What is FLOW?

Flow is a blockchain platform that originally was designed for gaming purposes, but has expanded since its launch in 2020. The flow blockchain enables fast, low-cost transactions and supports smart contracts. It powers blockchain applications including NBA Top Shot, a non-fungible token (NFT) offering.

Staking on FLOW

Flow is a global network of computers working together to maintain the security and integrity of its users' data.

This global network is made up of many individual nodes: software applications run by people. Every node in the network shares a small part of the responsibility to keep the network running smoothly and to ensure that other nodes are doing the same. This shared responsibility is sometimes called decentralization, because no single central node is solely responsible for the security and integrity of the network and the data it contains.

Node operators are what we call the people who run nodes. In order to connect their software applications as nodes on the network, a node operator must first purchase tokens. Every node operator has to temporarily give (or ‘stake’) a large number of their tokens to the network as a promise that they will not modify their node to do something that is against the rules of the network, like steal funds from users' accounts. This process of temporarily giving up tokens is called staking.

If a node ever breaks the rules defined by the network, a number of the node operator's staked tokens will be taken from them as a punishment. This process is automatic. Every node knows the rules defined by the network and automatically watches other nodes and reports them if they misbehave. Meanwhile, the network pays the node operator a reward from a mixture of transaction fees and newly minted tokens on a regular basis provided their node does not break the rules.

If a node operator breaks the rules, they lose the tokens they've staked. If they operate their node with integrity, they get rewarded with more tokens! This is the basic incentive that enables a decentralized proof-of-stake network, like Flow.

How Does Staking Work on Flow?

The Flow protocol maintains a list of node operators. The list contains important information about each node, like their public keys, node address, and what kind of node they are running. (Collection, Consensus, Execution, Verification, or Access)

A node operator registers a node by submitting a transaction containing their node information and the FLOW they wish to stake. If they meet the requirements to run a node, then will be accepted to join the network!

Once a node is staking and operating properly, it will receive periodic reward payments, assuming it stays online and actively participates in the protocol without committing any actions that would harm the network, which we call slashable offenses. Once nodes have registered, they are required to operate for a protocol-specified timeframe. This timeframe is otherwise known as an Epoch.

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Methodology

In this dashboard, I am going to perform an analysis of staking actions and delegators behaviour on FLOW.

For this purpose, the main table that I am going to use is flow.core.ez_staking_actions.

There are several type of actions on this table which I have classified them into 3 overall types:

• Stake = DelegatorTokensCommitted & TokensCommitted
• Unstake = DelegatorUnstakedTokensWithdrawn & UnstakedTokensWithdrawn
• Claim Reward = DelegatorRewardTokensWithdrawn & RewardTokensWithdrawn

Moreover, I am only considering Successfull transactions.

For analysing the staked vs circulating $FLOW, I have extracted the circulating $FLOW from .

Since May 2022, The circulating supply of $FLOW is 1,036,200,000 FLOW tokens.

There are total 581k FLOW stake-related actions (stake + unstake + claim reward) made by 38k unique validators.

The total number of FLOW nodes is 422.

Overall Number of Transactions, Delegators and Nodes

Breakdown by Action Type

According to the left charts, there are total 397k stake transactions made by 37.879k users but the total number of unstakes is 10.6k made by 33.878k users. Also, there are total 149.69k claiming reward transactions made by 10.15k users.

Moreover, we can see the total and maximum volume of stakes on FLOW is more than other type of actions but the average and median volume of unstakes is more than other types. (volume chart is logarithmic so the difference between numbers is more than what you see)

The total NET staked FLOW is currently 698,512,370.54 FLOW. With considering 1036200000 tokens as circulating supply of FLOW, more than 67.4$ of its circulating supply is currently staked.

Based on the left chart, the majority of stake transactions and also claiming rewards are done with less than 5 FLOW volume.

But the most number of unstake transactions are done with 100 - 1000 FLOW.

Moreover, we can see the share of high-volume transactions (with more than 1000 FLOW volume) on Unstake is more than other type.

In an average day, The total number and volume of stakes and also number of delegators is more than Unstake and claming rewards.

Also, the daily number of reward claimers and their transactions is more than unstake.

But, the average daily volume of unstake is way more than claiming rewards (still less than stakes).

Over-Time Charts

On the above charts, we can see in the majority of days, the number and also volume of stakes is more than unstakes and its share is even increasing more and more as time goes on. (especially in number of actions)

March - September was the highest peak of number of delegation activity and also number of active delegators on FLOW.

But, the highest volume of stakes achieved on December 2020 and March 2021 with more than 600M staked FLOW and the highest unstake volume has achieved on February 2021 with 637M unstaked FLOW. (the volume charts are logarithmic so the difference between days’ volume is more than what you see).

Morever we can see the highest number of nodes were active during January till April 2021 but after that there was a decreasing number of Nodes till October 2021, But after October, we can again see the increasing trend of active nodes which shows the increasing decentralization of the Flow blockchain.

Delegators Stats

The most repeated activity by an average FLOW delegator is claiming reward but his/her highest volume transaction belong to the Unstakes.

