BLKHAWK NODE
An independent XRP Ledger validator, designed, built, and hardened by Travis Baldwin. Bare metal, wired, locked down, and keys kept offline.
nHBkkQ2u5Gg9qKxDXweRwk51Qa6cKoaCBR8DjcAn5vWR9mHLExSx01 PREFLIGHT // LIVE TELEMETRY
Pulled straight from public XRPL data in your browser. Nothing here is typed in by hand.
00 ABOUT
Travis R. Baldwin, US Army Retired: 21 years as a UH-60 Black Hawk crew chief and mechanic. He runs this node the way he ran aircraft: checklists, logged changes, and nothing leaves the ground until it passes preflight.
00.5 SERVICE RECORD
// FLIGHT RECORD · TRAVIS R. BALDWIN · US ARMY RETIRED · MAY 2004 – JUNE 2025
US Army Retired (May 2004 – June 2025). 21 years as a UH-60 Black Hawk crew chief and mechanic.
Highlights
Top Awards
After retiring, he went all-in on the XRP Ledger and built this validator from bare metal.
02 THE STACK
Software
xrpld 3.4.1 on Ubuntu Linux, tracking XRPL mainnet with full ledger sync.
Hardware
Dedicated bare-metal machine. NVMe system drive and a separate SSD for ledger data. No VMs, no shared hosting.
Network
Wired Ethernet only, wireless disabled. Peer port 2459/tcp open to the network, kept open automatically across reboots.
03 HARDENING
- Firewall: ufw default-deny inbound. Only the peer port is public.
- SSH: reachable from the local network only, public-key login only, passwords disabled.
- Brute-force protection: fail2ban jail on SSH.
- Patching: unattended security updates.
- Admin surface: admin RPC, WebSocket, and gRPC ports bound to localhost only.
- Key custody: master validator keys live on offline cold storage. The server holds only a revocable validator token.
- Change control: configs backed up before every change.
04 CONTACT
Hiring, partnering, or running infrastructure? Get in touch.