diff --git a/ci/localnet-sanity.sh b/ci/localnet-sanity.sh
index 3a301e4b31e89d..bdcff355bfd840 100755
--- a/ci/localnet-sanity.sh
+++ b/ci/localnet-sanity.sh
@@ -156,19 +156,7 @@ startNodes() {
   initCompleteFiles=()
   maybeExpectedGenesisHash=
   for i in $(seq 0 $((${#nodes[@]} - 1))); do
-    declare cmd=${nodes[$i]}
-
-    declare initCompleteFile="init-complete-node$i.log"
-    rm -f "$initCompleteFile"
-    initCompleteFiles+=("$initCompleteFile")
-
-    startNode "$i" "$cmd $maybeExpectedGenesisHash"
-    if $addLogs; then
-      logs+=("$(getNodeLogFile "$i" "$cmd")")
-    fi
-
-    # 1 == bootstrap validator, wait until it boots before starting
-    # other validators
+    # wait for bootstrap validator to boot before starting other validators
     if [[ "$i" -eq 1 ]]; then
       SECONDS=
       waitForNodeToInit "$initCompleteFile"
@@ -180,6 +168,17 @@ startNodes() {
       ) | tee genesis-hash.log
       maybeExpectedGenesisHash="--expected-genesis-hash $(tail -n1 genesis-hash.log)"
     fi
+
+    declare cmd=${nodes[$i]}
+
+    declare initCompleteFile="init-complete-node$i.log"
+    rm -f "$initCompleteFile"
+    initCompleteFiles+=("$initCompleteFile")
+
+    startNode "$i" "$cmd $maybeExpectedGenesisHash"
+    if $addLogs; then
+      logs+=("$(getNodeLogFile "$i" "$cmd")")
+    fi
   done
 
   waitForAllNodesToInit