When I read my response it seemed like I was questioning your comment. I was not. I agree so I made the edit to be clearer. 
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Its not though. 12 days is 43% less than 21 days. It has no effect on stability whether or not it is 12 or 21. What it does effect is the perception of potential investors and the narrative a little bit.
What i mean when I say itās dumb is that it could just as well be 12 days and it would change nothing.
12 is not arbitrary, its less than 2 weeks, a considerable change.
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After reading this comment, I am persuaded by @steve 's argument against shortening the unstaking window.
Vitaly has criticized POKT servicer staking as an example of āunproductiveā staking - meaning it doesnāt accomplish anything. (by contrast, validator staking is productive to the extent that it disincentives malicious action via threat of slash). In his view Servicer stake should be taken to zero to drive all āspeculatorsā (to use @steve 's nomenclatureā¦ I prefer the more neutral term āinvestorā ) out of sharing node runner rewards so that 100% of node rewards adhere to infrastructure providers, period.
While I donāt fully agree with Vitalyās assessment re lack of servicer stake utility (I could give a counter-example), and while I think the ship has long past sailed re actually doing something like taking Servicer stake to zero, the main point he makes remains valid: namely, that servicer stake has become nothing but a sop to soak up and lock up circulating supply of $POKT of investors looking for a passive ROI.
In an ecosystem in which investors are invoiced for infra in fiat for staking with a node runner, staking risk adheres to the investor. But in the current ecosystem where almost all SLAs have shifted toward revshare, the risk shifts to the node runner, and the only risk that remains to investor is the unbonding time and insolvency of the node runner, and even that risk is removed with non-custodial staking.
Therefore, in addition to other considerations, the consideration of how changing unbonding time shifts the risk-reward balance between investors and node runners must give pause. This is not to say there is anything special about 21 days. It remains an arbitrary number. It could be that 7 or 10 or 12 or 14 days could work just as well. It could turn out that 30 or 60 or 90 days makes more sense.
The āidealā answer is (1) separate services and validators into two separate classes of actors (2) separate servicer and validator unbonding times into two separate parameters (3) decide what the real purpose of servicer staking is, and if its purpose really is mainly as a sop for investors looking for passive ROI, then do it right and implement it as a yield curve as a function of lock period as many of us have discussed in the tg chats.
The āpracticalā answer is: (1) there should be no parameter change in v0. (2) If the v1 architecture does not already separate servicer and validator into two distinct actors, that issue should be discussed now and decided. (There are other pros and cons for these to be separate actors compared to the combined actor they are today) (3) unbonding time parameter be defined for each actor for v1.0. (4) punt the whole idea of lock-based reward levels to post v1.0
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I agree with this, no point in changing it now.
In V1 we will have the liberty to set Servicers and Validator unstake times separately (or any other actor). There are parameters for each of them in the documentation: ServicerUnbondingPeriod, ValidatorUnstakingTime, etc.
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Hey @blockjoe , first and foremost thank you, thank you for all you have contributed to the protocol and ecosystem development. I hope you stick around and continue to develop here but understand if you do not. I can empathize with the delay in unlocking ability to utilize the token as it was designed and seeing the utility value of the token diminish while you wait. Just as I empathize with the passive investor who bought at ath because they believed in the long term vision of the project and has seen the value of the investment diminish. Whatever the motive and purpose for holding the token, the boat they are in is the same - whether hoping to at least get back to break even in terms of relays oneās bag represents or dollars oneās bag represents, depending on the personās perspective.
Conversely, the potential for massive gains for those who purchase $POKT at current prices could be huge. If the project succeeds, v1 gets turned on in a time manner, sales show a robust growth path and POKT price shoots up. Tokens acquired right now can represent either the biggest capital gains one may ever see, or the cheapest relays one will ever pre-purchase, depending again on te person.
