Validators¶
pSTAKE’s architecture mirrors the underlying PoS protocols as closely as possible, hence pSTAKE has partnered with some of the best-performing and most-reputed validators currently securing the relevant underlying networks. This positions the validators as one of the most-important stakeholders within the pSTAKE ecosystem.
The protocol works with two sets of validator partners:
Safelisted Validators¶
pSTAKE stakes the deposited native tokens with a set of safelisted validators and issues 1:1 ERC-20 based stkTOKENs to the users when they trigger a stake transaction. These validators are a subset of the existing validator set of the underlying PoS chain and are chosen basen on their performance, reputation, and their engagement with the community. While the currently chosen subuset is used to bootstrap the protocol, the subset size and its participants can later be changed through governance.
Currently, all the safelisted validators will receive equal delegations. If n validators are safelisted, the entire delegation to the native PoS chain through pSTAKE will be distributed equally among these validators, i.e., each validator will have a delegation of (total pTOKENs staked / n). The average commission rate for n validators will be:
The stake distribution between safelisted validators can also be updated through governance later.
The initial safelisted validator set is:
pBridge Validators¶
pBridge operations are secured by actual PoS validators who maintain a single source of truth for pSTAKE. These validators together ensure the highest level of credibility and performance to be included in the bridge validator pool. pBridge is an MPC (multi-party computation) bridge, where all the transactions are collectively signed by the bridge validators, and later broadcasted on the Comsos or Ethereum sides. Validators can also disable the transaction broadcast if they sense an incorrect transaction/transaction bytes requested for signatures.
pSTAKE has whitelisted a fixed number of validators initially, to perform the pBridge operations. The pBridge validators are currently a subset of the pSTAKE safelisted validator set to ensure smooth onboarding and functioning of the protocol. As the pBridge relays transactions across Cosmos and Ethereum through MPC transactions, the validators chosen to secure the bridge were also evaluated based on their multi-chain operations.
The initial pBridge validator set is: