I understand from Collators PoV, it may hurts them for a short time, but this will make our tokenomics and the whole Astar ecosystem in fact more interested to invest.
Retailers and Holders, with this new design will be much interested for holding during this kind market condition. Also with our recent updates on infra, I’m confident that we will attract more dapps, especially on our native Wasm environment. With many major exc only support Astar Native, this will do good.
I think the tokenomics of Astar Network should follow that of Shiden Network. Recently the proposal has been made to introduce an effective burn mechanism capable of creating a strong deflationary force on the SDN token which is able to make it a store of value as well as a utility token, I think the same should be done on the token ASTR and on Astar Network, as too much inflation and too many rewards will only lead to dumps.
Let’s face it clearly, the goal is to grow Astar Network and make it the main blockchain in all of Japan, making the ASTR token acquire intrinsic value both as a utility token and as a store of value by having a token burn mechanism. Too much inflation is only useful for those who want to dump the token to make money by not making the project grow.
I am only in favor of proposals that bring deflationary force to the ASTR token, while rightly paying those who develop on the Astar Network and those who guarantee the security of the network. Everything else is useless.
I think we really need to reduce Collator APY, because high inflation will make the already centralized network more centralized. The essence of blockchain is to solve the problem of centralization, but this seems to go against our original intention
Thanks a lot for your feedback.
As mentioned in the topic of the burning mechanism in Shiden is to learn and gather data to be used for Astar in the future.
Perfect!, I support this proposal. Thank you.
In addition, after reading the proposal and reading everyone’s discussions, I didn’t understand what caused the centralization? high APY? I think this may not be true.
The reason for centralization is who owns more than 3.2M tokens. Lowering the APY reduces the number of collators. Isn’t this more centralized?
Whitelist Collators
Permissionless Collators
Problem 2: Collating is a business
-High rewards attract greedy operators
-CaaS is bad for the network
-40% of Astar collators are centralized by one single VC
Problem 3
-dApp staking misses the amount locked on collators
-Tokens on collators can be unbonded at any time
-Unknown collators, running on centralized infra
i’ll support this proposal the future is decentralized, and add lockup period unbounding for collators
For the current market, revenue is not the priority, safety is. For VC, they invested in ASTAR and got a huge amount of unlocked tokens. They can’t sell it, they can only do collator staking.
A VC can account for 40%, I think this is the reason for the centralization!
Always say unknown collator, and they run on centralized infrastructure? How to judge that it is a centralized technical facility? Is there a strictly decentralized infrastructure?
I certainly support decentralization. I hope there will be a better solution if the introduction is clearer.
0 voters
I’m thinking the level and impact of this type of proposal should be considered for some form of on-chain voting. While I support the forum process for what it has done, its hard to determine a realistic sense of the true stake holders who are voting.
Another thought - there is more need of education about this collator and their rewards (I consider diagrams/visuals that explain the current situation and how the proposal is changing it might help the more visual inclined learners).
Definitely agree with you, let’s just keep in mind this situation will be temporary waiting for new consensus pallet to be developed.
The proposal just applies to actual use of Aura pallet as consensus engine which is limiting for a parachain.
Iceberg Nodes comment on “Halve collator rewards on Astar to improve decentralization” proposal
THIS COMMENT FROM MY SIDE DOES NOT HAVE THE PURPOSE OF CHANGING YOUR MIND ABOUT THE VOTES YOU HAVE EXPRESSED OR WILL EXPRESS, IT HAS THE ONLY PURPOSE OF INCREASING AWARENESS ABOUT SOME IMPORTANT ASPECTS AND CORRECTING SOME ERRORS I HAVE READ IN PREVIOUS MESSAGES, IN ORDER TO PROVIDE TO ANYONE A ROBUST BACKGROUND TO SUPPORT DISCUSSIONS / ANALYSIS AND DECIDE CONSEQUENTLY.
