[Proposal #792][ACCEPTED] Launch Neutron on Replicated Security

[Wunderbernd]

I am sorry but I think your arguments are not consistent with your own actions:

1. You want to tell people that it is not economical to provide RS, but you validate multiple chains (including meme chains), somehow you think this is economically viable and totally fine, but not RS. ALmost every validator validates multiple chains, so people obviously think the risk reward is beneficial.
2. There are already plenty of videos about the economics of RS, watch the Cryptocito video about, they did the math and almost every validator made enough money, so the additional costs shouldn’t be a problem. As far as I remember they even talked about additional measures for the smaller validators.
3. The validators of the hub already made a shit ton of money, even if hub validators would lose money, they made more than enough before.
4. One key aspect of RS is that the consumer chains can experiment with their tokenomics, they can use new/unconventional mechanisms to attract additional users/volume etc., shutting this down before we even know how this will play out is absolutely unreasonable in my opinion
5. Small validators should speak for themselves, it’s the same as whales shouldn’t speak for a small fish.

[common_spelling]

where can I find information on NTRN token allocation, distribution, vesting, etc.?

[gaia]

@Neutron

Hardware requirements:

• 4 Cores
• 32 GB RAM
• 2x512 GB SSD

Baryon has a block time of < 3 seconds. It seems unlikely one can reliably run Neutron on SSD. BTW, why 2x512 GB SSD? Raid 0? Raid 1?

Additionally, Soi lists different [HW requirements in Discord] (2x RAM, 4x CPU) (Discord) on March 10th:

Please clarify.

[gaia]

@Wunderbernd

I am sorry but I think your arguments are not consistent with your own actions:

Regarding point #5, quite the opposite, when a larger member of the ecosystem speaks on behalf of smaller members, the incentive is clearly the health of the ecosystem (which needs the smaller players) and of a more altruistic nature. @etermann has made it clear why they are able to afford running smaller chains which are not profitable:

“So although larger validators like us are not scared by the increase in complexity and smaller margins we think the current proposal will have a larger impact on the Hub decentralisation than can be expected of an economically viable ICS chain.” (bolding by me)

To point out that they do validate on smaller unprofitable chains (your point #1) is irrelevant in this context. Maybe they do it to be good members of the ecosystem? To give their investors more chains to stake on w/o going to another provider/operator? Or maybe they can afford to do it because their infra is so efficiently managed that the cost of adding a new chain is nearly negligible (yes that is possible)?

Also, your point #3 seems to forget that not all validators have made a shit ton of money. That is clearly not the case, and even for the ones that did, are you looking at the next 1 year or the next 10 years?

As for #4, AFAIK no one is looking at shutting this down. We personally would rather have it be opt-in or out, not mandatory, but mind you we are not going to vote against each chain’s onboarding based on the fact that we do not like the current model. We accept the current model, and our vote will be based on each chain’s merits.

Lastly, and unrelated to your comment, I believe this model will fails and a new one will replace it. Mandatory adding of new chains is unfeasible in an universe of dozens or hundreds of replicated security chains.

[waqarmmirza]

@Spaydh

We are testing out a soft opt-out feature that would allow the bottom x% of the voting power to opt-out of running a consumer chain while preserving its economic security. The validators would bear no additional cost and still get their rewards. It hasn’t been included in the proposal so far because it hasn’t been tested out in production-like conditions, which we’re planning to address on testnet next week.

This would be excellent if it hits the testnet by the coming week, do you see this feature going live with the Neutron launch?

[Spaydh]

Yes, more information will be released on this shortly but our engineering team and Hypha’s are working closely together to ensure the feature is tested both internally and in public testnet conditions so that, if proven safe and satisfactory, it may be included in the mainnet release.

[Neutron]

The proposal has been updated to contain the latest information on the launch process, including the specific allocations to the hub, an updated timeline and technical requirements. This update builds upon the changelog to provide more context around the following changes:

1. NTRN Allocation to the Cosmos Hub
2. Release of additional features and final version of Neutron
3. Proposed fixes to the economic constraints of ICS for validators
4. Updated Launch Timeline

Initial NTRN Allocation

Neutron’s NTRN Economics have been released. This update will highlight some of the information contained in the article, which can be found in full here: NTRN Economics. Or how the right to govern Neutron… | by Neutron.org | Apr, 2023 | Medium

The initial supply for NTRN is 1,000,000,000 and inflation is set to 0. The initial token allocations can be seen in the graph below. They include a detailed breakdown of the NTRN airdrop:

