FLOW's Path To Decentralization

Introduction :

In this analysis, I will examine the following things on the FLOW chain :

how much total $FLOW is staked?
How much $FLOW is staked/unstaked per day?
How many unique stakers there are?
What is the amount of $FLOW staked vs. $FLOW circulating?

FLow Staking :

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. [Resource]

Method :

I used flow.core.ez_staking_actions table for extracting FLOW staking data. 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.

NOTE : In this analysis, I will ignore the ==Claim Reward== action.

NOTE : I have extracted the circulating $FLOW from Messari.

Over-time Graphs :

The number of stakes on the FLOW network has been increasing over time and week by week and reached its peak at the beginning of August 2022. The number of events related to unstake is much less compared to the number of stakes, and the number of unstakes is about one tenth of the number of stakes.

The number of users who have staked FLOW has been increasing over time and reached its peak at the beginning of March, but regarding the amount of $FLOWs staked, it should be said that compared to the number of users who unstaked their $FLOWs And compared to the much smaller number of unstake events, the amount of unstaked $FLOW is much higher, and in some weeks, the amount of unstake was greater than the amount of staked.

The weekly average stake volume is lower than the unstaked weekly average volume in most weeks
In the last week of December, the staked volume was much higher than the unstake volume in that week, and at the beginning of February, the net volume reached -633 million $FLOW. In most weeks, the stake volume has been higher than the unstaked volume by a very small margin.
The number of new users who have staked their $FLOW peaked in the first week of March and then decreased week by week.

The total number of actions related to stake has reached about 400 thousand transactions and the number of transactions related to unstake has reached 34 thousand transactions. And the total amount of staked $FLOW has reached 1.9 billion so far, of which about $1.2 billion of FLOW has been unstaked so far.
Average staked $FLOW amount : 2.8 K $FLOW and Average unstaked $FLOW amount : 36.8 K $FLOW.
About 76% of the transactions were related to stake flow with a volume of less than 5 flow. 8% of the transactions were related to the stake between 10 and 50 flos. 36% of users have staked less than 5 flows and 15% of users have staked between 10 and 50 flows. This shows that the stake platform has attracted more attention from whales

$FLOW Circulating Supply : 1 B $FLOW.
current $FLOW staked amount : 702 M $FLOW.

Conclusion :

From the above analysis, I came to the following conclusions :

The number of stakes on the FLOW network has been increasing over time and week by week and reached its peak at the beginning of August 2022. The number of events related to unstake is much less compared to the number of stakes, and the number of unstakes is about one tenth of the number of stakes.
The number of users who have staked FLOW has been increasing over time and reached its peak at the beginning of March, but regarding the amount of $FLOWs staked, it should be said that compared to the number of users who unstaked their $FLOWs And compared to the much smaller number of unstake events, the amount of unstaked $FLOW is much higher, and in some weeks, the amount of unstake was greater than the amount of staked.
The weekly average stake volume is lower than the unstaked weekly average volume in most weeks
In the last week of December, the staked volume was much higher than the unstake volume in that week, and at the beginning of February, the net volume reached -633 million $FLOW. In most weeks, the stake volume has been higher than the unstaked volume by a very small margin.
The number of new users who have staked their $FLOW peaked in the first week of March and then decreased week by week.
The total number of actions related to stake has reached about 400 thousand transactions and the number of transactions related to unstake has reached 34 thousand transactions. And the total amount of staked $FLOW has reached 1.9 billion so far, of which about $1.2 billion of FLOW has been unstaked so far.
Average staked $FLOW amount : 2.8 K $FLOW and Average unstaked $FLOW amount : 36.8 K $FLOW.
About 76% of the transactions were related to stake flow with a volume of less than 5 flow. 8% of the transactions were related to the stake between 10 and 50 flos. 36% of users have staked less than 5 flows and 15% of users have staked between 10 and 50 flows. This shows that the stake platform has attracted more attention from whales.
$FLOW Circulating Supply : 1 B $FLOW.
current $FLOW staked amount : 702 M $FLOW.

Therefore, it seems that the number of stakers and the volume of staked $flow have been increasing over time, and this issue can cause this network to become more decentralized.

Overal Stats :

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