Thanks, Sal, for bringing these proposals forward. I appreciate the effort and the thinking behind taking a longer-term view rather than optimizing for shorter time horizons. I agree that NEAR needs to think in terms of a multi-year horizon, and I think these discussions are important for the long-term sustainability of the protocol.
That said, I have mixed feelings about another inflation reduction, especially given that the previous reduction was not that long ago and was already a difficult adjustment for some parts of the ecosystem. I’d like to highlight a few considerations from the perspective of validators, community infrastructure, and the current City Nodes experiment.
First, delegated validators should be part of the consideration.
After the previous inflation reduction, delegated validators have already seen their economics become significantly more difficult. This is particularly relevant for validators operating with delegated stake, including those participating through mechanisms such as Meta Pool. If validator economics are already relatively thin, another reduction could further weaken the incentive for independent operators to maintain infrastructure and contribute to network security.
For Arguement sake, it might be good to have 200 quality sets of Validators.
Second, there is an important timing issue with the City Nodes experiment.
I am currently a candidate for a City Node beneficiary, so I recognize that I have a direct perspective on this. However, I don’t think that should be the primary reason for the argument. My concern is broader: City Nodes are still extremely early in their lifecycle, with 4 Citynoded running and 2 on the pipeline.
The current inflation level provides an opportunity to bootstrap these experiments while they are still trying to establish partnerships, prove their value, and develop a path toward self-sustainability. Reducing the available economic support again before the model has had enough time to demonstrate whether it works could make the experiment harder to evaluate fairly.
In other words, I think we should distinguish between whether City Nodes are economically sustainable in the long term and whether we have given the experiment enough time to demonstrate that sustainability.
Third, I think the timing of the reduction matters as much as the reduction itself.
A lot of previous community initiatives have implicitly become discussions about budgets and operational funding—essentially treating community contribution more like a professional job. I think the current City Node experiment gives us an opportunity to test a different model: can we create local contributors and organizations that develop genuine ownership, relationships, and sustainable activity around NEAR rather than simply operating because there is a budget attached to it?
The experimental phase is therefore valuable precisely because it can help us measure what happens when contributors are given enough room to build, validate, and eventually move toward self-sustainability.
For that reason, my current position would be to postpone another inflation reduction for roughly one year.
That would not mean rejecting the long-term objective of lower inflation. Rather, it would give us a defined period to validate the current initiatives, particularly City Nodes, and establish clearer evidence around:
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whether City Nodes can generate measurable ecosystem value;
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how quickly they can move toward partnerships and self-sustainability;
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what level of funding is actually required;
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whether community contribution can become less dependent on direct operational budgets; and
I think that would make the eventual decision much more evidence-based.
I’m generally supportive of thinking several years ahead.
So my preference would be: keep the long-term inflation-reduction objective, but postpone the next reduction and use the next year as a validation period for the current ecosystem experiments.