ICON Foundation Bond

Delegate / Validator Candidates
#1

Currently the ICON Foundation has posted a bond of 2,000,000 ICX which is ~5% of there total delegated vote. Since the implementation of IISS 3.1 there is a total of 390,000 ICX distributed to PReps which is signficantly lower then previously under the older model. Overall there is 3,000,000 ICX between delegators, CPS and Preps.

Based on current bond the ICON foundation is receiving ~60,000 ICX a month of the 390,000 as well as ICX Station who receive over ~30,000 ICX , between the two this is nearly 25% of total rewards going back to directly connected teams of ICON foundation.

The ICON Foundation has millions of ICX as well as previously been funded via ICO, it is unncessary for them to receive the proportion of the total amount of rewards unless we still have issues with inflation.

We propose the ICON Foundation drop there bond to 1% , which is approximately 400k ICX vs the 2 million ICX they currently have bonded to free up rewards for teams who have PAID for there bond.

4 Likes
#2

I think it is too late for that.

Negative opinions were expressed by a lot of teams (including us - Protokol7) in separate IISS 3.1 forum discussion, where high economical benefit of already well funded P-Reps and low benefit of new / low funded teams was highlighted. Biggest concern was covering 5% bond as a new / not well funded P-Rep, even progressive bond was proposed.

None listened, majority of those complaining covered +5% bond without a problem in the end. Some, like us lost votes and are still unable to cover the whole bond.

Foundation as well as ICX Station deserve every cent, they are the true creators and incubators of Icon project. When P-Reps approved IISS 3.1 proposal they / we agreed with the terms of new rewards model.

Maybe foundation will self-reflect on your proposal (I hope so), but I highly doubt.

#3

While I agree that the foundation deserves praise, they have a lot of funding already from many avenues including their staking. ICX Station is a different entity and should have 100% of their bond, but honestly I do not believe the Foundaiton node should be bonding. I don’t even really believe it should exist now that we are trying to be a fully decentralized system. The CPS Platform is now being funded by the Network so the foundation doesn’t need to help fund that anymore.

There isn’t any problem with the current system except that the Foundation node is taking 20% of ALL preps rewards, which is pretty extreme.

3 Likes
#4

Even though we are the #2 P-Rep with a large bond, we are not in favor of the 5% bonding rule. This 5% rule makes it extremely tough (or impossible) for new P-Reps to rise up the ranks and get rewards, even with the community votes. We were lucky to find some generous community members who were willing to put the bond for us. Without it, it would have been tough for us to come even in the Top 22. I don’t know if this is true decentralization or the ecosystem wants to centralize to few P-Reps who can manage large bonds themselves.

Having a fixed amount of bond would have been fair for everyone (not the high 400Ks, but a number that a new P-Rep can manage). Unfortunately, we had to play by the rules of the bonding or else we would never have managed to become a P-Rep. At this point, we don’t even want the community to vote for us because we have to scramble (ask) again for new bonds.

We should reflect back on this decision.

1 Like
#5

Everyone is getting off track with this topic. This isn’t about the 5% bond. This is about whether the Foundation should be bonding 2mil ICX and claiming 20% of the total node rewards.

4 Likes
#6

Having collateral staked is very important, how else can we penalise bad actors? this is the whole point of a tokenised economy. Other DPOS systems have it at around 10%.

@Robi I believe being a p-rep is mostly down to vision, if your idea gets support, it would attract community members to bond to the p-rep, so this isn’t really an issue.

@GeoDude is right, this discussion is more centred around whether the foundation should continue earning the rewards, whilst I’m hearing talk of CPS needing to be used to fund BTP integrations.
Maybe the foundation should donate its rewards to CPS?

Also, only main p-reps get slashed. not sub-reps

#7

You forgot about the fact that random subs are promoted to mains and if they fail to produce blocks they will be slashed as well. We should NOT allow the general public to bond for preps because it is not the general public’s responsibility and they WILL lose their ICX if the prep is slashed. That would be very very bad.

As for the Foundation’s rewards the CPS system will be getting 300k ICX per month from the new IISS 3.1 as it is, then another 300k (hopefully) from the BTP fees. We don’t really need the Foundation to put in their rewards.

1 Like
#8

Public putting up bonds is their choice, we are already seeing it happen. The issue is sort of interlinked, it’s the public who become p-reps.

The issue seems to be that the slashing is a very thin line - it is very easy to get slashed - I agree. We should have a more relaxed system, maybe if a node is down for 1 week, it becomes slashed?

