	"overlay": "46275b02b644a81c8776e2459531be2b2f34a94d47947feb03bc1e209678176c",
	"underlay": [
		"/ip4/127.0.0.1/tcp/7072/p2p/16Uiu2HAmTbaZndBa43PdBHEekjQQEdHqcyPgPc3oQwLoB2hRf1jq",
		"/ip4/192.168.0.10/tcp/7072/p2p/16Uiu2HAmTbaZndBa43PdBHEekjQQEdHqcyPgPc3oQwLoB2hRf1jq",
		"/ip6/::1/tcp/7072/p2p/16Uiu2HAmTbaZndBa43PdBHEekjQQEdHqcyPgPc3oQwLoB2hRf1jq"
	],
	"ethereum": "0x0b546f2817d0d889bd70e244c1227f331f2edf74",
	"public_key": "03660e8dbcf3fda791e8e2e50bce658a96d766e68eb6caa00ce2bb87c1937f02a5"
}

The value in the ethereum field is your Gnosis Chain address (the ethereum keyname is used as Gnosis Chain is an Ethereum sidechain and shares the same address format).

Configure Your Wallet App

To interact with the BZZ ecosystem, you will need to make a couple of small configuration additions to your wallet software. In the case of e.g. MetaMask, you'll need to add the Gnosis Chain network, and then add a custom token.

The canonical addresses for the BZZ token on the various blockchains are as follows:

BlockchainContract address
Ethereum, BZZ0x19062190b1925b5b6689d7073fdfc8c2976ef8cb
Gnosis Chain, xBZZ0xdBF3Ea6F5beE45c02255B2c26a16F300502F68da
Sepolia (testnet), sBZZ0x543dDb01Ba47acB11de34891cD86B675F04840db

Accessing Your Node's Wallet

If you wish to interact with the node's wallet directly then you can import it into a wallet app like MetaMask. To do that you will need the wallet file and its password. A Bee node's wallet key is stored within the keys/ folder in its datadir, in JSON format, and its password should be in a file nearby it.

For example on Debian or Ubuntu:

sudo cat /var/lib/bee/keys/swarm.key
sudo cat /var/lib/bee/password

Testnet

A Bee node needs Sepolia ETH and sBZZ in its wallet to properly interact with the test network. To acquire these funds, you can use one of the faucets from this list to request Sepolia ETH. To get Sepolia BZZ (sBZZ), you can use this Uniswap market, just make sure that you've switched to the Sepolia network in your browser wallet.

To find out what your node's Ethereum address is, please consult the installation guide or check the logs!