Hi Harmony Family! I wanted to bring up the discussion about lowering the entry requirements to help us reach our EOY goal of 200 elected validators.
Currently due to Harmony now being $0.25+ each, for a new validator to start-up costs upwards of $3000-$4000 depending. I feel like this is definitely playing a big role in us not being able to get validators online fast enough. I know that this is very affordable in comparison to setting up validators on other blockchains, but the fact still stands that it is a big investment with little to no promise of success from the perspective of many.
With that amount of out-of-pocket costs to start and operating costs to keep a validator going until they get enough delegated ONE to be elected and the 5% fee kicks in, it makes sense that this could be holding a lot of people back who would otherwise be great validators and members of our community.
Perhaps we could lower it to say 1000 ONE to make it way more affordable for people, while still keeping a fairly significant initial investment. Would there be any real downside to doing this?
Thank you for your time, consideration, and participation! <3
Unless there’s a valid security concern raised, Validator.ONE supports this proposal. It takes a market-based approach to grow the validator base by encouraging new participation via a lower barrier to entry, which is to be appreciated.
I agree that 10,000 $ONE is a lot at these price levels. Still, the future wanna-be validators need to prove somehow that they are inherently interested in supporting the network and not just kinda try and see where it goes. A low, but still existent, barrier of entry is a great starting point as it still proves the validator’s interest in the project - that’s around $250 initial investment they need to make at current prices, not to mention the server costs.
So, I believe that a lower barrier of entry will motivate more people to join. More people joining means not just a step forward towards decentralization and higher security of the network but a higher network effect as well.
I agree that there should still be a barrier, but I think it’s reasonable for the new validators to show their commitment by being active and helpful in the community. The financial barrier of entry is already very high due to server costs and the need to run with 0% fees to stay competitive. This feels like an easy win to me, especially since even just a few months ago the 10K self stake costed about a fifth of what it does now.
I spoke with @StakeIt.ONE about this and I love the idea. I think it would be a great way to onboard more validators.
My only concern that I brought up is wondering why ETH 2.0 requires 32 ETH to start a validator and others have high entry points as well. Is this in any way a security measure?
Is the 10,000 ONE subject to slashing in the case of something happening? If we lowered the requirement to 1,000 ONE would that leave mainly the delegators as the ones losing out if something would happen?
I personally love the idea and I think such a high requirement as 32 ETH creates a rich get richer situation once again and I would prefer for Harmony not to go that route. I believe true decentralization is allowing everyone an opportunity to take part and spreading our reach as far and wide as possible. Though before I can say yes I have to raise this one concern about if or how this would effect security.
Lastly I understand that many of you had paid much less for your 10,000 Harmony but we must ask the question, were the Harmony dev’s intentions to require 10,000 Harmony for you first validators to get started easily, knowing it would eventually raise in value, thus securing itself over time? Or is the self stake value of no concern and in that case I believe that we should move forward with this proposal.
In ETH, you become a validator with 32 ETH and start earning straight away… Any less and it is not possbile and anymore you don’t get extra unless you start a new validator.
32 ETH is ~130k and the APR is apparently 10%
On Harmony, 10k will allow you to start a node but you will not be earning any rewards until you have enough to win election, which right now is ~3.5 million ONE.
This is ~875k and the APR is ~9%
It is vastly more expensive to have avalidator that is earning on Harmony right now than it is on ETH.
Really, there should be very little, if any required amount of ONE to start a validator as until you get elected, you are pretty much doing nothing other than syncing the Database, which is costing you money.
It was fine at the beginning when 10k cost you 50-100 dollars but now we are alienating many potential validators who are simply priced out before they even look at infrastructure or promotion.
@sophoah@rongjian Is there a minimum ONE required to ensure security as a validator or will it just ‘exist’ doing nothing other than syncing until elected?
I thought that the 32 ETH was the self stake of the person who wanted to be a validator. In the case of Harmony, under this proposal would be only 1000 ONE of self stake as compared to 32 ETH.
I was under the impression the 32 ETH was there as a security measure for proof of stake to avoid malicious validators coming online easily, much like proof of works high cost of the computing power (ie graphics cards or asics).
With this said that means your comparison of ETH vs Harmony puts the validator of ETH at risk of his own losses in the case of malicious activity on the network. However by comparison the delegates of the Harmony validator who are needed to bring the validator to election are actually the ones taking the loss.
This would make the delegates the security of the network and not the validators themselves.
Please someone correct me if I am wrong. I am simply trying to understand the difference in how Harmony validator security works vs other proof of stake networks, Thanks.
I also just thought of the fact that you said ETH validators come online right away and Harmony validators start out as Not Elected. Does this fact somehow play a roll in the security of Harmony by requiring validators go through a process to get elected?
I feel it could other than those who have the money to drop their own election amount and then they will not need to work hard for anything. This is what makes me believe the security is based more off of a monetary value than anything else.
It was / is going to be lowered to 16 ETH but I have not kept up…
The 32 ETH is for ETH2 which is also POS and not POW.
There are also pools available with ETH so you can also Stake as well.
You can read more here:
ETH or Harmony, there are not many validators that are solo and most rely on delegates. So you are correct in that assumption that indeed, the delegates or the stake weight is what actually secures the network…
I cannot speak for ETH but on Harmony, malicious activity is so counter productive for the validator it is 100% not worth even trying.
At best, a malicious validator would walk away with 1 Epoch worth of rewards if they managed to somehow get that far and would require some incredibly smart minds.
It is like spending 10 milllion dollars to rob a bank with 100k in it.
1 single validator could not do any harm but security is still important.