I read a lot of comments prior to this, regarding the proposal in question. Which pleases me as I believe it is a delicate and important issue for a series of points that I will analyze below. I am also pleased to note the responses both from some collators and from other community members/ambassadors who provide their point of view. It is clear to everyone the position that a generic collator can have on this issue, as well as the position that a member of the community who is not part of the collators set can have. For this reason, as I am part of the collators set, but even before that I am also part of the Astar community and in particular of the ambassadors (I remember becoming Astar or better Plasm Italian Ambassador in May 2020) it is my duty and will, to try to analyze the proposal in question from the most possible neutral point of view, in particular by adopting the approach that I know best, from a technical point of view. Furthermore, this my comment has the intention of remedying some errors of interpretation or errors not inherent in the subject matter, which I have read in some of the previous messages. I took some time before posting this message so that I could think properly and this is my thought:
Let’s start with the problems that have emerged as they are the main and only issue to be resolved (I noticed some comments on the proposal that have nothing to do with it or at least with the problems that we really want to resolve).
So the problems raised are:
Let’s keep point 1) aside for now as in my opinion it is the main point to consider, as also reported in the title “…to improve decentralization” (I repeat: let’s not forget the main reason for the proposal: to increase the decentralization of Astar collators).
Regarding point 2), I don’t see how the proposal to halve the rewards for collators could in any way affect or change anything about this point.
Regarding point 3), if this proposal will have the desired effects (see analysis below), it will still be necessary to evaluate whether the tokens that were previously used in the collators will end up in stake or will be put onto the market (tokens must be transferable in order to be used as a collateral to the collator, so it is also fair to think about the possibility of a mass sell-off). In this second case, I would pay particular attention to the possible consequence of a market sell-off of around 145M ASTR (amount blocked in permissionless collators). Clearly assuming that not the entire amount will end up on the market (a part could actually be staked in dapps staking or remain on collators), it must however be considered that even just a part should end up on the market, it would certainly increase the current selling pressure, which with the very poor liquidity conditions on the exchanges due to the collapse of FTX and the related market makers could also cause a significant reduction in the price (not the main aspect, but still to be considered). However, I would like to remind you that this circumstance could only and exclusively occur if the proposal as described above (halve collator rewards to favor the decentralization of the network) will have the desired effects (pay attention to this assumption!).
In reality, there would also be a possible point 4) relating to the reduction of inflation thanks to the reduction of the rewards of the collators. I would like to clarify that the collators, as specified in the text of the proposal, weigh only 10% of the total inflation, which suggests that this proposal has a very limited influence on the total inflation value. Instead, to have a positive impact on inflation, it makes sense to undertake burn + buyback, such as the one proposed by Maarten on Shiden. Wanting to reduce inflation by acting on the smallest percentage (collator rewards) is certainly not the optimal way to act, in addition to the reasons that I will mention below.
Let’s start at this point with the analysis of point 1) which is the fundamental point of the proposal.
Let me open a small parenthesis, useful for non-experts, of how the collators set is currently made up. In the current set of collators we have:
Also I want to clarify some points, which can be found in previous answers and are incorrect:
Returning to our discussion, we can state that the entire proposal gravitates around the idea of reducing the collators’ rewards to trigger a mechanism in which the permissionless collators, and in particular the whale collators (and not the shrimp collators, because shrimp collators help in their small way to decentralize the network), abandon the set since running the collator would lose its attractiveness making the rewards very close to those of the stake as a nominator in dApps staking, since the expenses for the servers must be added to this reduction. Following this collators run away, the collators that have left the set should be replaced by new collators from different entities, i.e. from new “shrimp collators” (otherwise the problem will reoccur). Up to here the speech runs smoothly like oil, the problem lies in the details…….
The first problem is precisely that of being able to get only the whale collators to abandon the set, as the shrimp collators serve to decentralize the set. And this problem is practically unsolvable by design with this proposal.
Furthermore, it should be possible to attract new collators, but when collators who are already ready and running leave the set for the reason of lack of sustainability/profitability, how would new collators be interested in being part of the set?
