Terra Delegation Program 2022 Round 1: Applications

The Terra Delegation Program (TDP) is back!

There are only 5 qualifications this round:

1. Have a complete Validator Profile:
Example of a perfect pull request Here.
Example of a perfect finished profile Here.

2. Commission at or below 10%: at all snapshots.

3. Bombay Testnet must be active: at all snapshots.

4. Provide Seed Node Address: for Testnet and Mainnet
(Process explained below)

5. You must have applied through the link below by 12.15.21 9 PM KST:

https://forms.gle/X2AQb2Wo8QfpWdht9

If you have previously applied. You must apply again.

Disbursements for this round will on or before the first week of February 2022.

What is the snapshot? Once a week I will be taking a snapshot, and then publishing the results. They will not be announced to prevent gaming the system. They will be public so you can track your progress.
The first of these snapshots will be taken next week. Links will be posted publicly on Discord and Twitter when snapshots are complete.

Delegations will be weighted for decentralization. This means, the TFL fund will weigh distributions to flatten the voting curve.

Delegations will not be made to validators outside the active set.

Seed Node:

Why are we requiring this?
One of the most common pain points for new entrants into our ecosystem are poor seed node connections on mainnet and testnet.

How to do it:
Submit your seed nodes in the following format:
e999fc20aa5b87c1acef8677cf495ad85061cfb9@seed.terra.delightlabs.io:26656

broken into:
<Address> @ <IP or DNS> : <Port>

You can find your address by running: [terrad tendermint show-node-id]
It is best practice to use a DNS. This seed node address will be shared in the public GitHub repo.

Next edit your config.toml to:

# Seed mode, in which node constantly crawls the network and looks for
# peers. If another node asks it for addresses, it responds and disconnects.
#
# Does not work if the peer-exchange reactor is disabled.
seed_mode = true

# Maximum number of inbound peers
max_num_inbound_peers = 200

Then restart Terrad to apply changes.

What is the TDP?

If this is your first time hearing about the TDP here is a brief explanation. Terraform labs has collections of fund that were minted at chain genesis. These funds are deployed through a variety of mechanisms. One is the Terra Delegation Program. This program encompasses roughly 50m luna which is set aside for delegation.

Why?

Certain aspects of the network must be incentivized. Issues the TDP has tacked include:

Commissions:
Prior to the program running there was a large 0% commission war going on within the validator set. validators need money to operate. The average TDP validator is running 4 virtual machines with 8 cores, 32GB ram, and 2TB NVME storage. This is a large cost which needs to be offset. Normalizing paying your validator has lead to greater stability for operators in the network.

Seed Nodes:
Prior to requiring seed nodes as part of the TDP the network had 5 seed nodes. Now we have 132. This is essential for the p2p network, and new operators syncing their nodes.

Testnet:
Prior to TDP requirement there were 32 Bombay (Testnet) validators. Now there are over 80. Testnets are an essential part of the ecosystem, providing a place for developers to work out new protocols without risking real worlds assets.

Validator Profiles:
Prior to the TDP under 30 validators provided contact information. Now, over 60 active, and many more inactive do so. All publicly available here.

Decentralization:
Applications are open to everyone. We delegate as high as we possibly can every round, without increasing the total delegation size, and minimizing the effect on balance of voting power. The more who qualify, the lower that threshold becomes.

Do not depend on TDP for your livelihood. TFL funds will all be burnt or otherwise discarded when TFL dissolves. If you are in the TDP you should have an active plan to replace your TDP delegations with delegations from individual actors.

All delegations are ultimately at the discretion of Terraform Labs.

Terra Delegation Program 2022 Round 1: Applications was originally published in Terra Money on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.