• 70,000,000 NTRN Tokens (7% of the total supply, 58,3% of the initial circulating supply) will be distributed to the Cosmos Hub community as part of Genesis:
  • 40,000,000 NTRN Tokens (4% of the total supply) will be distributed to account with more than 1 ATOM staked on Block #12900000 (2022-11-19)
  • 30,000,000 NTRN Tokens (3% of the total supply) will be distributed to accounts who voted on Prop 72, regardless of whether they voted Yes, No, Abstain or NoWithVeto, and regardless of whether they voted themselves or through their validator.
• The distribution is stake-weighted and is subject to the following boundaries:
  • Minimum 1 ATOM staked (excludes 38% “dust” accounts)
  • Maximum 1,000,000 ATOM staked (limits the largest allocations wealthy accounts)
  • To compensate for the vulnerability to sybil accounts that the maximum cap introduces, an open “sybil account hunt” will be organized. More information will be released soon.
• The airdrop is also subject to the following exclusions:
  • US Persons and residents of Sanctioned Countries
  • Validators affiliated with Centralized Exchanges and Custodians and their Delegators
    • Binance Node, Binance Staking, Latent Iron, Zugerselfdelegation, CEX.io, Coinbase Custody, CoinoneNode, debo-validator, GAME, Huobi, Kraken, OKEx Pool, Upbit Staking. If your node was wrongly characterized as CEX or Custodian, please reach out to airdrop@neutron.org.

Final Features Roll-out

An additional batch of features has been finalized and merged into Neutron’s codebase, which is now undergoing final preparations ahead of the publication of the mainnet launch proposal. This reference release is slated to be deployed today to Baryon-1, Neutron’s persistent Replicated Security testnet, and as part of the upcoming Replicated Security testnet Rehearsals. It introduces the following features:

• Mev-Tendermint: a fork of Tendermint/CometBFT developed by Skip and which introduces a blockspace auction.
• IBC-Hooks: An IBC middleware developed by Strangelove Labs and used to allow ICS-20 token transfers to initiate contract calls.
• Packet forward middleware: Middleware developed by Strangelove Labs and used for forwarding IBC packets.
• TokenFactory: A custom module based on Osmosis’ Tokenfactory module, which enables the creation of native denomination and alleviates the limitations of cw-20 token.
• Neutron CRON: A custom, governance-gated module that can be used to allow developers to automate the execution of specific contracts at regular intervals through Neutron’s EndBlockers.

In addition, Hypha and P2P will be conducting experimentations on testnet to find the optimal safe value for Tendermint/CometBFT’s timeout_commit parameter. This research may allow Neutron’s blocktime to safely decrease from the current ~3s blocktime witnessed on Baryon-1 to roughly 2s blocktime, decreasing confirmation times and improving UX.

ICS Economics

The upcoming testnet upgrade and launch rehearsals will also be used to test the safety and efficacy of two mechanisms intended to reduce the financial burden that may be imposed by the launch of Neutron on validators at the bottom of the set:

The downtime window on Baryon-1 will be extended to 30,000 bocks (roughly 2 days). This should allow validators to relax their monitoring set-ups, therefore potentially marginally reducing cost without significantly threatening liveness.

Releases patched to include a “soft opt-out” feature will be launched and tested as part of the internal and public rehearsal described in the timeline below. This feature would allow the bottom 5% of validators by voting power (74 validators at the time of writing) to be free of any penalty for “opting-out” of running nodes for the Neutron network. These validators would still be considered part of Neutron’s validator set and earn a small share of the staking rewards but would not be jailed nor slashed for downtime.

This mechanism does not require the Cosmos Hub to upgrade and is expected to lead to a drastic reduction in the cost of onboarding Neutron by entirely removing the burden of running consumer chain nodes from the least profitable validators’ shoulders. Nonetheless, it represents a compromise on the chain’s liveness, which could translate into longer/trickier chain upgrades and increased halting risk.

Updated Timeline

To provide sufficient time for the Cosmos Hub community to assess the NTRN Economics and for the Soft-opt out and Extended Downtime options to be properly tested, we propose to extend the estimated timeline as follows:

Estimated time	Milestone
4th of April (today)	Baryon-1 Network Upgrade
5th of April	Internal Rehearsal: The finalized binary is launched and all contracts are initialized and tested. The stability of the soft-opt out configuration is assessed.
11th of April	Public Rehearsal: All Cosmos Hub validators are invited to rehearse the possible launch of Neutron on Replicated Security by deploying the finalized binary on the Replicated Security testnet. The stability of the soft-opt out configuration is assessed in production-like conditions.
12th of April	Voting starts: Assuming the Public Rehearsal was successful, the final version of this proposal is submitted on-chain.
~26th of April	Voting ends: The proposal is either rejected or accepted by the Hub Community. If the proposal is successful, the launch period starts shortly thereafter.
~26th of April to the 3rd of May	Launch period: Neutron launches if/when validators representing two-thirds of the voting power on the Cosmos Hub start running nodes for the network.

