I think this is an excellent path forward overall, I am all over this like a fat kid on cake! (I’m fat, it’s ok. 
)
Seriously though, I’m happy to assist with this, and help new Validators learn more about Community Engagement. Hopefully help them find their superpower which can help attract Delegators. 
Here are some thoughts to consider.
I think Harmony core team should first make a validator pledge to determine what kind of validator is a best for a protocol. There are too diversified opinions inside a community.
Lose of stake should happen only if outperforming. It could be related to election rate and sign%.
There could be some steps to spread delegations. For a new validator proved it’s function either in testnet or mainnet could have a delegation to rise total amount to about 0.85-0.9ems to get constantly elected. After 50-100 elected epochs it could be rised to 1.5-1.6ems if needed, and a validator should add at least one shard0-key to prove to be ready for cross-sharding. I wouldn’t give any period to lose a delegation, but it could be adjusted weekly to maintain correct amount?
We simply do not have time to flesh out the details to the fine degree. We are ready to delegate as soon as we know the following:
Number of unelected validators to bring into election and amount per validator.
Number of elected validators who need the stake to ensure they stay elected and amount per validator. This should potentially include taking into consideration how long the validators have been in ecosystem.
Time period the stake will remain with the validators until removed to boostrap the next round.
Validator requirements - key management, fixed fee limits, etc.
This is the bare minimum info needed to pull the trigger. We want to kick this off immediately and start earning the community perpetual income to use as they see fit.
I believe that the time gap between now and when the stake is pulled to bootstrap next round of validators should be utilized to solidify the process and codify much of the above additional concerns that have been brought up.
Tim
With ONE around 2 cents, 200M at 9.4% will yield roughly $376k US per year in rewards. At a 5% validator fee this is about $18.8k in incentives to distribute throughout the validator community.
Not nothing, would split it up into 20 Delegations and rotate every 10 epochs randomly through the list. Any validator that wants to participate should be included. A random lottery approach is the fairest and quickest option to execute imo.
This is great news! I’m really glad to see Harmony put resources to strengthen the network. I’ve been building my business around the harmony ecosystem so it’s important for me that it’s healthy.
I am also a validator that’s currently right on the edge of being elected. I strongly agree with diversifying validators who care about the community.
I’m confused what the ask is here - are you looking for numbers or do you need a list of specific validators? I assume at this point many of the validators near the bottom with only their 10k self stake are likely not to have machines running and would waste a bit of time for whoever is managing the staking wallet.
I’m not sure the direction things should go but I am VERY excited about this possible opportunity as I have spent quite a bit of time building an experimental raspberry pi powered validator and just launched it tonight. IMO This is what should have been done with the grant money and then grants handed out on a predictable yearly budget using the staking rewards. Back off from the numbers game like 10k DAO and just fund what the rewards have to offer and support your community like you are doing here. BRAVO TEAM!
Seems like a few approaches:
No doubt others
Ok so quick recommendation. 32 proven validators on the edge of unelected. Push them up to EMS. That’s not gonna use the whole pot, maybe half at most. Use 50% of the remaining to bootstrap new validators and the final 50% remaining distributed across the validator core to help with profitability based on staked amount. Distributed in inverse to current stake size with a cap size.
Also it’s time to have a Convo about getting nodes off the cloud to increase profitability, increase decentralization and through that increase censorship resistance. If you own your hardware it’ll pay it self off in cloud cost savings in only a few months. The setup is only a couple more steps than setting up on cloud.
This is what I am talking about. Make it cheap and low energy consumption. Cheers!
I would still keep the shard 0 -keys as a demand to get funding from core team for now. It’s mandatory for the protocol, and we should focus on it as a community. Other shards could be for ”players”, because it doesn’t halt the whole network if they are down. And maybe we could get also binance and kucoin remove their keys from shard 0.
What about clear steps to receive funding:
I would keep this as simple as possible. Delegations should be allocated weekly and there shouldn’t be any time when they are removed. I think free market will free those tokens to new validators.
If there’s still some of the funding left after allocated to existing validators, then there could be a program for newcomers meeting the criteria 1.
I strongly support this idea!
This should not be rushed. it should be well thought out or you risk messing up with you have here already.
I wanted to write more but I’m on my phone and it’sa pain in the ass. I support this.
Reasons for suspension/review of receiving bootstrap support would be:
Hi Tim, here’s my thoughts on the matter.
