Operator Onboarding Round 1 | Chorus One

Onboarding
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Overview

StakedFLIP launch has been a great success so far. Small holders and institutions alike have loved the ability to liquid stake due to its ease and performance. It is time to start to diversify the validator operators to continue to better the experience for users. After this onboarding process proves to be sound, we will start the process of identifying and vetting an even wider set of operators. We will do our best to diversify the operators, big and small, to achieve a true level of decentralization.

StakedFLIP should have operators that have extremely high technical competence, remarkable security processes, and contribute back to the community.

To spearhead this process, we have identified Chorus One as a great candidate. They have worked with Lido and many other liquid staking protocols. They are the 6th largest operator by stake amount and are an extremely high quality operation.

Please see high level information about them here, with more technical information here.

Logistics

This onboarding marks staking history. StakedFLIP is the first LST to provide holders governance rights, and this is the first time ever that LST users have full control over changes to the protocol. If the StakedFLIP holders do not agree with the onboarding of Chorus One as a new operator, then they can veto the proposal and no changes will occur to the protocol. Please read the protocol documentation for more information about how the process looks at a contract level.

Reminder that at no point does Thunderhead, Chorus One, or any other individual/entity have custody over staker’s FLIP. The contracts are just staking middleware. Also, this onboarding does not affect the protocol rewards fee rate.

Action Items

A temperature check in the form of an offchain vote is live here. If you support this onboarding, please vote “for.” If you do not support this onboarding, please vote “against.”

After rough consensus has been reached via the forum, the governance multi-sig will create an onchain vote.

If you have an opinion on this onboarding process, please share it here. Feel free to ask Chorus One representatives about their operation as well.

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StakedFLIP
We’re super excited to take part in pioneering this effort to further contribute to Chainflip and StakedFLIP’s success. We’ve been supporting the Chainflip ecosystem and team for a long time and are keen to help remove the barrier to entry of Chainflip staking, by supporting StakedFLIP as operators. Through this combined effort we hope to bring more stake into the network and help grow the ecosystem, as trading goes live. We’re looking forward to continue to support the ecosystem through our experience and excellence as validators.

About Chorus One
Chorus One is one of the biggest institutional staking providers globally operating infrastructure for 45+ Proof-of-Stake networks including Ethereum, Cosmos, Solana, Avalanche, and Near amongst others. Since 2018, we have been at the forefront of the PoS industry and now offer easy enterprise-grade staking solutions, industry-leading research, and also invest in some of the most cutting-edge protocols through Chorus Ventures.

Details
Our manager address to be added to the Output smart contract:

0x7733afe7Fe59E5D5891b518Ea1cF6B00157fe02F

The validator addresses that we’ll add to the Output smart contract:

  • 0x046fcb1ac0dab03f7882e782182b02eb5214c990c0c0658f40777dd824065929
  • 0x545b5090ce71b4a092475eb89c227cd3aa8c6ba9df040f76b3b8ef8157376f21
  • 0x961b86fc1dfbc2ba6339fd96fc948b5a76ba2cc4399a398eb52202cd50a3c57b
  • 0x68c46702ecb135b1c2ff2ed01db1c9f1f20635def7bc73f0687db8907eee2b57
  • 0xa26bebef22fb07dcfca967c1dca4ea5300cc3e9d96036218293df48d3ed95723
  • 0x729d6697febdb521597357fce7b9a0776e1b789ffbda61dea03e5f17a7b1f174
  • 0xf62a514669679a5c9a5a2ce6396bba90203357e644cc4fb1305fecf786dcab05
    *0x605054349242d6454818fc0223e455fee702f440d728ede28ad417c5b4ecb412
    *0x2a83183fd8169e48ec5ab66f2917535a351d4ed0b10a2c8b52325ac47d9ce871
    *0xe01150d94d2e8ebc86f99756b600a461e9169c2a64324ce81b47827ca530a813

The Operator ToS we agree to:

Operator ToS - StakedFLIP .pdf - Google Drive

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Some questions:

  • What is ChorusOne their experience running a CF Validator?
  • Will they have capital staked on the validators they are running?
  • Is ChorusOne already present in the CF community or is it completely new for them?
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Hey @cumpsd thanks for your questions. Let us try to answer below:

  • We have been running validators on Chainflip since the testnet days and were a genesis validator on mainnet as well. We’re currently running a few validators for larger FLIP token holders.
  • I don’t fully understand this question. Do you refer to our own capital? Or generally FLIP tokens?
  • Yes as mentioned above, we have been running validators since testnet and have been interfacing a lot with the Chainflip team, providing feedback on the node side, etc. – we’re also listed as an ecosystem partner here: Chainflip

We’ve also written and shared some content around Chainflip: Network 101: A concise guide to Chainflip, and how it simplifies cross-chain swaps

Let us know if you have further questions.

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Are you open to ping me in the #testnet-discussion channel on Discord to place a name on the people who were active since testnet days (I assume soundcheck?)

