Frequently Asked Questions
Answers to common questions about RHINO's validator, RPC, and enterprise infrastructure services.
Technical Capabilities & Performance
What blockchain validator uptime guarantees does RHINO provide?
RHINO guarantees 99.95% uptime on all client-facing services under our commercial SLAs, and we hold our validator infrastructure to an internal target of 99.99%. We meet those numbers with Horcrux-based RAFT signing, redundant nodes across five global clusters (Eastern US, Western US, Germany, Japan, and Singapore), and continuous monitoring with Wazuh for security and Zabbix for infrastructure. We currently secure approximately $100 million in staked assets across more than 70 blockchain networks.
How many blockchain networks does your RPC infrastructure support?
RHINO runs validator and infrastructure services on more than 70 blockchain networks. Public RPC endpoints are available for a selected set of those networks, listed at rhinostake.com/resources. They run on over 100 bare metal nodes worldwide and handle more than 10 billion requests a month, using a hybrid model of owned bare metal hardware and cloud capacity. With 10 Gbps networking in Tier 3+ data centers, we deliver sub-100ms response times globally and 99.95% availability for public and private clients alike. All API services are governed by our terms of use.
What are your RPC endpoint performance specifications?
Our RPC nodes run on AMD Ryzen 9950X or AMD EPYC 9-series processors with 128GB or more of RAM and NVMe SSD storage in RAID 1 for redundancy. Combined with 10 Gbps networking in Tier 3+ data centers, this delivers sub-100ms response times globally and 99.95% availability. Dedicated enterprise endpoints add higher rate limits, priority routing, and guaranteed bandwidth, and our engineers work with clients to tune API usage for performance-sensitive applications.
How do you handle blockchain network upgrades and hard forks?
We track governance proposals on every network we support and open a service ticket for each upcoming upgrade or hard fork. Enterprise clients receive advance notice, and we coordinate each upgrade to avoid downtime for their services. When a change breaks compatibility, we provide migration support.
Security & Compliance
What security measures protect institutional staking operations?
Validator keys are protected by Horcrux-based RAFT signing infrastructure, and all cryptographic material is held either in MPC (multi-party computation) setups or in off-node signers on dedicated signing infrastructure. Asset management is done exclusively with hardware wallets, so private keys never exist in a software-only environment. Secrets are stored in an encrypted enterprise vault that requires hardware security keys for access. Our base systems follow CIS (Center for Internet Security) benchmarks deployed through Ansible, and all custody operations use industry-standard encryption and are fully audit-logged. Our ISO 27001 certification is in progress.
Are you compliant with enterprise security standards?
Our ISO 27001 certification is in progress, and our controls are already aligned with the standard. Access runs over a Nebula overlay network with certificate-based authentication and no publicly exposed access endpoints. Wazuh handles security monitoring and auditing, and Graylog centralizes our logs, with automated queries that alert immediately on policy violations. Every access event is logged. Enterprise clients who want to review our security posture against their own requirements can request a security assessment as part of our consulting services.
Slash Protection
What is slashing and how does it affect staked assets?
Slashing is a penalty built into proof-of-stake networks to discourage malicious or negligent validator behavior. When a validator breaks network rules, for example by double-signing a block or staying offline too long, part of its staked tokens is permanently destroyed. That reduces delegator rewards and, in severe cases, the staked principal. RHINO's staking infrastructure is designed to prevent slashing through redundant systems, continuous monitoring, and strict operating procedures on every network we support.
What specific measures does RHINO implement to prevent slashing?
Horcrux-based RAFT signing prevents double-signing by requiring multiple signing nodes to agree before any signature is produced. Real-time monitoring alerts on validator health, geographically distributed backup validators fail over automatically, and the signing infrastructure is isolated and dedicated to that one purpose. All changes go through strict change management, and 24/7 monitoring with PagerDuty means any anomaly that could lead to slashing gets an immediate response.
Does RHINO provide slashing insurance or compensation guarantees?
Yes. RHINO provides "soft" slashing protection in several ways. We carry slashing insurance and keep reserve funds set aside for slashing events. Enterprise SLAs include specific slashing compensation clauses, performance guarantees, and defined remediation procedures. If a validator performance issue occurs, we publish an incident report and post-incident analysis, and we compensate clients for any slashing caused by our infrastructure or operations.
How does RHINO's validator architecture prevent double-signing?
Our Horcrux-based RAFT signing infrastructure runs a consensus protocol across multiple signing nodes, so a validator cannot produce two conflicting signatures for the same block. Keys are split using MPC, so no single location ever holds a complete private key, and every signature requires agreement from multiple distributed signers. Signing runs in hardware-isolated environments, with each validator instance kept separate. We also cross-check signing operations automatically, monitor signature patterns in real time, and immediately isolate any validator that behaves irregularly.
What happens during network outages or infrastructure failures?
Our validators run on hardware spread across five global clusters (Eastern US, Western US, Germany, Japan, and Singapore), with real-time health monitoring and automatic traffic routing. If a node or site goes down, Horcrux-based RAFT consensus keeps the validator signing through the healthy nodes without compromising signing safety. In any outage, our priority is to keep validators online without taking any action that could trigger slashing.
