In the pop-up message box, we could even suggest a few new validators with a link to delegate to them. That way, every single person delegating ONE through the staking portal will see this message, including the “suggested validators” with a link to them. It’s just a thought, but why not put that “Delegate” button to good use?
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Agreed,
This is something that would be worthwhile to test.
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I can agree, we need that new users will come stake on a smaller validator. Having many small validators running with 3-4m ones is not going to solve anything. This with a possible redesign of the staking dashboard may help.
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As regular community member who is not validator I agree with reducing bsl key for more validators to network. But we must go about this sustainable way for current validators, we can’t approach this too radical.
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Well, here is the thing:
Currently there are 4.6Bill ONE staked.
As I got, the protocol plans to achieve 1000 validators at some point in the future.
That is 4.6mill ONE average per validator, let that sink in. Not sure how the big validators see themselves in that future.
A gradual program, with a roadmap that allows everyone to plan accordingly would make sense but it will be more difficult to implement too IMHO. But any little change, at a fundamental level, that distributes ONEs among more validators would bring us forward.
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Hi all, in the latest epoch, we have 157 elected, and 113 unelected validators. That’s a total of 270 validators! One thing for sure is that there is no lack of validators.
The reality is that there is little incentive for delegators like me to support the smaller validators. As a matter of fact, we may even get penalized for doing so because of its unelected status. This is counterintuitive, especially when we are trying to promote decentralisation in the community.
Instead of reducing BLS keys, one idea would be to mandate a tiered commission structure and let market forces decide on the equilibrium (i.e. balance between staking on a larger validator vs a smaller one).
The larger a validator, the more commission they must charge. I think this levels the playing field for smaller validators, and make them more attractive to fee-conscious delegators. Those who do not mind paying more fees in exchange for stability can continue to stake with the larger ones. For those who mind, they will redelegate to the smaller validators. Additional BLP keys may no longer be tenable after a certain point.
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Hi @prest1ge,
that is a very interesting concept and it is actually a system that would balance the whole pool of validators rather quickly. I took the liberty to make a little table, with pretty extreme % increases and with that in mind it’s pretty intuitive to anticipate what would happen.
(Constant APY of 10% and increases of 1% every 10mill staked. Below 10mill constant at 5%.)
The distribution would come relatively quick to a balance. Nobody wants to get charged with 20, 30 or 45% fees so everybody would try to find the validator with the smallest amount of ONEs staked. At some point the chart would be flat (every validator with the same amount of ONE) and if a big whale would jump in to delegate better distribute among all 200, 300 or 400 Validators if he wants the fee % to stay as close as possible to the “flattened” average.
Honestly, this is the most elegant system I have seen proposed. Freaking genius!!!
I doubt this ever getting approved and implemented.
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Yeah I think so. Would love to hear what the other validators think.
I honestly feel we should get more decentralized as quickly as possible. I wonder what it takes for us to bring this forward.
An extension to the idea is to make the rate of commission increase a factor of the variance between the highest and lowest staked validators. The more efficient the distribution across the validators, the lesser ‘penalty’ is impose on delegators. this way, when we reached a flat distribution, the comm penalty could be 0.
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I believe it could work at some point. The idea is brilhant, but one thing that is being forgotten is that some of the biggest validators/delegators are exchanges. And they could run their own validators (if they’re not doing so already). And it doesn’t matter if the fee is 0% or 100%. The stake will remain there.
For this too work, I believe it must be implemented along with some other incentives to delegate with small validators as well as a cap to blskeys maybe, or an autonomous distribution via protocol, once you reach a certain amount of stake. We must take in account the human factor that are the delegates, without forgetting that are exchanges involved, also big whales, etc. Even after all changes implemented , it won’t be perfect, but maybe will be close to the ideal.
Just saw something in another network, and the network by itself puts in their staking page the ones that are “preferred” to stake and the others “who aren’t preferred” due to the larger amount of stake, and it explains why they were not the ideal. It’s something to be considered too, a big wide red exclamation mark or something like that, or validators who possess a big amount of stake could be grayed out, it won’t prevent the delegators to stake there, but it certainly will make them think twice as well.
