Hi @petes-fan-club ,
Thank you for taking the time to respond.
4080 (splitting fees into the community pool) has really nothing to do with this.
Quadratic voting is more about “equalizing” validator’s voting rights, so that validators with say 10% of delegations don’t have 10% of the voting power.
You mentioned two aspects in the governance discussion at the very top:
The challenge as I see it, is that the current validators on the list are not able to generate enough income to pay the hosting bills. Which can lead to good validators exiting, or taking shortcuts to make ends meet, as well as having a few key individuals able to control the governance of the network.
The other challenge we currently have is that the 5 validators currently make up 33% of the staked luna, (50% is controlled by the top 9).
I have to be honest that in regards to point 1 listed above from your discussion - proposal 4080’s discussion mentioned transaction fees would raise for validators, which at least partially deals with providing a more stable financial environment for validators:
With staking disabled, the current distribution of transaction fees 190 is as follows:
5% to validators/proposers
95% to delegators
0% to the community pool
…
50% transaction fees to go to validators and delegators in the following ratio:
15% to validators/proposers of the block
35% to the existing delegators
The remaining 50% transaction fees to go to the community pool to be utilised as follows
The second point, that percentage of staked LUNA “classic” is in direct proportion to vote control / distribution, and therefore financial rewards (whether we are talking voting in regards to governance, or validator node votes as regards to acceptance of a block) - they way these are currently setup are central to proof of stake. In my estimation, you touch these, even though I am sure it is being proposed with noble motives, it undermines the network. The validators vote, at least for governance, is based off of the individuals votes that are delegated in the form of stake - so this would also affect the vote of the individual who delegates, this would also affect their voting rights as well.
To be honest, a change that further violates key aspects of proof-of-stake, particularly for those of the community who watched as validators, along with TFL, orchestrated (or at least went along with) an actual governance attack. The validators, who are tasked with protecting the network, allowed TFL to violate protocol, and have since participated in that violation. Although the governance documents state that protocol would only change with a proposal that has carried, the validators allowed it to happen.
I can sympathize in that smaller validators may have felt forced between upgrading to an illegitimate version of the code, with no proposal that had carried from the community (again essential to change protocol), in order to protect their ability to keep their validator(s) online (and the financial hardship it may present to them). But, at minimum, you should have been the portion of the community that called out for a return a few days later, and since then, and minus @mcf-rocks , who actually attempted to engage this portion of the community, until recently, it seemed that others were content to block governance.
However you would like to see it, LUNA “classic” is a security in the U.S., and what both TFL, and the validator community, did, even if not intentionally, was to block security holders from their legitimate right to participate in governance (with the same article III standing, and merits that would easily be a slam dunk case for an executive board blocking shareholders of a company from legitimate exercise of governance).
At the same time, I am at least hopeful for the fact that there have been validators who have now (albeit a bit on the late side), have decided to finally attempt to right the situation of governance, staking, and voting, in proposal 4095, and for that I give you all credit.
I believe, whether it is for current, or future, validators, that they need to operate on the current proof of stake model. As I am understanding your proposal of quadratic voting to be, it would be a red flag (for whatever my two cents may counts for) - but, feel free to correct, or help me further understand, anything I may be missing, since I freely admit that I have not run a validator, and you have, and therefore you have experience in real life situations affecting validators.
I also believe, whether it is for current, or if for future, validators, that there should be a model that is both community driven, but also profitable for validators (and encourages validation in the active set).
One incentive that I see for LUNA “classic” owners (whether pre-crash or post-crash that are not currently staked) to stake with smaller validators (and hopefully some larger ones), is that in the discord channels it is apparent that people are ticked at what has happened (and quite frankly, they have a legal reason to be ticked - maybe not at all validators, but definitely the validator community as a whole). From their discussions they are willing to stake their tokens on those who support proposal 4095, those who are willing to return back to protocol (at minimum reopens staking for voting purposes), and therefore they will see those validators as community validators (and are willing to stake with them, at least for some time, even if it means they make less on the staking side).
I once saw a comment to Do Kwon that said something like, fix this thing and be the hero rather than the villain. I think I could iterate that same thing to the current validator community. This quadratic reward system seems to fit in the latter category (even while I can appreciate what it is attempting to address).
I hate to say it, but this quadratic reward for validators appears to break with the very ideology of proof-of-stake, and while I am for putting validators on firm financial footing, this seems to go beyond that. Please feel free to help me understand where this is the essence of proof-of-stake that I am missing, and is not about maintaining control, because if it is not about putting validators on firm financial footing, as proposal 4080 would have partially done by raising the transaction fees going to validators, thereby at least partially addressing firm financial footing, then I am having a hard time seeing how this is not then about control. I am, however, sincerely open to understand this issue further from the point of view of validators (as I think others are as well). Please be the hero (not take another swipe at an aspect that could affect the underlying voting and stake).
With the caveats mentioned above, I thank the validators who have finally sought to put the real governance attack to rest by supporting proposal 4095. I also thank each of you for being willing to validate for the network and the community.