Wanchain Validator’s AMA Recap
Learn the answers to the top questions from Wanchain’s Validators
A recap of last week’s Validator AMA with the Wanchain team.
Participants included:
Molin — One of Wanchain’s lead developers
Demmon Zhong — Core member of Wanchain’s research team
Albert — Product lead at Wanchain
- Will there be also an implementation that allows partners to receive their share automatically
Molin — Sorry, we don’t support it now. And we don’t know if you really need this feature. - In the next version of gwan will there be a way to run the nodes high available with an (external) hsm so you can safely perform maintenance to hardware or move your nodes?
Molin — This is a good suggestion, and we will think about its feasibility in the following development process. The current version cannot be replaced in real time. - According to Peter’s article running two nodes for the same validator being active at the same time ( — mine=true) should lead to not being considered active (https://medium.com/@chainlayer/validating-wanchain-d9cd69a5ed17). It seems that this is not true and it’s totally fine as there’s a successful validator running this way. Is that a supported setup? Can we rely on that in the future or is it going to change?
Albert — Currently for maintenance jobs on validator nodes, we suggest that the maintenance/migration could occur during a period when there is a low possibility that EL/RNP transactions happen.
Molin — After discussion, we think we can run two nodes, but only one of the two nodes within each epoch can effectively perform the work of EL and RNP. SL mine block can be complementary backup at any time; - Small validators get selected rarely and when they are not selected they don’t have any purpose. They might as well turn of their machines during those times. Are you going to incentivize small validators more in the future, e.g. by more frequent but less rewards?
Molin — Our pos protocol allows small stake nodes to save money by closing them when they are not working at all, but you need to have enough technical capability to monitor whether they are idle and to start them when they are selected, otherwise you will lose revenue for yourself and the entire network. - Do you think it is a good that the top 3 validators own +50% of power weight and the top 5 more than 2/3 of stake weight ?
Albert — It’s the Mattew effect playing the role here, we can not stop it to happen. But since these validators have a large staking amount so there motivation to do wrong against network should be low.
Molin — This is inevitable in the beginning, but it’s not good. We dealt with the initial over-centralization of stakes by controlling 26 white-list nodes through the foundation. The model we envision is that after a period of time, if the stakes are sufficiently dispersed, we can appropriately reduce the number of nodes controlled by the foundation. - What’s the required collateral for running a Storeman node?
Albert — The Open Storeman Initiative is still going through research phase now, we will release more information when the plan is ready.
Demmon — Running a Storeman node, people need to lock some amount of WAN to ensure the security of cross-chain transactions. There is a minimal amount but no maximal amount. The more WAN you have locked, the biger amount of cross-chain transactions you could conduct. - In case someone runs two nodes, how can we know which one is performing the work? is it randomly assigned to one of the two nodes in every epoch?
Molin — Yes, if you run two nodes, it is completely randomly selected, no node is selected, the sent POS protocol transaction may show failure, maybe you can judge from this, which node is currently working. - Changing the fee every single seems to frequent. In basically means I can turn from a free validator (0%) to an expensive validator (10%) in just 10 days. To attract more delegators it would be interesting to bind the fee to the lock period, e.g. a validator that has 60 days of lock period left cannot change its fee for the next 60 days either. This would allow delegators some piece of mind regarding chaning fees and would benefit validators that commit to a particular fee for a longer timeframe. Is that something you would consider to implement?
Albert — Actually this was the initial plan to link the lock period to the change of delegation fee. But for validators that would impose too much restraints so we did a compromise between point of view of delegators and validators. - In the future, will it be possible to lock coins for more than 90 days with a corresponding bump in power factor, e.g. more that the current max of 1.5x that you get for 90 days?
Albert — This could be done through a change of parameters in the PoS mechanism, but currently we have no plan to implementing this.
Demmon — We are still considering about it. A bigger power factor may result in a risk that someone uses a small amount of WAN but a much longer locking period to influence the PoS process, which is not secure. - Will it be possible to lower the max fee of a validator? (that doesn’t harm anyone and I’ve heard validator say that they want to do so)
Albert — That wouldn’t harm anyone that’s true, I assume it’s for the sake of peace of mind for delegators? - Will we have a governance system in the future where validators (and delegators) can vote on such parameters and upgrades of the network?
Albert — On-chain governance system is certainly good to have, we may implement it later but currently there is no plan for it in the short term. - Will there be an option in the light wallet to reinvest staking rewards automatically?
Will the withdraw function in the light wallet be possible to withdraw a partial amount of staked coins instead of the full amount of coins staked?Will there be some kind of notification function enabled when a validator you are staked to increases or decreases their fee?
Albert — For the first question, I think it’s a good feature to have, users can set a threshold and once delegation reward reaches this threshold, an automatic re-investment will be done.
Albert — As for the 2nd question, I think it is a limitation of current PoS mechanism. So changing it would require a hard fork, etc.
Albert — For the 3rd question, this also could be done inside the light wallet, system needs to record historical fee level and notify user when it changes. - How to calculate staking power?
Molin — It now has a very simple formula that makes staking power 1.5 times powerful in 90 days than in 7. The value in the middle varies linearly by day. Y=A*S*N, Y is staking Power, where the value of A ranges from 1 to 1.5 over A period of 7 to 90 days. S stands for self-stake, and N is A fixed value. - What I have seen mentioned more from some of the smaller validators is that they wouldn’t mind if there were more “roles” for the same amount of rewards. For example 2x more roles, so the ‘stream’ of rewards would be more consistent since they would be 0.5x of current rewards (or a different breakdown), and smaller nodes would get chosen more often. Lower rewards, but more often. Would it be possible?
Demmon — More roles means more compuation in Galaxy consensus, which may lead the whole network crowded. The number of roles are designed in regard of network’s processing capacity. We need a tradeoff between effiency and reward uniform distribution. - One possibility I’ve heard would be to have shorter epochs for that, not to have more nodes working simultaneously. I understand the tradeoff between the efficiency and reward distribution. So maybe a shorter epoch would be the way to go?
Demmon — A shorter epoch still reduces effiency, for the PoS protocol is executed more times per day. - Why do you think 1:10 ratio is good for validator and overall system? Why not 1:5?
Albert — 1:10 is mid-way between having too much delegation for too few self stake, so very risky, and limiting too much validator’s ability to earn fees, so too low incentive. We considered 1:5 ratio during research phase but finally we chosed 1:10 ratio which seems to be a good compromise. - Any plan in near future to reduce the number of foundation validators?
Albert — This will happen when the staking power is dispersed enough, so it depends on the situation of PoS. Also if current big players have run long enough, like for 1 year, we also can open more Foundation nodes since these big players contribute a lot to the well running of network and are proven to be trustworthy.
A big thank you to everyone that participated in this AMA! If there are any further questions, be sure to head over to our Telegram channel.
About Wanchain
Wanchain is a blockchain platform that enables decentralized transfer of value between blockchains. The Wanchain infrastructure enables the creation of distributed financial applications for individuals and organizations. Wanchain currently enables cross-chain transactions with Ethereum, and today’s product launch will enable the same functionalities with Bitcoin. Going forward, we will continue to bridge blockchains and bring cross-chain finance functionality to companies in the industry. Wanchain has employees globally with offices in Beijing (China), Austin (USA), and London (UK). Website | Documentation | Telegram| Twitter | Newsletter | Blockchain Explorer | Developer Portal
