[Research] Alternative rewards models for validators

Staking validators
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I think that we must seek BOTH long term solutions for this problem and short term solutions:

  • Long term solutions will improve the “technical” and trustless decentralization of NEAR. A goal in which (I guess) we all agree.

  • Short term solutions (within next six months) will allow Chunk-only producers to survive this bear market and set a stable platform for it’s long term survival, without changing the protocol.

On the long term and @cloudmex-alan proposal

I mostly agree with this in the sense that it may require a NEP and a change to the protocol.

BUT not necessarily it needs to take years. Maybe 18 months is a reasonable guess. That will depend on two factors:

  1. The importance the community gives to have profitable and long lived Chunk-only producers.
  2. Given that importance, the priority that Pagoda may give to developing, auditing, etc such change once approved.

If it is considered key it may be implemented fast. Pagoda has a great team :slight_smile:

Of course I am, I am just doing it now. Why do you think I am taking the time to setup an Economics analysis and participate in this discussion ? Cant’t you see it ?

This is a total misconception, the NDC initiative may or may not imply more “decentralization”. It is quite a different scope and environment . To what I have seen up to the moment, it may just mean centralization under some selected “projects” and “friends”.

Just look at this post Introducing the Ecosystem Influencer Roundtable - #10 by Niall and how “influencers” have been proposed and selected :frowning:

In my view (and I have more than 10 years of cooperative experience to atest so) this is not the way to build “collective” consensus at all.

Also, when I decided to start contributing to the NDC I see that contributors participation is now closed. This is simply unacceptable. When trying to do collective work and in the spirit of full participation, contributions must always be opened, at least for a reasonable time period (this is not the case, the NDC call was not more than six months ago) to allow all members of the community to have a voice.

BUT this is another topic for another post.

On short term solutions

It may require some creativity for the Community members to find an acceptable solution that considers:

  1. The NEAR Foundation. As you mentioned before, I agree that the NF must be involved in some way in a short term solution. At least until the NDC takes a useful, valid, transparent and democratic governance struct (and this may really take years !).

  2. The Liquid pools are a valuable and critical component of the validators ecosystem, so their interest and participation must be considered. BUT it is incorrect to delegate to them the responsibilty of a full solution to this problem. As I have shown there may be conflicts of interest at play.

  3. The Chunk-only validators which have quite different conditions and staring point than Block validators. I am refering here strictly to the Stake Wars III winners ( (some 100 winners over more than 1000 participants), who have been battle tested in a quite challenging, aggresive and disorganized shardnet and have demonstrated the technical and organizational hability to survive it.

  4. The Block validators which are also a critical component of the ecosystem, but have have quite different conditions and staring point than Chunk-only validators.

Up to the moment, two proposals have arised and am sure more will come as this is a relevant topic:

I am currently working on a short term proposal too, which will post in next days.

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