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Yeah I agree with your point. I don’t think force-raising fees for large validators will make large delegations from exchanges go anywhere else. I think a different approach is needed.
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I understand the point, yeah. This would imposes fees for delegators that don’t own a validator but isn’t that the case at the moment?
I just think we are not going anywhere anyway. This is a nice chat and all that but honestly, it’s a complete waste of time. This problem has been identified too late and that’s it, that’s how its gonna be.
Large validators with over 100mill staked still doing marketing to grab even more delegators. That’s kind of bipolar IMO. You are part of crypto that sells itself as a decentralization of power, money and resources but with 100mill ONEs on your validator you feel that it isn’t enough…what can I say.
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Lot of good ideas in this thread, figure I will throw mine in as well. A lot of the ideas I’ve read are more “drastic” changes compared my suggestion but here it is anyways:
Validators who bid multiple keys below a certain threshold, the Lower Bound MultiKey Bid Threshold (LBMKBT for short, also definitely a working name 
), which is mathematically determined by the lower bound of the median stake and get elected for ALL of their bid slots forfeit the gains from as many slots as it would take to bring up their bid price to at or above the LBMKBT.
Example:
- Median Stake: 5.2M.
- Lower Bound is 3.4M.
- For simplicities sake, the Lower Bound MultiKey Bid Threshold = Lower Bound = 3.4M.
- Validator X
- 8M total stake
- bids 3 slots at 2.67M and gets elected for all slots.
- X does not earn rewards from 3rd slot that X bid for because X should have only bid 2 slots at 4M each.
As far as where those forfeited funds go, there are a few options:
- Distributed evenly to validators who bid within the bounds of the median
- Distributed to the validator(s) who were pushed out of election due to Validator X’s actions (my personal favorite)
- Donated to Harmony Foundation or a Charity?
- Other? (open to suggestions)
The one aspect of this which I am unsure of would be how to define what the Lower Bound Multi-Key Threshold should be. It needs to work in a way that would still allow validators who are above the median/close to the upper bound to add a key (at any given median and upper/lower bound) and not be punished for going under the threshold. Open to ideas here, particularly from any math wizards out there.
Assuming decentralization is in the best interest of the network, implementing this would remove the reward from a larger validator acting in their own self-interest and against the network’s best interest. The network already reduces rewards for bidding too high but there currently is not a mechanism in place for multi-key validators bidding too low aside from falling partially out of election. This would also maintain a level playing field among all multi-key validators. It also should allow for new validators to become elected, grow and remain elected consistently since their single slot bids would not be affected by this policy.
Appreciate everyone for reading, and let me know your thoughts/feedback. Cheers!
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The first idea with limiting the wallet address to stake only much is a start. Obviously, can be be easily bypassed if funds are sent to another wallet and used to stake and so on. I dont think the 1bls key cap is too much of a bad idea.
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Just a correction, the problem was identified early, if you check the previous posts, there’s many dated as early as May, already addressing this issue. This was foreseen.
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Here we are, nonetheless.
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I support this HIP and I want the Harmony platform to succeed. This is one of the first steps. Thank you for bringing the idea forward!
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So I believe we can take a pool to vote on the multiple proposals and then carry it forward on each of it if needed to make it proper to be presented and further aproved or not?
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The Validator DAO will arrange an AMA with the Core team and anyone that would like to join. (It will also be recorded)
Here we can discuss the actual options available and also any future implementations that are already considered as part of the roadmap.
We hope from this we can have more clarity on what is possible. We will make an announcement when the dates are set. In the meantime, I encourage everyone who is participating to think on thier ideas and prepare questions for the AMA.
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Should we have Harmony define what “too many slots” equates to so we can work with validators above that on a way to come to a solution to allow 100 more slots in HIP-19?
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That’s fantastic news. Thanks for the update!
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