I think that Affinity Shard brought up a good point in the space last night. Harmoforce has proven the point that not too many validators can be put into the mix at the same time to be able to stand a chance at earning enough delegates to stay steadily elected before getting to the end of the 100-epoch promotional period. I think working with harmoforce and the validator dao will be paramount. That way we know it’s not just someone spinning up a node to take advantage of the situation and they get bootstrapped because of their reputation that they’ve made in the community. I’ve brought up the idea of harmoforce being a subDAO to the VDAO in the past for this reason. We are also in a unique position where we have extra unelected validators do to them losing their essentially bootstrap funds from our biggest hero “wallet 19”. We are really going to need that communication channel open with Li asap.
This is really up for debate and needs to be thought out carefully. We don’t want to bring just any validator to 5million staked without getting requirements and more details. No offense but I don’t want to see 20 more Harmony Rockets out there.
I really think that the time period needs to be contingent on requirements whatever the time period is. (Another reason why that communication line needs to be open)
I want to make sure that we have their contact info in case we need them to upgrade or check shard sync status for example. I want key requirements. I want a commission requirement. I also think it should be required to take a pledge.
The biggest thing is going to be able to provide support and try to help all of these validators be self-sustainable instead of just handing out crutches like Matt was saying in the space last night. I agree with Cheeky that this really shouldn’t be rushed, especially given the track record of our communication history with Li. The validator DAO candidacy closes Tuesday night, and we don’t have a single candidate yet. We’ve held countless AMA’s trying to fix voting and nobody shows up. This is a huge problem that we cannot vote, that’s how we’re supposed to get community feedback. I’m concerned about the validator DAO failing because nobody cares or has the time. Then who will monitor all of these delegations to make sure nobody is taking advantage of this quickly rolled out plan that has contact with Li?
Hey everyone,
There are some very wise points that have been made in this thread and I think that the discussion is headed in the right direction. I agree with the ideas mentioned above by @PeaceLoveHarmony, and think that these funds should be handled with consideration and strategy. That being said, I have discussed my desire to become a validator in the space for the past few months and decided to take that leap literally hours prior to the announcement by the core team regarding the 200m staking. I know that may sound hard to believe, but lucky for me it was on air (Andy/ CryptoLamb Twitch) lol. I popped in to join the discussion and to ask for advice, and later that afternoon the announcement was made. Kinda hilarious.
This being said, I will be bundled into the category of those that need to ‘earn their stripes’ per se, and I understand that. I’m hear to build and to support the community in my own capacity and I do aim to work with the team and to be an extremely active community member. I think that it is a fair sentiment to assess new validators that are now incentivized to join your ranks and personally look forward to contributing.
I’m currently doing this. I’m an AWS Architect for my current day job, but in the spirit of DeFi I prefer validator nodes to be outside large corporate owned (AWS, GCP, Linode, Vultr, Digital Ocean, etc) ecosystems. There is a little more work evolved, but I think it should be encouraged for validators. I currently setup a rack in my basement with a large UPS (5KW) capable of running my network for 8 hours without power. I also have 1G business symmetrical fiber. I’m also running my validator on a large Threadripper box with 3 NVME drives in raid. Currently overkill and a lot of this isn’t necessary for starting out, but I do care about backup’s and redundancies.
Couldn’t be on the twitter space but listened to it:
Some of what I going to say about new validators PeaceLoveHarmony covered it plus any new validator will probably run with the lowest hardware and once again creating the shard 0 sync problem on epoch change if many new validators are on board, it should be in waves not rushed with many
Also you made a huge error saying on the space multiple times how Li is busy and the funds will be delegated for 6 months, what’s keeping this new or some low existing validators to after taking the delegation pull up their fee to 15-25%+, earning more than someone with 30M+ and after the 6 months saying see ya? This approach is wrong, you need to have a controlled entity for doing this checks and act on it on weekly basis be Harmoforce or you/harmony. If can’t be done properly then it shouldn’t be done
The priority needs to be the existing validators, don’t be just any company that only thinks on getting and offering all to new users and leaving the existing base the scrubs. Keeping the existing ones needs always to be the priority first. Hell many even up to 30M are running on loss (depending on the setup of course) like myself
My take on this should be for the immediate action Monday
Now my take for in 2 weeks:
Sorry if anything sounded biased at all, just my opinion peace
Go with this. It’s a plan that has been thought out by a few trusted members of the community and seems it would work.
Could be a “trial period” too.