Nominators
Independent network participants that help maintain consensus quality and consistency by voting for validators and committing their capital in return for a share of emission.
Nominators are one of the two type of participants in the staking subsystem of ATLETA. These actors are critical for enable optimal network conditions by counter-balancing the influence validators have. Nominators distribute their allocations of $ATLA coin weight among the validator set and appoint the validators they prefer. Nominated validators have greater potential likelihood of being included in consensus and earning more slots during epochs.
The stake used for nomination does not imbue elected validators with the corresponding voting power. Voting power is retained by the nominators.
Given that validators with better performance, reputations, and emission sharing are more likely to be selected by nominators; nominators that enable recursive flywheel of validator alignment.
Nominators are a predominantly passive role requiring minimal management. However, there are certain parameters that can, and most likely will, change according to circumstance around individual operator preference and the global state of ATLETA, including: validator fees, validator behavior (sanctions/ slashing/ uptime/ etc.), network wellbeing (emission rates). Therefore, it is advised that nominators monitor their exposure regularly.
Why Become A Nominator?
Become an active member in consensus, helping the network maintain its integrity by increasing its economic security. Additionally, you contribute to the $ATLA coin's economic state by reducing circulating supply.
By engaging the staking module, you take advantage of the $ATLA coin emissions and earn yield. Assuming your contributed stake is below the threshold level required to become a validator, you can earn earn enough $ATLA to become a validator.
Gaining access to ATLETA governance. Here you become an influential actor helping steer the ATLETA network in the direction your believe will best serve the project. Moreover, you unlock an extra channel for earning $ATLA (via participation in the governance forum).
Develop deeper understanding of ATLETA on a technical level. By interacting with all of the individual components relating to nomination, you get "skin in the game" and get to immerse yourself in the full spectrum of variable implications and experience the intricacies between node operators.
Specifications
| *10 $ATLA (variable) |
| 3 days / 72 hours |
| N/A |
| 3 days / 72 hours |
| None |
| None |
Variable Stake Threshold
The threshold level for nominator stake is subject to fluctuation according to four key economic variable that constitute the state of the ATLETA network. The threshold is derived from the total amount of $ATLA being staked, the total amount of $ATLA in circulation, the total amount of nominators, and the total amount of validators. As the relationship between all four of those variable change, so does the minimal staking threshold.
If a nominators stake falls below the threshold, they and their associated stake become "inactive". Those that are inactive, are placed into a queue waiting for the threshold level to be met again.
Process
How to become a Nominator on ATLETA
Here we will give a high-level overview.
A more in-depth, step-by-step guide, will be made available in written and video format in the near future; those that wish to learn more are invited to reach out to the admin team for support on the official BCSports discord.
Becoming a Nominator on ATLETA is a simple three step process that requires users to bond at least 10 $ATLA coins, vote for the validator(s) they trust, and wait 3 days for their role to be engaged.
1) Bonding $ATLA
Whenever user go to stake their coins, they must have the minimal amount of 10 $ATLA plus transaction fees incurred from the smart contract interaction. As soon as the user submits their transaction, their coins will being bonding.
* It is advised that users retain an additional 0.1 $ATLA in their wallets in order to be able to withdraw their stake in the future, which will incur smart contract transaction fees.
2) Nominating Validators
During the staking process, nominators will be presented with the list of candidate validators, which is currently capped at 1,000. The Nominator will select up to 16 validators, receiving a weighted portion of the Nominator's stake. Nominators will have to wait until the next era’s election round for their votes to take effect.
*Not all validators that a Nominator votes for will be included in every epoch. Therefore, it is in the interests of Nominators to distribute their $ATLA weights throughout broad, varied sets of validators in order to increase the odds of inclusion.
3) Wait for Bonding Completion
Bonding is the process of securing $ATLA coins. By imposing a bonding period, the network combats any malicious actors that try to subvert the governance module through flash-voting. The bonding process is approximately 3 days / 72 hours long; the exact time may vary as it is accounted in the number of ATLETA blocks 86,400.
*During the bonding period, there is no reversion. Users must wait until their bonding completes before they can request to withdraw the allocated $ATLA coins.
Receiving Rewards
For a more complete understanding of rewards in general please refer to the rewards section of this document, which can be found here.
In order to receive rewards as a nominator there are four requirement that must be met:
ascribing nomination stake to more than one validator
providing enough staked $ATLA
having nominated validators be included in epochs
honest validator behavior.
Assuming a nominator elects at least 2 validators, those validators (or even just one) gets included into an epoch, the staking threshold does not surpass a nominators allocation, and the validators do not act maliciously; then rewards are earned.
However, there are rare, edge case scenarios under which nominators may not earn any rewards.
All nominated validators go offline
Staking threshold exceeds nominators stake
Elected validators do not get included in epochs
Validators violate consensus and get slashed
Validators hike emission share rate to 0%
Validators become over subscribed
While the odds of not earning rewards are near zero, they are in fact always non-zero and therefore must be considered by nominators during the bonding process.
Nominator Best Practice
It may not be possible to avoid occasional turbulence or ensure maximal rewards all the time, however, by abiding by best practices laid out here, the odds of issues are significantly reduced and reward potential significantly optimized.
1) always nominate the maximum possible amount of validators (16) - This increase the odds of a nominated validator being included into an epoch. 2) select validators with total stake below the upper limit - Part of the decentralization mechanism includes taxation of oversubscribed validators. 3) select validators with best reputations - Avoiding validators that have an offensive history. 4) bond at least 2x the minimal threshold level - In events of the threshold level increasing, nominators will not have to get involved manually.
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