Whitepaper Bounty – Issue 2: Cosmos Hub Block Reward about cosmos HOT 7 OPEN

Given time and information, I think market forces should be adequate to incentivize delegators to choose a good validator. The question is, what information?

I'd be satisfied with the raw stats:

• how many atoms does the validator hold?
• how many delegates do they have?
• how many total delegated atoms?
• how many times has the validator been slashed?
• how long has the validator been operating?

from cosmos.

In the Steem ecosystem a witness - the "equivalent" of a validator in cosmos - is required to publish a weekly update on his activity. Not all witnesses are doing it, but those who do get more support.

from cosmos.

An expected yearly growth of 1/3 or even 1/5 has the potential to put immense pressure on the project

Yeh, we should probably tone it down. We've also been talking about dynamic rates to try and target a proportion of atoms at stake (say, 80%). What's a reasonable form for a dynamic inflation rate to encourage 80% of atoms staked?

The Whitepaper also does not yet clarify if that 1/5 or 1/3 of atoms will be distributed across the year (daily, weekly or monthly) or at one single point after 365 days.

Should be across the year. Exact frequency to be decided.

how can the average delegator find out whom to support and trust

Important question. We will definitely need a forum to support such due diligence. Hopefully many of the validators will be reputable members of the community with experience securing servers. We can also put caps in place, encourage delegators to diversify, and publish results from testnets. But we can only do so much - at the end of the day, the very essence of being an Atom holder is taking on the responsibility of determining who on the internet can maintain a secure validator node. Folks who are not prepared for such responsibility should not hold Atoms.

The current situation at Lisk gives a good example of how messy something like that can become.

Can you give us an idea of what's going on? Or some link/s?

It also sounds like a delegator will constantly have to monitor the work of the chosen validator, as the delegated atoms will become inactivated and eventually unbonded if the validator is either replaced or penalised

Yes. Again, this is the point of being an Atom holder - to actively monitor the network and participate in ensuring it's security. Atoms are like virtual miners - instead of dumb thermodynamic work, the Atom holders must do the hard work of maintaining a secure network.

This might not encourage people with smaller amounts of atoms to get involved.

Fair point. Though there may be away to allow small atom holders to pool for delegation. Do you have another suggestion?

from cosmos.

Can you give us an idea of what's going on? Or some link/s?

I haven't been following the issues at Lisk in great detail. On the bitcointalk forum people claimed that there is a group of delegates trying to make sure members only vote for delegates who are part of that group.
I think the idea of Lisk was that delegates would use a significant amount of their rewards for projects that support the Lisk ecosystem and its growth, and it seems like some, but not every delegate stick to that. I only read about this second hand, but it was noticable that issues and discussions like that had a negative effect on the community and their trust in Lisk's DPoS approach.
This might be less of an issue for Cosmos as delegators are not expected to contribute beyond their duties as delegators. I also found Lisk's voting system incredibly unclear and frustrating in general, which brings me back to the importance of creating a good (maybe with some sort of review system?) infrastructure for informing atom holders on all the available delegators, their background, intensions etc.

Fair point. Though there may be away to allow small atom holders to pool for delegation. Do you have another suggestion?

Maybe the effect of that can be softened by a system where delegators are in some sort of regular contact with the validator (if they wish so). I can picture that working well - for example I'd be happy to delegate my atoms to a validator who in return regularly updates me on the progress of his work, his plans, status in the group of validators and so on.

from cosmos.

Ok thanks. Worth us taking a look. Also need to spend more time seeing how the other PoS communities are doing, eg. NXT, Steem, etc.

the importance of creating a good (maybe with some sort of review system?) infrastructure for informing atom holders on all the available delegators, their background, intensions etc.

Couldn't agree more. Would you be interested to help us on this front? Or at least share your thoughts/ideas?

Maybe the effect of that can be softened by a system where delegators are in some sort of regular contact with the validator (if they wish so). I can picture that working well - for example I'd be happy to delegate my atoms to a validator who in return regularly updates me on the progress of his work, his plans, status in the group of validators and so on.

Great idea. This is maybe something we can integrate into the Cosmos Constitution - ie. the definition of a good validator would include providing regular updates! Personally, I would only delegate to a validator that included a poem in their monthly update :P

from cosmos.

Couldn't agree more. Would you be interested to help us on this front? Or at least share your thoughts/ideas?

Sure, I'll brainstorm on it. I won't be of much use on the technical side, however I'm happy to share some thoughts on how this could be structured without overcomplicating things.

from cosmos.

Couldn't agree more. Would you be interested to help us on this front? Or at least share your thoughts/ideas?

I think the aim should be to develop a system that is clear and simple. In my opinion all such a system needs are following two features:

1. A main page that list all validators (and delegators trying to become one), which displays some sort of general introduction on who each validator is, their skills and experience, technical gear, their future plans etc.

2. A sub-page for each validator that offers:

• a forum for the validators to publicly post updates.
• a forum for delegators to ask questions, potentially raise concerns etc.

I think it would make sense to ensure those pages are visible to everyone on the network, while having the restriction in place that only delegators who have delegated a certain minimum amount of atoms to that validator are allowed to actually join that page and post on it. This should prevent people from spamming these boards.

One of the ways I think this could work is by adopting a similar system to the one bnktothefuture.com uses. For each pitch they provide a page that gives the company running the pitch a forum to post updates on their work and progress of the project, while giving investors a chance to (semi-publicly) ask questions about the project, give feedback and so on. As all the other investors see which questions have been asked it is also an effective way of holding whoever is running the project accountable for their work.

Once you offer that it's up to each delegator to do their homework before choosing (and staying with) a validator.

One of the potential difficulties I see is that someone neutral (obviously not the validator) might have to be in charge of moderating each board. And whoever does that would need some sort of incentive to do this I guess.

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