#9

The public should not be allowed because then that allows malicious people to target the public and do things like purposely getting their bond slashed to attack the ICON ecosystem. This would be a HUGE deal in the public’s eye. The public may be getting called on in very small and select groups to bond but they are under full trust and understanding what it means to bond unlike the general public.

Slashing only happens after 5 terms of 660 missed blocks within a 30 term period. So it’s pretty long as it is atm.

1 Like
#10

I don’t assume people would contribute a bond to an untested, unknown p-rep, also this is why a whitelist of bond contributors exists?

What system do you propose to punish bad actors?

#11

Then you don’t know the general public very well. A new prep could come in and offer 90% of their rewards for people who bond for them and every will want to bond without even knowing what bonding is.

The current system works just fine to dissuade bad actors from existing because they cannot have more than 10 wallets helping with their bond.

1 Like
#12

So you agree with a bond, but just limiting the number of wallets that can bond?

Yeah, I can agree with this and it’s good to have a limit.

1 Like
#13

Could you clarify the slashing mechanism?

I assume each block is 2 seconds; so 660 blocks would be 22minutes?
each term is roughly 1 day.

To be slashed you would need to be offline for 22 minutes, 5 times, within 30 days?

So even if you’re offline for 10 minutes, 30 times in 30 days, this would not result in a slash?

#14

you need to miss 660 blocks in 1 term to be kicked out for the rest of the term, then if you do that 5 times within 30 terms you’ll be slashed. Every time you are kicked there’s a 30 terms forgiveness so after 30 terms from each infraction it’ll be forgiven.

So if you have 4 infractions and it turns over to term 31 from your first infraction you’ll only have 3 infractions.

It’s not about the number of minutes but the times you’ve gotten kicked from a term. Which means missing 660 blocks within a single term.

1 Like
#15

The question is should ICON Foundation be receiving rewards for a network they were paid to create, the rest of the teams have acquired there bond by paying for it.

The fundamental problem we now have is that lower ranked teams are having to abandon the network entirely because the bond requirement is a high barrier of entry alongside less rewards

1 Like
#16

In a PoS chain in which the power (voting power and rewards) is decided by the amount of native coin you have (ICX in our case) the path towards decentralization means that the entity that created the project and started with the vast majority of the power, should slowly reduce their power in the chain as the chain keeps growing and developing.

I understand that ICON is still a relatively small ecosystem compared to projects like Ethereum and some level of centralization and power must be maintained by the Foundation, but we can argue that with the funds that the foundation already has they can keep their majority power for years to come without earning any more staking rewards

By reducing their bond they would be making a clear statement about having the goal of staying in the path towards decentralization, it will incentivize the current validators to use their rewards to run citizen nodes or better systems to safeguard the network or use it to growth the ecosystem and it will attract more entities to become preps also.

I hope that they read this message and take it into consideration

#17

It costs more or less the same to run a node (does not matter if it is at Nr 1 or 100 ). Are the P-Rep rewards for “running and managing a node” or for “ICON-related other work”? Why do we have CPS? Any extra work on top of P-Rep job should be paid by CPS and P-Rep rewards for all nodes should be good enough to manage a node (which costs more or less the same if you at Nr 1 or at Nr 100)…

#18

We are not just concerned about ICON Foundation… What is the job/tasks of P-Reps? If it is the same job for all P-Reps, then rewards should also be the same for all P.-Reps. If additional money is needed for fo grow and promote ICON ecosystem, then it should be requested from CPS.

#19

It is reasonable to request a decrease of Foundation bonding or at least request where the allocation of the ICX rewards will go.

More pressing is the loss of sub P-Reps with this new system change, which decreases network fail-safes and encourages longterm centralization.

A potential measure to maintain the Sub P-Rep roster:

  • Eliminate bond requirements for Sub P-Reps but cap their rewards at the average amount to operate a node. This will allow P-Reps time to function and figure out how to come up with the bond collateral without getting destroyed on node costs.
1 Like
#21

Just a quick thought;

If ICON foundation is using a lot of its funds to go towards BTP incentives and other things for the community, we shouldn’t worry too much about them reducing their bond right now - it’s actually going to good use (I suspect).

If p-reps require extra funding, isn’t that what CPS is about? We are transitioning away from a model where being a node comes with responsibility of tasks or worse, a cash cow. We are moving towards the CPS model?

1 Like