Service Level Agreements
What level of technical support do enterprise clients receive?
Enterprise SLAs include 24/7 emergency coverage through PagerDuty. During our primary hours (8:00 AM UTC+1 to 1:00 AM Eastern), all communications and non-emergency issues receive a response in under an hour, and emergencies receive a response within an hour at any time. Our support team of blockchain engineers and infrastructure specialists is led by CEO Eric (30+ years in enterprise infrastructure) and CISO Jeff (30+ years in security architecture), both profiled on our about page. Institutional clients also receive priority escalation, dedicated account management, and quarterly business reviews. We are reachable on Slack, Discord, Telegram, and a PagerDuty escalation email. For immediate help, visit our contact page.
What SLA guarantees are included in enterprise contracts?
Enterprise contracts guarantee 99.95% uptime for all client-facing services, including RPC endpoints, and we hold validator infrastructure to an internal target of 99.99%. Support guarantees are a response in under an hour during primary hours and within an hour for emergencies, 24/7. Clients receive monthly SLA reports from our monitoring stack (Wazuh, Zabbix, and Graylog with PagerDuty), service credits when downtime exceeds agreed thresholds, and real-time performance dashboards. Every contract also defines incident response procedures, escalation paths, and communication channels.
How do you communicate during service incidents?
Enterprise clients have access to real-time status pages and automated incident notifications, and we contact affected clients directly by email and other channels. Where appropriate, we follow up with a post-incident report covering the root cause and prevention measures.
Pricing & Contracts
How does blockchain infrastructure cost compare to building in-house?
Enterprise clients typically spend 50 to 70% less with RHINO than they would building the same infrastructure in-house. Our pricing covers operations, security, compliance, and 24/7 monitoring, all of which would otherwise require significant internal investment. During consulting engagements, we provide a detailed cost-benefit analysis and ROI projection. For information about our investment services and partnership opportunities, visit our investment page.
What pricing models are available for enterprise clients?
We offer fixed monthly fees, usage-based pricing, and hybrid structures, tailored to each client. Institutional staking fees are transparent, with volume discounts for large deployments, and every enterprise contract includes detailed SLA commitments. To discuss pricing for your requirements, please contact our team.
What contract terms and flexibility do you provide?
Enterprise contracts start at 12 months, with options for multi-year agreements and volume commitments. Contracts include provisions for scaling, service changes, and termination that fit enterprise procurement requirements, and our legal team works with client procurement departments on specific contractual and compliance needs. For details on our privacy practices and API terms, please review our privacy policy and API terms of use.
Multi-Chain Capabilities
How quickly can you add support for new blockchain networks?
We typically support new networks at mainnet launch, based on client demand. We prefer to get involved early, running testnet nodes, building tools, and contributing resources to development teams and the validator community, so we understand each network well before it launches. We currently operate on more than 70 networks, listed on our networks page. Public RPC is offered for a smaller set of networks, chosen by enterprise demand and technical merit and listed on our resources page. Ansible automation and close relationships with core development teams let us deploy quickly across our 100+ bare metal nodes, on consensus mechanisms ranging from Tendermint and CometBFT to Aptos's DiemBFT.
Can you provide custom API integrations for proprietary systems?
Yes. Our consulting team builds custom API integrations for enterprise clients with proprietary systems, including GraphQL endpoints, custom data formats, and specialized authentication. Every custom integration comes with full documentation and ongoing maintenance.
Do you support cross-chain functionality and bridges?
Yes. RHINO runs infrastructure for Chainlink CCIP, IBC, and Wormhole. Our tools include cross-chain transaction monitoring and bridge status APIs, and we provide consulting on cross-chain architecture and security for client implementations.
What's the difference between your validator operations and public RPC services?
RHINO runs validators and infrastructure on more than 70 networks. Our public RPC service is narrower by design: we offer it only on networks where we can sustain high volume and meet a high SLA. We would rather provide enterprise-grade availability on a selected set of networks than basic access to all of them. Public endpoints are listed on our resources page. Enterprise clients who need RPC on any of our 70+ networks can get dedicated private infrastructure built around their geographic, volume, and performance requirements, with custom SLAs and dedicated bandwidth.
Enterprise Integration
What onboarding and migration assistance do you provide?
We plan and carry out each migration together with the client. That includes technical integration support, API key management, and a gradual traffic cutover to avoid downtime. Our solutions engineers work alongside the client's DevOps team through the entire onboarding process.
Business Continuity
What disaster recovery and backup procedures do you maintain?
Keys and secrets are stored in enterprise vault systems that require hardware security keys for access. Dedicated snapshot servers capture blockchain state so nodes can be rebuilt quickly, and critical backup data is replicated across our global clusters. Recovery is automated with Ansible, which lets us restore services with minimal downtime, and PagerDuty provides 24/7 incident management.
How do you ensure long-term technology evolution and support?
We invest in research and development to keep pace with changes in blockchain technology. We work closely with leading blockchain foundations, take part in protocol development, and track emerging technologies and new consensus mechanisms as part of our long-term roadmap.
Have More Questions?
Our technical team can walk through your infrastructure requirements and answer any other questions. You can also browse our supported networks, review our API services and API terms of use, or learn more about our team.