Moreover, we can see the majority of stakers and also unstakers have totally done 1 stake transaction (the share of 1 time users on Unstake is less and there are more users who have performed 2-5 unstake transactions). But, we can see there are high number of reward claimers with more than 10 transactions.

On the other hand, we can see most number of users have totally staked less than 5 FLOW and claimed less than 5 FLOW from rewards. But, the most number of Unstakers have withdrawn more than 1000 FLOW !

the user addresses 0xebd406b037e56e92 and 0x6a7457b796dee457 are by far the most active delegators with most number of FLOW stakes, but the user addresses 0xe72ce32df935b2b4 and 0x0aabe4cf576e08ee have staked the highest FLOW volume (more than 315.60M FLOW)

The user address 0x5dc3fc329730c066 has claimed the most rewards (more than 6M FLOW) from staking.

And both user addresses 0x0aabe4cf576e08ee and 0xe72ce32df935b2b4 have currently the highest net FLOW staked (both have 31,2500,000 FLOW staked)

Nodes Stats

In this part, I have also analysed the distribution of actions on FLOW nodes. Charts may be a little slow because of numberous number of Nodes (422) but since I wanted to show the dominance of some top-performer nodes, I have brought them all in pie-charts.

The node ID 2cfab7e9163475282f67186b06ce6eea7fa0687d25dd9c7a84532f2016bc2e5e has currently the most net staked FLOW.

Based on the above charts, 2cfab7e9163475282f67186b06ce6eea7fa0687d25dd9c7a84532f2016bc2e5e is the most popular node on FLOW that includes almost 78% of all total delegation and delegators activity ! All other 421 nodes have the other 22% of delegations share.

The node id a8a34668b9c3eb824955df6f184832199d78aedacba3c846ee76e89cde7c1c98 has the most volume of stakes and the node id e20501aa4f972ddeddbd3905566389109b02b8eacd2d0dc48a4f2a567dedd648 has the most volume of unstakes.

On the above charts, we can see a the net staked FLOW progress over time and we can see the highest volatile was achieved during first months of the chart.

Moreover, we can see the most number of new delegators have registered on the FLOW staking program during March 2022 with total 1353 new delegators. There is also another high spike of new delegators on the first days of the chart.

The user address 0x6a7457b796dee457 (one of top active stakers) has also performed the most number of unstake transactions but the total unstake volume of 0x1cff81fcce6a028f and 0x034b5af0e8cfb26b is way more than other delegators.

Summary and Conclusion

• The number and volume of stakes is more than unstakes but the average and median volume of unstakes is more.
• Till today, The total NET staked FLOW is currently 698,512,370.54 FLOW. With considering 1036200000 tokens as circulating supply of FLOW, more than 67.4$ of its circulating supply is currently staked.
• The majority of stake transactions are done with less than 5 FLOW volume but the most number of Unstakes are done with 100 - 1000 FLOW volume.
• In an average day, There are more number and volume of stakes than unstakes. the number of claiming rewards and its users is also more than Unstakes but the average daily volume of unstakes is more than claiming reward volume.
• There are more and more stake transactions (especially in number) as time goes on and its dominant is getting bigger compared to other type of actions.
• Highest volume of stake and unstakes achieved during December 2020 - March 2021 But the number of transactions and delegators is increasing more and more over time which shows the more decentralization of FLOW ecosystem as time goes on.
• The highest number of nodes were active during January till April 2021 but after that there was a decreasing number of Nodes till October 2021, But after October, There was again the increasing trend of active nodes which shows the increasing decentralization of the Flow blockchain.
• An average FLOW delegator perform Claiming Reward actions more than Stakes and Unstakes but the highest volume of her/him belong to the Unstakes.
• Most number of stakers have totally staked less than 5 FLOW but the majority of unstakers have totally unstaked more than 1000 FLOW.
• the user addresses 0xebd406b037e56e92 and 0x6a7457b796dee457 are by far the most active delegators with most number of FLOW stakes, but the user addresses 0xe72ce32df935b2b4 and 0x0aabe4cf576e08ee have staked the highest FLOW volume (more than 315.60M FLOW)
• The user address 0x6a7457b796dee457 (one of top active stakers) has also performed the most number of unstake transactions but the total unstake volume of 0x1cff81fcce6a028f and 0x034b5af0e8cfb26b is way more than other delegators.
• both user addresses 0x0aabe4cf576e08ee and 0xe72ce32df935b2b4 have currently the highest net FLOW staked (both have 31,2500,000 FLOW staked)
• Node address 2cfab7e9163475282f67186b06ce6eea7fa0687d25dd9c7a84532f2016bc2e5e is the most popular node on FLOW that includes almost 78% of all total delegation and delegators activity !
• but the node ID The node ID 2cfab7e9163475282f67186b06ce6eea7fa0687d25dd9c7a84532f2016bc2e5e has currently the most net staked FLOW.

So, we have seen there are increasing number and volume of FLOW stakes and also delegators as time goes on and this shows the FLOW is becoming more and more decentralized over time.

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