Edgeware - Another Staking Network Assigning Genesis Validator Slots to the Largest Stake Holders

#1

Admittedly, I haven’t read through this all yet. However this statement -

If you understand how to participate in the Edgeware Lockdrop, but want to nominate yourself as a validator at the launch of the Edgeware network, there is a short list of things you need to do first before completing the Lockdrop process. While this process doesn’t guarantee that you will be a validator, it does enable your selection. At launch, Validators will be selected from the largest lock amounts from the set of nominated Edgeware Public Addresses.

Particularly -

At launch, Validators will be selected from the largest lock amounts from the set of nominated Edgeware Public Addresses.

Leads me to believe that genesis validators slots will be awarded to the validators who lock the most ETH. This feels like another troubling example that encourages rich-get-richer dynamics and reinforces the “skin in the game” staking paradox.

#2

Hey @cjremus, I wrote this article about staking Edgeware, inspired by some of the conversations we had over in Staking Hub.

I think NPoS is a compelling reason to select genesis validators based upon the largest lockups (although locking ETH seems weird–why not DOTs?). Otherwise, it would seemingly incentivize one entity to run many nodes, each staking the minimum EDG, to maximize that entity’s share of rewards at the cost of other validators.

From the article:

With NPoS, a static amount of EDG is created every block (ie. block reward) and is divided evenly among each of the active validators — this part is key — regardless of the amount of EDG staked by or delegated to each participating validator. For example, a validator staking 10 EDG would receive the same block rewards as a validator staking 1,000 EDG.

However — and to me this gets even more interesting — the delegators of each validator must share the validator’s portion of the block reward in proportion to the EDG that each has delegated . So even though the validators get an equal share of the block rewards, their delegators do not. We think that these incentives may incentivize a more even distribution of delegations amongst validators, compared with other PoS models such as Cosmos. It is also likely to incentivize single entities to run multiple validators.