Validator Delegation Council Update #1

June 23, 2022

SifDAO Community,

The following members serve on the Sifchain Validator Delegation Council:

Note: Fifth council position is currently vacant and will be filled via future governance proposal.

With the new council members in place, we had an introductory meeting on June 1 to familiarize the members with one another and discuss expectations for Phase 2 of Sifchain’s Validator Delegations. The council conducted an additional on-boarding meeting on June 8 to discuss broad goals, tasks, and timelines. John Mac, along with SifCore members Abra Tusz and NintyNick, provided background on the processes used for Phase 1. They outlined lessons learned and discussed points for improvement to build on for Phase 2

The third council meeting occurred on June 15 to discuss and begin development for the Phase 2 delegation process. This included reviewing the previous Medium publication and enrollment application for areas of improvement and clarification. The council touched on including additional criteria for eligibility for a delegation, as well as guard rails to prevent exploitation of the program (i.e. single entity running multiple validators, or immediately raising commissions to unreasonable levels after receiving a delegation). To run a more effective and efficient process, the council identified each member’s strengths and assigned primary roles to each member.

The fourth meeting took place on June 21, with a follow-on fifth meeting on June 22. These meetings included a more thorough process discussion to include planning for possible ways to incorporate Deep Margin into how validators may be rewarded after implementation. The council also analyzed additional eligibility criteria for Phase 2 delegations, such as a minimum level of experience as a validator, a maximum limit for delegations (or voting power) to encourage decentralization, and increasing the minimum self-bonding requirement.

In reviewing feedback from the SifDAO community from Phase 1, the Validator Delegation Council will improve communication by providing these community updates for transparency and progress tracking. The council is committed to:

1. Clearly communicating with the community to allow for feedback at any time and having a council member available to answer questions on Discord
2. Removing any ambiguity from the application process by outlining objective eligibility criteria for both the application and the post-award process.
3. Providing a clear timeline with sufficient opportunity to prepare for the application period.
4. Consistently analyzing council processes to determine and implement best practices.

Additional links are included for a complete background on the Validator Delegation Council.