In my opinion, with the data thus presented (therefore with only the additional 3% margin for the collator compared to dApp staking) the situation that will arise will be the same as the current one: the already active collators will hardly abandon the set and any places that become available would be filled very quickly by the whale collators already active in the set. Why this? now I’ll explain it to you….
What do the trend of Bitcoin mining and the trend of sales in large-scale distribution have in common? That the subjects involved have gone from being small individuals or small companies to large companies.
In the case of Bitcoin for example, the increase in the difficulty of extracting a block has meant that for mining we have gone from having a simple laptop, to dedicated USB devices, to dedicated ASIC machines, to entire mining farms and finally mining farms with annexed hydroelectric or coal-fired plants and in states where the cost of electricity is very low (perhaps without taking into account the damage to the environment).
In the case of sales, on the other hand, we have gone from the presence of small city shops to supermarkets and then end up in the hands of the large companies in the sector (see Amazon).
Both processes are based on the lack of competitiveness that a simple private individual or small company can have against those who have the financial resources of a mining farm (see the case of Bitcoin) or those who have the opportunity to sell thousands and thousands of products of the same article (see case of Amazon or large supermarkets: Mediaworld, Unieuro, etc…).
The lack of competitiveness lies in the fact that for a large company it is possible to reduce the costs of mining Bitcoin (in the case of Bitcoin) or, for example, delivery costs (in the case of sales), and therefore have lower and more competitive prices.
At this point you may be wondering what all this has to do with the costs that a collator has to bear. Here is the explanation:
In a generic Substrate node, the keys contained in the “keystore” folder, and properly signed on-chain with the relative extrinsic “setKeys”, allow the off-chain part (precisely the node instance) to be associated with the on-chain part (the account of the validator or collator).
In any parachain (since parachains do not provide the slash implementation for double signing of blocks) it is possible to put the same keys on 2 different machines: a technique suggested by bLd to increase network performance, and at the same time reduce the risk of slash due to inactivity (on this feature there are conflicting opinions between the teams of the various parachains, even if the relaychain should and would always respond positively to any forks that can be generated in this case).
But what if instead of having 2 nodes with the same keys, we had a single node with different keys related to 2 different collator accounts? If you want, try with your own testnet or Shibuya testnet. I’ll save you the trouble as I’ve already tested it on one of our internal testnets and I can assure you that everything works perfectly.
This means that 20 collators accounts registered on-chain (for example our 20 collators whale) can have 2 machines with 1 node each. One node will be the main one and the other will be the backup one. All 20 keys relating to the 20 collator accounts will be entered in both nodes. In addition to guaranteeing a certain safety against the slash, this configuration also guarantees high performance of the collators (very difficult to lose a block with 2 machines running at the same time) and consequently high rewards and at the same time minimized costs.
Boom! And here we are in the situation in which the permissionless shrimp collators find themselves having to manage the exact same infrastructure and management costs as the whale collator, with the difference that the first will have to cover the infrastructure and management costs with rewards only of 1 node (or a little more), while the second will be able to divide the expenses over as many as 20 collators, with a relative weight of infrastructure and management costs equal to 1/20.
In the event that the proposal in question is activated, this will involve the same phenomenon of Bitcoin mining: who will gradually abandon the set will be the small players for whom the infrastructure and management costs will not make the activity more profitable, entering in their place new collators from the whales in play and so on………but this will only be the final step. As a first step, however, I expect a generalized reduction in chain performance, both whitelisted collators (I hope minimally in this case, since not having ASTRs blocked, the comparison with dApps staking does not exist by design for them), both permissionless collators will act on the infrastructure side to review the machines used and cut out all possible superfluous costs (we also remember that we are in full bear market, machine rental costs have grown due to the increase in electricity prices and that an important server providers like Hetzer, which has always had cheap performing nodes, closed the doors to the blockchain forcing many users to have to spend much more money on other providers with the same performance). This process in most cases has repercussions towards the choice of poor quality machines. Furthermore, the very presence and attention of the collators towards future updates, as well as any emergency activities in the event of problems, could be delayed by the less attention that the latter could give towards the chain.
