Summary

• Skilled Node Operators who don't individually have enough $RUNE to run a node themselves can use the Bond Provider feature to bootstrap bond from other $RUNE holders. Or several nodes can pool together as a single node to maximise their payouts.
• Node Operators can define up to 6 THOR addresses as bond providers. These addresses will be able to Bond and Unbond to the node, and earn rewards based on the amount of bond they contribute. Node Operators take a fixed fee of 2000 basis points (20%) on all rewards from the Bond Providers' bond. In the future this fee may be configurable per node.[1]

Rationale

The minimum $RUNE needed to churn in as a THORNode is currently set at 300K - but with bond competition this number could be much higher.

Not many people in the world have both the technical skills to run a Validator AND at least 300K $RUNE, which limits the supply of Node Operators who secure THORChain.

Pooled THORNodes provide a way for a skilled Operator to enter a trusted agreement with known Bond Providers to bootstrap enough capital for running a THORNode. The Network's security increases, and more RUNE holders have access to yield-bearing bond-space.[1]

Managing a Pooled THORNode

Adding a Bond Provider

Add a bond provider using a BOND transaction with a modified memo from a wallet you control (ledger, desktop, thorcli):

BOND::

• NodeAddress - address of Node
• BondProviderAddress - address of provider to whitelist
• RUNE TX Value - 1.0 minimum (Anything over 1.0 is added to the Operator's Bond).

A Node Operator is the first on-chain bonding transaction to a new node. You cannot change the operator address after the fact.

The Operator is also added as a Bond Provider.[1]

Methodology

• We find all the classic addresses that bonded rune in the Regular Nodes by filtering on memo not like 'BOND:%:%' and memo like 'BOND:%'
• We find all the pooled addresses that bonded rune in the Pooled Nodes by filtering on memo like 'BOND:%:%’
• Pooled Addresses - Classic Addresses = New Entities that never took part in the Classic Validators
• We also look at overall metrics of Classic Validators, Pooled Validators and then new entities over time.

Classic Validator Metrics Over Time

Bond Provider Numbers

• We look at the weekly metrics since the beginning, the highest was 28 Bond Providers being added to ThorNodes during June 28, 2021.
• We also see some spikes in the Month of Mar 2022 as well with back to back weeks with around 20 bond providers bonding to ThorNodes.

Classic ThorNode Numbers

• We look at the weekly metrics since the beginning, the highest was 46 ThorNodes being bonded with providers in the week of Nov 15, 2021.
• We also see some spikes in the Month of Mar 2022 as well with back to back weeks with around 40 ThorNodes.

Pooled Validator Metrics Over Time

Bond Provider Numbers

• We look at the weekly metrics since the beginning, the highest was 9 Bond Providers being added to Pooled ThorNodes during Sep 12, 2022.
• We also see some spikes in the Month of aug 2022 as well with back to back weeks with around 4 bond providers bonding to Pooled ThorNodes.

Pooled ThorNode Numbers

• We look at the weekly metrics since the beginning, the highest was 17 ThorNodes being bonded with providers in the week of Mar 21, 2022.
• After that we have need very few Pooled ThorNodes bonded with providers as low as 1-3 Nodes.

New Entities

• We find all the classic addresses that bonded rune in the Regular Nodes by filtering on memo not like 'BOND:%:%' and memo like 'BOND:%'
• We find all the pooled addresses that bonded rune in the Pooled Nodes by filtering on memo like 'BOND:%:%’
• Pooled Addresses - Classic Addresses = New Entities that never took part in the Classic Validators
• Now there are very few new entities that are bonding to Pooled ThorNodes, there are only 6 so far, that only bonded with pooled ThorNodes.
  • The Pooled Nodes that these entities are bonding with are even fewer and only 5 in number.

Conclusion

• While Pooled ThorNode Validators makes sense and promotes de-centralization in a way where more people can take part in the network governance and validation.

• However, the challenge seems to be the trusting aspect, as per the documentation, it doesn’t matter if an operator steals the funds, all the bond providers will suffer.

  > This is why the Node Operator and the Bond Providers must be in trusting relationships. The network does not care if an Operator steals all of the node's yggdrasil funds (25% of the bond); it will still profit by slashing 37.5% of the node's bond, including that portion contributed by the Bond Providers. This total value will still be at least 1.5x the value that the Node Operator stole.