Every 4th Thursday of the month, we host a community-led Solana validator call. These calls are open to anyone who wishes to attend but for those of you who weren't able to tune in, we have a call recap.
The September Solana community validator meeting covered recent events, validator operations, governance, network mods, and regulatory issues. Key discussions included the impact of recent updates, validator set decentralization, mod usage, and maintaining network integrity.
Block Zero Recap and Validator Operations
The meeting began with a recap of Block Zero, a recent event focused on validator decentralization. Panelists discussed the ideal validator set, emphasizing client diversity, geographic distribution, and stake distribution. A consensus suggested that having three to four clients would be optimal, with diminishing returns beyond this number. The introduction of the Firedancer client was highlighted as a significant improvement.
The panelists debated the roles of validators, particularly the balance between value creation and extraction. Anatoly (Solana Labs) proposed that top validators should represent top dApps, acknowledging the need for a mix of in-house and third-party validators. A detailed review of geographic distribution showed Solana's Nakamoto coefficient at four, representing about 34% of total stake, indicating the need for improved decentralization.
Governance and Economics
Governance discussions covered various forms of governance, including stake-weighted voting and social consensus. The panel discussed how governance should adapt as the network evolves, with a focus on improving the process around network upgrades, particularly with the arrival of the Firedancer client. On the economic side, the challenge of attracting stake was reiterated, with some discussion on the Solana Foundation’s role in shaping the validator set.
Regulatory Concerns
Regulatory insights highlighted that validators are somewhat under the radar but warned against actions that could attract regulatory scrutiny. Validators were advised to remain agnostic in terms of rewards and client involvement to avoid liability. Concerns were raised around Marinade's operations potentially entering a regulatory gray area due to their involvement in direct client transaction paths.
Mods and Network Latency
A significant portion of the meeting focused on validator mods. Concerns were raised about running modified versions of the validator software potentially creating single points of failure if too many validators use the same code. Zantetsu explained that his mods allow for faster voting without compromising consensus integrity, though he emphasized the importance of validators understanding what they are running.
The relevance of mods post-TVC activation was discussed. While TVC will balance the trade-off between voting speed and accuracy, mods will still be useful for optimizing validator performance. It was noted that data center choice can significantly impact network latency, with some validators in certain data centers performing better than others even within the same region.
Responsibility and Future Innovations
Validators were urged to take responsibility for understanding and maintaining any mods they use. Tim Garcia from the Solana Foundation confirmed that there is no official position on running mods for SFDP participants. The discussion closed with ideas for future innovations, including the potential for predictive algorithms using machine learning to optimize voting based on historical network data.