This is the only part where I am going to take issue. You are about as āinsiderā as an insider can get on this project. If our insiders continue to keep repeating the same mantra about the "hyper-inflation of POKT how can we ever hope to change the narrative in the marketplace. We ended this last year at 16% inflation. We will end this current year at about 8% inflation. We are getting to inflation levels where investors can be induced to hold onto their tokens unstaked. POKT is no longer hyper-inflationary. We have to stop repeating a no-longer-true narrative.
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Hey everyone, Iād like to chime in and refocus this thread on fundamentals. Moving forward, I will not be commenting on any arguments related to your POKT holdings as a node operator or speculation about trading volume, etc. This is not the right way to approach protocol design and I discourage this way of thinking.
Please stay focused on the true question at hand: does Pocket Network require a 21 day unbonding period at this stage?
Facts:
- Cosmos has a 21 day unstaking period due to IBC and having 175 validators on the network
- Pocket Network has had a 21 day unstaking period since launch due to concerns about network maturity but has 1000 validators today
Great, so letās talk about what matters when considering unbonding periods, as I have stated 2x in this thread so far:
- Security
- User experience
With 1000 validators participating in consensus with stakes ranging from 77k-300mm, there is nothing unreasonable about proposing a lower unbonding period. I personally support 7 days myself as I can find no evidence suggesting it would be unsafe. Even if the validators began to unstake en masse, servicers can be validators and have more than enough time to adjust configurations to enter that pool.
You cannot expect to run a business around holding other peopleās funds and have them either custody or delegate holdings to you without having more considerations for their user experience. Please take into account those who are wary to participate now who may reconsider (e.g. people like me). This also stands for applications who may be discouraged by the long unbonding period when choosing an infrastructure provider.
This is a simple parameter change that takes a single tx to lower or raise. There isnāt engineering effort here and I implore someone to make a valid argument against a lower unstaking period that doesnāt concern personal businesses but focuses on the sustainability of the protocol for all network participants.
Thank you.
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Thanks for the proposal.
In reading the reasoning here, Iām not convinced that reducing the unstake time would do anything to reduce the ācurrent market instabilityā.
As a matter of fact, I think changing this primitive will precipitate even more instability.
Whether anyone likes it or not, the dynamics of the unstaking have been factored into the entire tokenomics and how users of the network have assessed the network. I think changing this factor at all will change the fundamentals and cause unintended consequences.
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ALL OF THIS!
When I write in caps i really mean it. lol
THIS!
THIS!!!
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The ethos and pragmatism in this note from @jdaugherty should somehow feed into the Pocket DNA. Cc @b3n
I have attempted echoing similar sentiments on this debate and others, about how this community could approach changes and adoptions for the future, and will continue to do so.
But canāt be as eloquent yet succinct as @jdaugherty is here.
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Noted. @jdaughertyās values both here and in general capture many important parts of the Pokt DNA.
Also, Iām smart enough to stay out of technical discussions Iām not qualified for but as a designer my ears jangle when an archetypal developer persona like @blockjoe says the current design is basically unusable. If you donāt meet users where they are you donāt meet users.
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How are you qualifying ātrue questionā? Are you saying tokenomics could not be impacted? Or that they should not matter?
Financial instruments with lock ups are not uncommon at all. Even low yield instruments like bank notes and CDs have lock ups.
I agree with @CryptoEdge. This is not a trivial decision that only needs to consider security and user expierance. A short unstaking period could make a ārun on the bankā much more likely. At this stage, thatās very much worth considering.
There is way more POKT supply than demand right now. Thankfully, most of it is staked. This could be stopping panic sells. Without a longer staking period, itās not hard to imagine the price dropping to a point that running any nodes is not viable. Itās just supply and demand.
What would the user expierance be if that were the case? Perhaps ask someone who had money in SVB with no lock up period.
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@jdaugherty made by far the best comment out there. It has the most likes as well, means many do agree with it.
@blockjoe would you agree to put UnstakingTime to 7 days in this proposal so that this proposal can move into a vote?
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