Hello guys,
First and foremost, we’d like to thank the StakeWars III organizers.It was a really interesting event, and we had nice days.
Now it’s time for us to join the Mainnet. And we have an economic issue here.
When the StakeWars began, one NEAR token was almost $5, but it is now $1.7 and has been lower.
Let’s do some simple math: (10% APY, 3% reasonable validator commission, and 50K - maximum possible delegation).
50000 * 0.1 * 0.03 = 150 NEAR/year
It is 12.5 NEAR/month. At now this is 21 USD.
I believe it is obvious that we cannot rent a reliable server for this amount of money, and we require at least two servers.
We propose that Near Foundation consider proportionally increasing the delegation size to reduce validators’ losses in today’s market conditions.
@kiskesis
@blaze @DDeAlmeida @Alpar_NEAR folks could you please help tag ppl who can help with this question or are responsible?
+1
important notice!
I support this question, I know that it worries a lot of potential validators.
I understand them, because since January 2022 when I became the mainnet validator (my pool cryptogarik.poolv1.near with 1% commission), most part of the time I spend much more than I earn. And this despite the fact that 100k delegation from the NF has already turned into 700k+ total delegations from other users.
I think people’s reluctance to keep unprofitable nodes is quite healthy. But such conditions pose threats to the decentralization of the network.
hi there, I want to support this request, I think, I and others, have been waiting for such a great opportunity for a very long time - to get a delegation, but there are difficulties with payback
Sure - I’ll escalate this internally and get back to you.
There are two main points that could improve small validators performance:
-
Inverse the order in which validadores are shown in explorer and wallet, so the first ones are those with the lowest delegation amount. This will communicate that small validators are better to support.
-
Make the rewards for small validators bigger. Maybe made Universal Basic Income for the small validators. So this can get higher benefits not linear to the amount of delegation. This extra rewards should come from bigger nodes so having a lot of stake could be unmotivated.
By the moment, chunk producers could think on having high fees to cover expenses…
I am also interested in this question! I won second in the stake wars - and I’m really proud of it - but the validator is also a business. In the current conditions, even in the absence of the opportunity to use cheap and high-quality hosters such as hetzner, this is not profitable, but minus $ 1,500 per year, minus the time spent on work.
Even if we hope for the growth of the token to the previous high-$20, then the net revenue will be about $2000 per year!!! And it’s HYPOTHETIC!! Is it worthy of 147 best trained people? The competition was left behind - he only made the selection. Now purely business relations.
NEAR needs skilled workers who will ensure decentralization and stable operation of the network.
And we are ready to do it, but not for free. I’m not saying that we should receive $100,000 per year as if we were full-time employees, but the figure of $20K per year is the normal, even taking into account the expectation of a price increase. a total of 1000-1500 nears per year - I consider it a fair price for our competence. at 5% commission we need 200,000-300,000 nears delegation.
I think this is the opinion of the majority and perhaps they will confirm their intentions here.
thank you for attention
Thank you for this discussion. As one of Stake Wars winners, I agree. There is no sense to be a validator at Near with such condition. Especially when we have to rent servers not from the relatively cheap Hetzner, but from other providers. Being a validator is a job. And it should be paid accordingly.
Thanks for bringing up this issue.
I recall this issue being raised towards the beginning of the competition. Some of the competitors from Australia that I recruited actually dropped out early for that reason.
I am obviously biased as I represent a Liquid Staking protocol.
The total amount delegated to Stake Wars is ~1% of the total NEAR Staked. The total amount delegated across all Liquid Staking providers is also tiny. From a community perspective, there should be a push for stalkers to migrate some of their stake to liquid staking so we can in turn spread it across more validators (keep network secure and decentralised).
Even then, the question of NEAR Foundation increasing the delegation for Stake Wars directly is a valid one. Specially when considering there have been over 10x that delegation going to a handful of private nodes (there was a thread on here on the forum a while back that was ignored).
I support all of the above.
Once again, I would like to remind you that NEARCON2022 was held in Lisbon in September, where Ilya Polosukhin and other representatives of the NEAR Foundation spoke about one of the important tasks for the NEAR project - decentralization, on increasing validators on the main NEAR network. I believe that in order for NEAR to become more decentralized, it needs to offer a fairer economy for new validators, where rewards cover server costs and incentivize validators to keep NEAR’s mainnet running smoothly.
Thanks for the discussion.
Fully support. Working at a loss doesn’t add motivation.
I fully agree with Garik.
The aim of the delegation is not to pay you enough, it’ a start for your pool.
I also joined mainnet in December/January and haved the same issue as mentionned by Garik.
With this bear market, it’s hard for small validators and we call for a decentralization.
We saw huge tokens delegation dropping from … to news validators like kiln etc. Why don’t share it to all new onboarded and lastest onboard (Decemmber/January)
I support all of the above.
Hi y’all!
To provide a brief update: your feedback has our attention. It might take a little time to share a meaningful response, but we’ll get there.
Totally agree with the people, check this thread from @hairen asking for full information about the nodes: [Discussion] Who Runs the Nodes?
Focus on the 46m N delegated in the last month…
Yeahh you right, we need more transparency about potentional golden delegation / partnership
Hey everyone. This is George, from Pagoda.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this topic. The economics of running a NEAR validator is important, and at the end of the day it has to be viable.
Stake Wars, as a series of programs, is intended to help those who are only getting started.
The rewards we are offering through Stake Wars aim to be the starting point for the people who want to be a validator: help them with the initial setup, help them to get a seat and start producing blocks. From there onwards, the journey to be a validator needs to be owned by every single team/group: attracting more delegations, optimising the operational parts of running a near node, building a good reputation in the community. We do not intend to offer a regular-job alternative by running a validator, but to help those who want to get started and do not have the required resources.
This distributed ownership is fundamental in creating a decentralised community, and moves us away from depending on a single entity for the success of the NEAR ecosystem.
That being said, the general conversation around the economics of running a NEAR validator is important and is very healthy to have it as part of the community. Technical deliverables such as the chunk only producer help in this context, since they reduce the minimum resources needed to run a node.
Thanks,
George
Hi George,
As you said:
Stake Wars, as a series of programs, is intended to help those who are only getting started.
The rewards we are offering through Stake Wars aim to be the starting point for the people who want to be a validator: help them with the initial setup, help them to get a seat and start producing blocks.
This is an important chain Near Protocol, and we appreciate it. But what about Stake Wars Program itself? You waste 2 months on the everyday job in the program, then you win 150-200 Near(300$±) then you become the mainnet validator and waste 2000$ on servers for the year.
I understand everything, but it looks like something is wrong with this program.
As I see only people who did multi accounts could earn some money and I’m not sure that they will run a mainnet validator.
Hey George,
Thank you for your reply.
We do not intend to offer a regular-job alternative by running a validator, but to help those who want to get started and do not have the required resources
OK, no job, no salary, just reducing a validator’s costs. So, we don’t need to buy many NEAR tokens from the market because of a delegation. This is great. But the second cost is the hardware.
You could probably plan the delegation size in such a way that a new validator does not get lost right away…
The NEAR price has dropped significantly since the start. You can choose to ignore this fact, or you can listen to the validators’ community and support us.
Based on our internal community discussion, I think that this is the opinion of the majority of StakeWars III winners.