Disclaimer: We run a validator node on FX mainnet, but I am starting this thread strictly from perspective of being a firm believer in PundiX/FX and holder since 2018.
With achievement of another big milestone (onboarding public validators), I see some new issues on the horizon. Being a long term token holder, I want the FX chain to perform at its best (transaction volume, speed, security etc.) and a lot of it depends on the service provided by the validators.
As we all know, best service comes at a higher cost (fast servers, backup servers, security protocols & best technical support coverage). So, the only way validators will be able to offer the best is if there are margins in running a node.
Currently, the validator list on explorer is sorted based on how many token are staked. Validators who charge the least commission (higher APY), will most likely end up with the most staked tokens. This will result in validators focusing on reducing cost (sacrificing performance) rather then improving performance. This system has price wars written all over it. Nobody wins in price wars, just quality suffers!
@zaccheah mentioned in the forums at one point, that he would like to see validators charge higher commission because it means they would be able to offer the best service. But in the current system, incentive is to jeopardize service.
In an ideal state, validators that offer the fastest speed, best uptime & benchmark security should be on the top/selected list, to allow the chain to operate at its prime.
I would like everyone to share their thoughts and share if they see this as a problem on the horizon.
I agree, we need some filter options, uptime, staked value, Apr, etc.
We are in early stage, of course the fee will have to be higher.
There’s hardware costs and time costs
Like i mentioned in my own thread, we need to have quality meaning we need to add in the column of “Uptime”.
I honestly don’t care as long as its below 2.5% commission, i will gladly support the public validators but we delegators or anybody don’t want to get slashed. So i hope they will implement the uptime in the explorer so users have the option to choose the one with 100% uptime consistently.
Only time will tell who have the best security system in place to have the server running 100% with backups - Safety comes first.
But because we are still in the early stages of main net, i think its inevitable that there will be price wars so i think it is perfectly normal that there are price wars at the start.
Once Function X matures, we will see lesser price wars.
Just like other chains, take Cosmos for example, there are institutional validators that charge 10-15% but people still staked with them. And comparing to Binance with 2.5% commission, people stake with them not because of them charging a low fee of 2.5% but it is because their platform is #1.
Once a chain matures, commissions don’t matter anymore, it is security, uptime & i have to say, reputation.
Early birds gets the worm → Early supporters get the delegated tokens.
In this early stage, my concern is not profit but security and should be the same for everyone else also. I think everyone can agree that in crypto, security is the main factor.
The reason why I started this thread is for us to think: why are validators competing by reducing commissions to attract delegators instead of improving/focusing on performance metrics.
Are there improvements that should be made to the selection criteria of valodators, so that validators compete by offering better performance metrics?
I think the most important right now is a test of time, having 100% uptime. But first they need to implement it in the explorer so everyone can see for transparency sake.
Hi everyone…
There’s no point in competing as long as top 50 nodes are sharing a mini-cake.
Security, and more nodes, are the main issues at stake.
Moreover, setting the fee to 0.1% or 10% right now doesn’t change anything as long as team’s validators are over-represented in terms or vote powers.
Thanks for proposing that point. I have no disagreement that our common challenge is to make the system secure and stable. As the latestcomer of these early public validators, however, I puzzled about how to decide the commission rate with worrying about the “price war”. It might be also true to the incoming new entrants. So, it‘s better to make and share such a principle among validators at this early stage.
All, thank you for your input. Glad to see everyone’s preference is to focus on improving node performance.
In an ideal state, nodes should be selected based on how well their performance is, to keep the chain running at its prime. For that, sorting/selection of the nodes should be based on a “performance score”. The score could be calculated on metrics that support better chain performance (server response time, uptime, missed blocks etc). Not sure if this is feasible or how long the implementation time will be. Would love some feedback on it from the team @Richard
As a temporary countermeasure, we could propose a limit on minimum commission rate (no limit on high side). Rate should allow node operators to cover cost of running an exceptional service and offer maximum returns to delegators.
Would love some input from team on this one! We believe there is a value in setting a minimum commission rate to enable and attract node operators who are willing to offer exceptional service.
This can be a Temporary Measure until a system is developed to select top nodes based on their performance rather then number of tokens staked, which can be easily achieved by dropping commission rates at cost of quality.
They recently just main net but they show status, validator’s version & running days of the validators so people can see which to choose SAFELY.
I think it is very irresponsible to increase commissions before all the security stuff are added.
We do not know who came online/offline the past few days ever since it was open to public, how many days it has been running, whether any of them has gone offline, even for a moment. Are they up to date?
We need: Status - showing who is up or down in real-time Uptime - how consistent are they in having their servers up and running 100% Age/Run Days - see who are the early supporters by having the most number of running days Version - to make sure everyone is up to date and not vulnerable to attacks
@zaccheah@Telchar I think all these are valid concerns. Nobody wants to get slashed after transferring funds over. It would put us in a very bad position and rep.
Ours just show 3 basic info - APY / Self Bonded / Commission. It is honestly too little information for us to even transfer over to a stranger unless more information is added.
The community has spoken and we have listened. Therefore, we will be increasing the commission rate of the top 5 validators to 5%. More information can be found here:
lets try this scheme out, monitor it and then decide from there. there must be both a push and a pull factor for the movement of FX. we can do what we can from our end, but the public validators must get their hands dirty and think of innovative ways to incentivize delegators too. its a free market and perfect competition ecosystem
