1. Introduction

Increasing the number of validators seems to come with a tradeoff; it increases decentralization but it might affect also both performance and network stability and safety. On Cosmos chains, and specifically on Osmosis, if a 33% of validators voting power goes offline, a chain can be halted. This is the second part of a two-part dashboard where, in the first one, we saw how increasing the validator set increased the Nakamoto coefficient.

This dashboard has the goal to analyze proposals 114, 196 and 337, which all three were towards increasing decentralization by increasing the number of active validators, and seeing how the new validators included in the active set following the proposals have acted.

2. Approach and structure

There are so many different ways to approach this question it can be overwhelming. And since there are 3 different proposals with similar outcomes to analyze, it’s worth establishing a clear structure of the events that will be analyzed in the dashboard.

There will be three identical subsections for the three different proposals, and they will follow the same structure:

• Proposal introduction
• Comparison between active validators when the analyzed proposal went into governance and current active validator set. Two approaches are presented here. Say the proposal introduced 18 new validators:
  • Show the first 18 validators by rank which are active currently and were not active by the time the proposal went into governance.
  • Show the first 18 validators after rank 100 which are active currently and were not active by the time the proposal went into governance.
• In both cases, show participation into governance, and comparison with the rest of the validator set.
  • As an insight, see if any of the new validators have actively proposed anything into governance.
• Finally, check if the new validators between current date and the proposal date has changed with respect of D+30, D+60, D+90 active validator set, where D is the date of the proposal.

Let’s dig into it!

If we now take a look at the 150 active validators currently active now and the 100 active validators when the proposal passed (table above), we’ve got two ways of approaching it which I’ll explore:

• Look at the first 18 in rank that now are active and were not active when the proposal passed.
• Look at the first 18 in rank that are now active, which were not active when the proposal passed, and are in the range > 100 (would’ve been excluded right now if the proposal was rejected).

It’s worth noting that the total participation per validator I’ve calculated is tailored to show the participation of said validator specifically, meaning votes by the validator/proposals active since the validator produced its first block. From the charts above, we can see:

• The first 18 validators which were not active when proposal 114 (increase active set from 100 to 118) was voted and now are part of the active set, tend to vote more than the rest, with an average of 55% participation so far.
• On the other hand, the first 18 validators not active on proposal 114 and with current rank > 100 tend to vote less, an average of 38.7% participation. A few of them are new, so the percentages are trickier for them.
• Lastly, the current validator set average participation stands around 41.5%, which is lower than approach 1 and higher than approach 2.

2.1. Proposal 114

As analyzed in my previous dashboard on this series, the proposal was approved to increase the MaxValidators parameter from 100 to 118. The voting ended on 2022-01-01. We analyzed the voting power of the top 33% and 66%, and now we’ll look at the new validators the proposal brought, and their behavior.

First on, the following table displays the top 100 validators (i.e. active validators) when proposal 114 went into governance. This will be our basis in order to compare new validators from this point on.

Approach 1 - First 18 validators all ranks

Approach 2 - First 18 validators after rank 100

Out of all of the new validators, did anyone post a proposal on governance?

The table on the right displays precisely this. Gelotto, which was not part of the validator set during this proposal, has submitted two proposals into governance (309 and 337), while Reverie has submitted one. Kudos to them!

For the sake of comparison, I’ve displayed below the top 100 validators 30 days after the approval of proposal 114, 60 days after and 90 days after, to see if there are any differences.

Comparison with the top 33%

Comparison with the top 66%

Comparison with the top 33% and comparison with the top 66%

2.2. Proposal 196

The proposal was approved to increase the MaxValidators parameter from 118 to 135 (17 new validators). The voting ended on 2022-04-13. We analyzed the voting power of the top 33% and 66%, and now we’ll look at the new validators the proposal brought, and their behavior.

First on, the following table displays the top 100 validators (i.e. active validators) when proposal 196 went into governance. This will be our basis in order to compare new validators from this point on.

