Slash Mechanism Optimization Makes for REI Network Stability
As the REI DAO Proposal #8: “ Penalty Logic Optimization for Validator Double Signature “ was successfully passed in May, so REI Network will officially implement a network hard fork in September to optimize the slash logic of validator double signature.
Contents of the Optimization
1. When a validator double-signs, the validator will be frozen immediately and stop producing blocks;
2. The Community Governance Committee and the Community Developer Committee jointly evaluate the negative impact of the validator’s double signature on the REI Network network, and give a suggested value for the penalty amount;
3. The Community Governance Committee initiates the Snapshot governance proposal, and the final confiscated amount from the validator is determined by the results of community user voting.
The processing flow after the fork is as follows:
Freeze the malicious validator: When the validator finds the double-signature evidence of the malicious validator, the underlying call system contract (address: 0x0000000000000000000000000000000000001001) passes in the address of the validator and the double-signature evidence to freeze the validator.
Community discussion: The community discusses the nature of malicious validators and decides the severity of the punishment. (If the circumstances are bad, a percentage penalty can be imposed; if the circumstances are less serious, the mining rewards slash can be imposed; if the circumstances are harmless, no punishment will be imposed).
Unfreeze by community administrators: Community administrators use community multi-sig wallets to call the unfreeze function of the system contract (address: 0x0000000000000000000000000000000000001001), and pass in the penalty parameters determined after community discussions to unfreeze and punish malicious validators.
Why does the Slash mechanism need to be optimized?
As the underlying punishment mechanism of the public chain, the Slash mechanism has played an important role in the security of the PoS public chain and the stability of the on-chain operation, especially the punishment for double signatures of validators, which is also necessary to maintain the security, stability, health and sustainable development of the PoS public chain. REI Network introduced the Slash mechanism in the year 2021, and it has been in operation so far, providing a guarantee for the safe and stable operation of REI Network. In the past development, REI Network has continuously adjusted and improved this mechanism according to the needs of the community.
In the past REI Network’s underlying rules, if a validator is found to sign and vote for a different block of the same height, it will trigger the double signature penalty logic. Each validator will call the slash function of the system contract to fine the malicious validator. Slash will transfer the validator’s staked balance, mining rewards, and 40% of the waiting queue balance directly to the black hole address as a penalty. This series of confiscation processes cannot be revoked or stopped. In the past, if the manager of the validator makes a wrong operation (such as opening two identical validators in the server), resulting in a double signature, the system will ruthlessly confiscate it and cannot recover the loss even if the managers don’t mean to.
The benefits of optimizing the slash mechanism
The optimization for the Slash mechanism ensures REI Network has a certain degree of fault tolerance and ensures the enthusiasm of the validator to generate blocks when the double signature of the validator occurs due to irresistible factors.
It ensures every $REI holder can fully realize their on-chain governance rights to the REI Network. Deepen $REI holders’ professional understanding of the PoS mechanism, and enable more community supporters to become more professional on-chain crypto citizens while realizing on-chain governance.