Finally, I want to apologize for the length of my comment regarding the proposal, I let myself be carried away by the charm of the keyboard.
I conclude that following the results of the analysis described above, I am against the proposal in question as I do not believe it will lead to the effects for which it was designed, even worsening the current situation (centralize the chain even more, reduce rewards for deserving whitelisted and permissionless collators, without this effort leading to any results) and I am in favor of leaving the current situation as it is (also because I think that the current forum governance is not representative of the actual will of the community due to very low involvement, and as token holders should have the right to vote on-chain, among other things there is the risk that subjects external to Astar can vote on decisions without actually owning any tokens and therefore behave maliciously at no cost, finally acting in this way we are exposing the project to the risk of future fud), until there will be no adequate new consensus system specifically designed to address the problems raised in the proposal. In this regard, I want to underline my strong interest in the topic in question and I make myself available to help the team in the study (and perhaps implementation) phase of the future consensus system for collators. I would also like to point out that if this proposal would have solved the problem of decentralization, I would have been broadly in favor of it.
And I close by paying homage to all the collators who, thanks to their work, make possible the execution of the parachains of the Polkadot and Kusama ecosystems. Let’s remember not to diminish the figure of the collator, it is true that it does not provide security to the network, as security is provided by the relaychain validators, but in the end they are the ones who make the parachains work (more or less well depending on their performance, their willingness to update in time or to intervene promptly in case of problems in the chain) and let’s not forget why today we are here to discuss the importance of their decentralization: the functionality linked to the censorship of transactions/extrinsic is due to the collators. It is true that an honest collator is enough to ensure that transactions are not censored, but until the latter produces a block, your transaction will not even start, causing a poor user experience, especially in Astar which uses a system allocation of slots for round-robin block packing, and therefore it may be necessary to wait even several blocks.
I hope I haven’t bored you and have given you at least some information that will be useful to you or have increased your cultural background. I repeat the purpose of this comment is not to make you change your vote, but only to make you aware of what you are voting for.
Good decision everyone, for any doubt or question you will always find me available!
Don’t think that forum is the right place to make those decisions which affect whole network, tokenomics and inflation. 10 % to the collator set in the early beginning of the project by the team, but now Astar is fully operational chain and such decisions should be agreed with whole community, but global rules are changing by the group around 20 people who can vote on this forum mostly ambassadors. I am against this proposal, but I can’t vote as I don’t have available level in this forum as many other people as well.
Isn’t this what we are doing here?
This proposal is being debated and shared by the entire Astar Network Community.
It is also shared on all our official social media Discord Governance, Twitter: https://twitter.com/AstarNetwork/status/1601683184457895937?t=BCEIsu5Ge2SAVsMoJXPFVQ&s=19
Thank you
With less reward, this creates less selling pressure. When we see adoption in Japan and Astr value moves up, it will benefit everyone including collators. I believed most of collators are here looking out for the best long term interest for Astar Network (and for themselves) and hope they will support this. If not, maybe they should look elsewhere for better business opportunity. I’m sure alot of Japanese, US & European entities will not mind take over as Astar collators in the future. The current collators are very valuable and we all want them to stay. Hope this can be resolved quickly and we can move towards growth/adoption topics.
Thanks for this deep analysis, it’s interesting to read! Also thanks for your answers in Telegram back into summer 2020 before plasm lockdrop it was useful in that time. I want to highlight one thing what you said:
I remember seeing several of these guys buy the tokens when they were around 0.10$ or above, in the period at the beginning of the bear market. I can imagine that this move was made because in that period the slots becoming scarce and making their considerations they will have accepted the risk of the investment in view of the rewards calculated with fully occupied slots, this proposal completely changes the their financial plan
This is true I also know some collators bought Shiden tokens in autumn 2021 at price between 2.30 - 3.30 $ to be a part of Astar/Shiden ecosystem to support network and collator one of the ways how individuals can be part of this journey. And now they still part of this, but with different market conditions with money losses but with believe of the project and it’s future. I know that this proposal only for Astar network, but I am sure similar people there are collating in Astar network the same as in Shiden.