If we now take a look at the 150 active validators currently active now and the 118 active validators when the proposal passed (table above), we’ve got two ways of approaching it which I’ll explore:

• Look at the first 17 in rank that now are active and were not active when the proposal passed.
• Look at the first 17 in rank that are now active, which were not active when the proposal passed, and are in the range > 118 (would’ve been excluded right now if the proposal was rejected).

Approach 1 - First 17 validators all ranks

Approach 2 - First 17 validators after rank 118

Recall that from the previous section (proposal 114) we saw that average participation of the current validator set was around 41.5% From the charts above, we can see:

• The first 17 validators which were not active when proposal 196 (increase active set from 118 to 135) was voted and now are part of the active set, tend to vote more or less the same as the average current validator set, with an average of 42.9% participation so far.

• On the other hand, the first 17 validators not active on proposal 196 and with current rank > 118 tend to vote even more, with an average of 51.3% participation.

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Out of all of the new validators, did anyone post a proposal on governance?

The table on the right displays precisely this, and the results are the same as in the previous section.

Comparison with the top 33% and comparison with the top 66%

Comparison with the top 33%

Comparison with the top 66%

2.3. Proposal 337

Last but not least, proposal 337 aimed to increase the number of validators from 135 to 150. It did so on the 2022-10-03.

First on, the following table displays the top 135 validators (i.e. active validators) when proposal 337 went into governance. This will be our basis in order to compare new validators from this point on.

If we now take a look at the 150 active validators currently active now and the 135 active validators when the proposal passed (table above), we’ve got two ways of approaching it which I’ll explore:

• Look at the first 15 in rank that now are active and were not active when the proposal passed.
• Look at the first 15 in rank that are now active, which were not active when the proposal passed, and are in the range > 135 (would’ve been excluded right now if the proposal was rejected).

Approach 1 - First 15 validators all ranks

Approach 2 - First 15 validators after rank 135

Recall that from the first section (proposal 114) we saw that average participation of the current validator set was around 41.5% From the charts above, we can see:

• The first 15 validators which were not active when proposal 337 (increase active set from 135 to 150) was voted and now are part of the active set, tend to vote less than the average current validator set, with an average of 41% participation so far.
• Also, the first 15 validators not active on proposal 337 and with current rank > 135 tend to vote less too than the current validator set on average, with an average of 39.3% participation.

Out of all of the new validators, did anyone post a proposal on governance?

In this case, no “new validators” on the active set has submitted yet anything into governance.

The proposal was approved a month prior to the writing of this dashboard, so it’s still early to value overall.

On the right hand side, I’ve displayed the top 15 validators by rank, which are active in the current date and were not active when proposal 337 went live.

3. Conclusions

After going throughout all the data a few takeaways are:

• Proposal 114:

  • First 18 in rank that are now active and were not in the active set
    • They've became very active in governance voting in around 55% of proposals average, around 13% more active than the total actual average
    • Comparing them to the top 33% at that time, they are also more active, since the number was 46% - Finally, comparing them to the top 66% at that time, again more active, since the number was 42%
  • As a result, two validators (Gelotto and Reverie) are the only validators which are active now and were not by the time the proposal was live which have submited governance proposals

• Proposal 196

  • First 17 in rank that are now active and were not in the active set
    • Roughly the same participation as the current average.
    • On the other hand, the top 33% at the time the proposal was live seem to be pretty active, with around 62% participation.
  • If we take a different approach and look at the top 17 validators which were not active on proposal 196 and now have rank 118 or below (meaning they would not be active before the proposal), we see that they voted more than the other approach, with around 51% of participation on average.

• Proposal 337

  • First 15 in rank that are now active and were not in the active set

    • Roughly the same participation as the current average.

    • On the other hand, the top 33% at the time the proposal was live seem to be pretty active, with around 52% participation.