Validator slots again increased for era 58

As noted in one of previous posts, this was 325 until now.

These increases aren’t announced in advance, which is why yesterday I said I was going to evaluate the situation as we get even closer to era 58.

What I didn’t know until era 58 started - when this below appeared in explorer - is that they planned to hike the slots as soon as era 58.

XX Network MainNet validator slots in era 58

XXV and XXV2 are my validator nodes in the case you didn’t know. The details on XXV and XXV2 can be found on About page.

XXV’s situation is unchanged because of its significant stake (200Kxx) and 11% commission (on the high end, but not as high as I could set it) there aren’t many nominators interested in it. It remains open to nominators.

For XXV2, prior to era 58 I didn’t know what to expect but what I did know before the election is that some nodes were going to drop out (had the number of slots remained 325). In order to be on the safe side, I reopened XXV2 for nomination and got few new nominators (four on top of the original two) and together with my stake of 15Kxx its total stake jumped to 57Kxx.

In hindsight this wasn’t necessary as there are unused slots, and earnings-wise personally I’ll take a cut from the outrageous 200 plus xx coins a day, but I think that’s okay. Earning around 25% from the total isn’t too bad.

In order to not have this decrease more dramatically, I blocked new nominators so the six who got in and myself are doing okay (90% profitability makes it one of Top 5 most profitable nodes on the network).

For the next era (era 59) I have not changed any settings. I could kick some or all nominators and wait until I drop out, but I won’t do it.

I got five more eras until XXV2’s 15th era when, according to the original plan, its commission is scheduled to jump to 3% (which will still be a tiny 6xx per day) and I’ll use eras 12-14 to get enough nominators to avoid the danger of dropping out.

Notice that it’s more lucrative to make 230xx per day for just two eras than 30xx over 15 eras but, like I said in previous post, my bet is that there are things token’s can’t buy - trust and reputation.

Current outlook for XXV2’s remaining in the pool of active validators:

The both groups can change their commission, but for pools that’s less likely because they must make money (that’s the only reason they are here).

Some of the individual nominators also qualify for Team Multiplier, but I don’t know who exactly so we’ll find out if and when they significantly lower their commission or open up for nominations which would put Team Multiplier in effect.

Still, they are in danger because they don’t have a big stake (14-30K); while some may get that Team Mutliplier which will take them to a total stake of 200Kxx, that may not be enough to save them all. Why, because 200Kxx will get you elected, but you need some investment from the side. If all you get is the multiplier, 29Kxx + 176Kxx (multiplier) is barely 200Kxx. All it takes is for nominators to start more actively managing their ROI and you may find yourself in bottom 5% of least profitable nodes.

If 200Kxx soon becomes the new minimum, the pools will need a lot more xx coins to get elected and make a buck (because they must charge more than everyone else, it’s unlikely they’ll get nominated by individual nominators). So that’s good.

Can XXV2 get to 200K? Maybe. There are nodes out there who have close (one has more than) 200Kxx in nominations. What we don’t know is whether those tokens are owned by node operators themselves. I would say in many cases they are, but more on that in another post.

Currently XXV2 has 56Kxx in nominations and its profitability is 90.24%. With 4 times as many validators the profitability would drop a lot, but it’d still be more profitable than some validators whose total stake is around 250Kxx and Team Multiplier 70% of that amount.

I’ll watch the situation closely and by era 15 be fully open, hit 100-150Kxx, and make sure I outrun the bottom 5% of current validators which should be enough to remain elected for another 10 eras. We still have another 15-20 Tranche 4 validators who will join, but before they do the slots will be increased to 349 or probably even 360.

After that I’ll observe and adjust, because there will be other factors at play such as: