But if there is no slashing, why do delegators prefer that? In theory, could you have a whale that is a finaliser with 0% uptime and they’ll remain in the top 100 finalisers since their stake alone keeps them there? In this case, the delegators are not concerned about the operators performance, only that they will be in the top 100 finalisers.
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Another problem with this structure is it will create a large delegator distribution asymmetry. The delegators are not incentivised to choose good operators, they want assurance that they will receive the staking reward; hence they will concentrate within the top few finalisers, all things been equal which I believe is also in the design. It wouldn’t make sense to risk delegating to a finaliser that is ranked 95th as they could easily become displaced from the top 100 list, so delegators would choose finalisers that already have a tonne of delegated funds. Correct me if I’ve misunderstood something?
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This is standard practice in all PoS systems. As a rule, there are no more than 30 large validators, with the rest at the bottom of the list mainly staking personal assets.
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Just want to point out they might also choose a finalizer based on how they vote – which matters a lot to some.
To my knowledge if you delegate to finalizer Z and they vote one way, everyone who delegates to them also votes that way unless delegators are paying attention and vote independently.
I am in complete alignment with this post. Despite being a long term holder, I am more interested in getting adoption than I am in receiving a higher percentage of staking rewards. I will be rewarded far more by getting more people involved than I will by playing lock up games for tokens no one wants. Reduce friction. Make it usable. Don’t play games.
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I think the beauty here is you dont have to play the game. RN without staking similar games are being played you just can’t see them. ( check out that price history! ) . I think we will get more invovled, and with less friction, by introducing rewards for those who want to “play”.
I guess I disagree. People always want to play the game, and they don’t want to play one where they will get frustrated. The friction involved here is certainly going to turn some players away. I think the focus should always be on how do we get more people to play.
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I’m frusrated by this too because of how much ZEC they hold. Lets give access to more.
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Another aspect of this setup that I love is that if forces self-custody since CEX’s refuse to really use the shielded pool. YES 
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Crypto fans: HODL!!!
They too: we need a lock-up period of no more than 3 days.
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A quick note on what dilution means in the context of Zcash and Crosslink.
Dilution has different implications depending on the monetary policy of the network. In inflation-based PoS systems with ongoing issuance, holders who do not stake see their share of total supply decline over time because the supply keeps expanding. Zcash is different because it has a fixed cap of 21 million and a predetermined, declining issuance schedule. Users are not subject to perpetual inflation, and their share of the 21 million supply remains the same even if they choose not to stake.
That said, while issuance is still occurring, stakers (and miners) receive new coins, so a non-staker’s share of the circulating supply can decrease relative to those who participate. As halvings reduce block rewards, this impact diminishes. Anyone holding ZEC today without mining already sees their share of circulating supply gradually reduced as new coins are created. Crosslink does not make that effect any greater.
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Yes, in Zcash, as in Bitcoin, the rules are as simple as possible. There will be 21 million coins. That is, you can buy 21, 210, or 2100 at once and join the Vladimir club. That’s all. No one has diluted anything anymore.
The comparison is only valid with the Bitcoin system. Not Cosmos, Solana, or Ethereum.
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I see what you are saying but I don’t think that’s how people understand “dilution”. I think the common understanding is in term of current supply, not expected future supply. If the supply grows and you are not getting more coins, you are getting diluted. That’s the common understanding and pushing an alternative narrative doesn’t feel very honest imho.
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That’s a great point. Two great points.
More great points/questions. I think in the current initial proposal, it kind of does achieve what you’re suggesting: that staking is mostly private (while balanced against the goal of giving the community visibility into the PoS network). However, part of why I think that is because of the 30-day unbonding period in this initial proposal. The 30-day unbonding period means that people have to keep some of their ZEC liquid in the Orchard pool if they want to use it quickly, which both protects their own privacy and also everyone else’s. So just from the privacy perspective the 30-day unbonding period is a major positive factor. However, it also interacts a lot with three other trade-offs: social slashing, rewarding long-termers more than short-termers, and attracting new capital. So it’s a multidimensional trade-off space.
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Excellent work plugging in some numbers! Your numbers pretty well match the intuition that I had about this. And your analysis does align with our idea in our initial proposal that rewarding long-termers a little more than short-termers (but maybe not too much more) would be good for security and culture and long-term-holding.
However, since we posted our initial proposal a couple of days ago and we’ve been getting a ton of feedback on it from a lot of different people (which is exciting), I’m starting to think that we overlooked a different desirable goal in our multidimensional trade-off space: attracting new capital. If Crosslink also succeeded at doing that, it would be good for security, privacy, and long-termers, because it would add buy pressure on ZEC.
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Sorry, I‘m not try to pushing. I should have pointed out that I am speaking for myself. From the very beginning, I have sincerely strived for round relative values for 21M. And crypto assets with infinite emission do not appeal to me. I was partly influenced by the stock market.
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Yes, we can implement redelegation to a different finalizer once per epoch. The staker/delegator would not need to wait the unbonding period (and forego the yield) to redelegate.
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Right! If we tuned all the tradeoff parameters to maximize ease-of-use and financial liquidity/optionality, then everyone’s wallets would auto stake for them all the time. But since the community needs visibility into the stake to monitor the finalizers and stakers and hold them accountable for their behavior, then there would be no privacy!
My intuition is that in a multidimensional trade-off space like this, there is usually a “sweet spot” area that isn’t too close to any of the extremes. 
Also that different people will have different preferences about which desirable properties to improve at the expense of other desirable properties.
But we can find a widely-acceptable solution, just by agreeing that there are multiple desirable properties that we have to trade-off against each other, that everyone is on the same team and has good intentions, and that it is okay to make mistakes and learn as we go,
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Thank you! That’s great!
Is there a practice of using certain coefficients to encourage retention? Let’s say the starting position begins with a coefficient of 0.8 (and it will be the same for everyone, meaning that no one has an advantage from day one). But after, say, 90 days of staking, the coefficient increases to 0.85. And then after 180 days, it increases to 0.9.
And after 360 days, the coefficient is 1. Thus, if a person decides to withdraw coins from staking, they must understand that next time they will start again with a coefficient of 0.8. But those who continue to stake after 365 days receive an advantage that encourages them to stay.
And such a motivational system can be an alternative to a long period of unlocking.
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