Towards Further Decentralization with 640 Slots!
Harmony aims to build an open network operated and governed by hundreds of validators. On May 16th, 2020, we launched the first sharded proof-of-stake public blockchain with 320 external nodes which started our journey towards full decentralization.
On June 23rd (epoch 208), we implemented the first slot increase from 320 to 480 with strong support from our community (more details and the decision process can be found here). Now we look forward to the second network upgrade, increasing the number of validator slots from 480 to 640.
What happened after the first slot increase?
We saw a rise of unique validators from around 50 to currently 79 (58%+ increase) over the past month. The number of elected validators progressively increased epoch after epoch. Now with a stable number of validators, it’s time to expand the validator community.
We’ve also significantly optimized our node binary to be 50%+ more efficient and we are confident that our blockchain will scale easily with the added slots and the new validators.
What to expect?
The second slot increase is scheduled at epoch 231 happening around Friday, Jul 31 (PDT). The upgrade will be executed as originally planned with a new Harmony binary release (v2.3.1) — we will keep the current 106 slots limit per validator and Harmony’s internal node will retain 68% of the voting power.
Similar to the first slot increase, effective median stake is expected to decrease by 25%, thus lowering the barrier for small validators to be elected.
We are aware that the slot increase will only have an impact together with other validator initiatives. We have been exploring other community-driven proposals on a protocol level to be implemented next:
We greatly appreciate and embrace all the feedback and encourage you to share your thoughts on our forum.
Our Commitment to Decentralization
We have committed to full decentralization and the slot increase is a start toward cultivating a more diverse and integral validator ecosystem. As always, we appreciate your support for our network, which is empowered by the trust, evangelism, and adoption from everyONE in our community.
Interested in Becoming a Validator?
Glad you ask. There is plenty of content to give you an overview of the validator journey: node set-up documentation, Harmony tokenomics model, guide to Harmony’s staking mechanism, staking calculator, and the staking dashboard.
For new Harmonauts, our creative director Robin has created a can’t-miss Youtube playlist explaining everything you need to know about staking. Most importantly, join the discussion on Telegram and Discord — our community leaders and Pangaea captains provide 24/7 support.