[BuilderBot]

hi, thanks for the update on tokenomics.
I understand why you would want to exclude CEXes from the airdrop but in the case of Consumer Chains I’d argue you should also consider that there is no opt-out for them. I do not think it’s fair to force them validating your chain and then not reimbursing them and their clients with the airdrop.
Thus, I ask you to reconsider it with also considering this angle.

[Hush]

I guess I’ll be the first to bring up US exclusion from Neutron. Everyone was ready and raring for Neutron, everyone was looking forward to it and to find US residents so thoroughly cut out of the ecosystem is seriously disappointing. As far as I know, No Cosmos project has attracted US regulation or lawsuit and to pre-emptively cut off this portion of the community seems counterproductive and somewhat dangerous.

[Spaydh]

U.S. citizens aren’t blocked from Neutron, the exclusion applies to the token. Anyone can use the platform, gas fees can be paid in other currencies including ATOM.

[Hush]

From what was said, I don’t think the spirit of the Disclaimer is one of inclusion. But let’s say we can use atoms to pay fees. Can we use atoms to vote in any governance proposals? How about buying NTRN for liquidity pools? How about LSD? Again, I don’t feel the love…

[tom]

Neutron needs to protect itself regarding its initial tokens share. it’s fair.

what users are doing after that genesis’ emission is a different story.

[Hush]

It’s not just the initial token share though.

US residents have been systematically written out of Neutron’s present and most likely future. No other chain has been so decisive in US exclusion as far as I know. And this may just be the start. Holding up a context that for now is purely imaginary, seeing as US regulators have not gone after any Cosmos chain. Are we going to allow conspiracy theories to ruin our good work and good times…

[tom]

i guess they have a legal team. they don’t do that for fun or because shady conspiracies. are you really aware of what’s happening in the US ?
a serious and long term focused project just can’t ignore this kind of potential legal “attack” vectors.

but i’m going to let them answer.

what i’m sure of is if they could be open (regarding NTRN tokens) to the whole world, they would.

[Liang]

I have 1000 ATOM staked before #12900000 (2022–11–19)，but now I redelegate my ATOM to a new validator which becomes an active validator in 2023, can I get my airdrop?

[Neutron]

Incorporating pertinent Community feedback, the following adjustment has been made to the NTRN airdrop: tokens left unclaimed after 3 months may be permissionlessly transferred to the Cosmos Hub community pool.

[CuriousJ]

This is overall a good change to send unclaimed tokens to the community pool. Regarding the US residents on token claiming: I think it’s a wise decision, we have to consider how aggressive SEC has been at targeting small protocols. Last thing we want is that kind of attention to cosmos ecosystem. I don’t think Neutron or any protocol is happy with such difficult decisions but we have to put thing in a neutral perspective here.

[BuilderBot]

@Spaydh @Neutron please kind sirs. I cannot follow the motivation to exclude them. Please elaborate and reconsider. What have they done to you?
If it’s because of decentralization, then why just blocking CEXes and not also infrastructure providers that may run a multitude of validators? Why don’t you offer an opt-out for them then from the start off?
Don’t CEXes bring in institutionals and retail customers alike? Kind of like a marketing campaign? How come you exclude them?

[BendyOne]

Suspect the Neutron team won’t want to talk too much about Gary and the SEC but considering the landscape right now I am not surprised they are being cautious. I understand why it is frustrating to individuals but that is more the fault of their government than Neutron.

The good news is that those tokens that can’t be claimed will go the ATOM community pool and anyone can use the dapps on Neutron using ATOM.

I urge everyone looking into the tokenomics to take a long on a longer time frames rather than being discouraged because of then trying to navigate restrictive regulations.

[BeatSeeker]

I was surprised to see delegators to centralized exchanges and custodians excluded from the airdrop.
What is the rationale behind this choice?

It is clear that the reason is not:
(i) centralization per se, as centralized staking providers are in, or
(iI) incentivizing a stake redistribution towards smaller validators, as we have one excluded validator with a voting power as low as 0.05%

As the airdrop aims to reward the “Community”, I can imagine that you want to exclude entities who didn’t use their voting power. That would help me understanding why do you draw a line between centralized staking providers and exchanges (I am not sure if there are exceptions here but the trend is clear).

However, you have already a distinction here for the 30 million NTRN reserved to who voted on Prop 72. It seems excessive to me to use practically the same rationale to exclude exchanges (and their delegators!) also for the remaining part of the airdrop.

It seems a bit unfair to me to discriminate delegators relying on exchanges for staking their ATOM as if they were not part of the community at all. It is true they do not contribute on governance, but I am not sure that’s enough to draw a strict line on who’s part of the community and who’s not. Exchanges can contribute to adoption and building a larger community, this decision seems too strict without further clarifications.