This may end up being a duplicate because I was trying to type it on my phone but accidentally submitted it before finishing my thought :
So my idea is this. A small 1/2% to 1% fee spread across validators that creates an enhanced stake pool. Users can choose to stake to a locked staking period pool if they need less liquidity than normal staking and want enhanced returns. A user could choose (for example) a 1 month, 3 month, 6 month, or 1 year term, and the rewards paid out from the pool would be reflective of their long term commitment to the stability of the network (I was thinking 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%). Users staked in the long term staking pool could effectively be used as validator rebalancers where they’re spread among all participating validators in such a way that they’re always roughly equal, and a small percent of the stake (lets say 5%) could be committed to helping get new validators elected.
Basically stakers would get the rewards from the servers they’re staked to, but also get the bonus from the long term stake because they’re locked out of their liquidity unlike normal stakers that only have the few day waiting period.
I’d think certain minimum parameters would need to be established to be a participating validator such as maximum fees and so forth to ensure that people participating are getting adequate rewards for doing so, but also validators that participate could get some kind of a badge indicating they’re part of (what i’m calling) the Harmony Secure Staking Initiative.
It’s not a fully fleshed out idea at the moment admittedly, but it seems there are many concerns about getting new validators elected and spreading the load of stakers across more validators to maximize network security. It seems this (or a variation of it) may be a way to go about doing that.