Yes, it would instill trust if you have your own capital on the line in the validators you run.

One extra question I forgot:

  • Are you currently operating any Perseverance node(s)?
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image956Ă—353 38 KB

Correct me if I am wrong, but it looks like the Discord members are quite new, unless you used different handles in the past?

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Some questions for @addison:

  • How wil StakedFLIP be following up with Chorus One?
  • Will there be shared monitoring you will have access to?
  • Is there support from your side to them if needed?
  • Does ChorusOne receive the full 22% of the fee, or is there still a part left for StakedFLIP? I noticed mention of 10% in the TOS.
  • What is the mechanism if ChorusOne does not fulfill their services? Can StakedFLIP move the FLIP to another Validator operated by somebody else?
  • What is the benefit for stake holders? Is the load of running the current Validators too high for StakedFLIP?
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@cumpsd re Discord you’ve probably seen Yannick or Syzmon (have Chorus one behind their name) or Yannimoto in some of the channels (mainly validator related).

On the capital side, yes and no. Unfortunately, we didn’t invest in Chainflip via Chorus Ventures, so we don’t hold a lot of FLIP tokens. What we earn in commissions we do tend to restake to our nodes. Chorus One has been operating validators since 2018 across now 47 different networks and we have never been slashed. However, there are performance related guarantees through the TOS.

Yes, we are operating Perseverance Testnet nodes.

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Yannick just got access to Perseverance chat 5 days ago, Szymon did spin up a perseverance node 1st of September, can’t find anything for Slawek, Ruud or Bart?

I have no doubt in your technical skills, seeing your professional site, I am just trying to find out how deep your operators are in the CF ecosystem and it’s community when help is needed.

I can confirm your Perseverance node runs fine, nearly no slashes, besides one epoch, but that could’ve been anything on a testnet: validator history / 4 slashes (all ParticipateKeygenFailed)

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Hey David, thanks for the questions.

How will StakedFLIP be following up with Chorus One?

I’m not 100% sure what you mean by this. We are in contact with them. If the proposal passes once it goes up to vote, they’ll know and they will add their validator entries. After this, the manager address that we control will stake FLIP to their approved addresses.

Will there be shared monitoring you will have access to?

Thunderhead has an indexer that alerts upon all sorts of negative events on the network (Missed signings, loss of reputation points, etc). We’re adding Chorus’s validators to this as an additional protection in case something happens to slip through the cracks on their end.

Is there support from your side to them if needed?

Yes, happy to help them or anyone else in the community if needed. They have a pretty tight operation so I doubt they will be asking us for infra help!

Does ChorusOne receive the full 22% of the fee, or is there still a part left for StakedFLIP? I noticed mention of 10% in the TOS.

No, Chorus One will receive 10% of the rewards, per the ToS. The total fee rate to users does not change, per the proposal.

What is the mechanism if ChorusOne does not fulfill their services? Can StakedFLIP move the FLIP to another Validator operated by somebody else?

In the event of an SLA breach, Chorus One will transfer some/all of their fees earned (depending on severity) to the Output contract. See section 4 of the ToS for more information. Yes at anytime the validators can be unstaked from Chorus and moved back to any other validators/operators that are whitelisted in the smart contracts. This requires the operator running the validator to unstake though since there are not forced exits at the moment.

What is the benefit for stake holders? Is the load of running the current Validators too high for StakedFLIP?

We/Thunderhead (the only operator at the moment) has enough tooling and infra setup to be able to run hundreds of validators if needed. The point of this diversification is to distribute stake across several validators within the Chainflip ecosystem for two reasons. Firstly, so that Chainflip has a more decentralized validator set, and secondly so that StakedFLIP stakers are able to use several staking operators which diversifies staking risks.

Hopefully that helps. Let me know if you have other questions.

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Thanks.

w.r.t. to following up, I meant if Thunderhead (I always wrote StakedFLIP instead of Thunderhead) would do a check of their validator configuration before going live.

Another question I have, will stakers be able to choose the operators they stake on? Like “I want to stake on Thunderhead/ChorusOne/NoPreference nodes”?

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check of their validator configuration before going live

Nope, that is their responsibility. They also already have some Chainflip validators live.

will stakers be able to choose the operators they stake on? Like “I want to stake on Thunderhead/ChorusOne/NoPreference nodes”?

No, when you stake you are joining the “pool” which will have stake across Thunderhead + Chorus One for now and then other operators later. I’ve thought about this model but it ends up being pretty inefficient.

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It would allow people to grant one more rewards over the other, if they really want to. I guess in the end it doesn’t matter that much, if there is a party that behaves badly, everyone looses FLIP from “the pool” having a lower total amount of FLIP, I think?

How are slashes handled right now?

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if there is a party that behaves badly, everyone looses FLIP from “the pool” having a lower total amount of FLIP, I think?
How are slashes handled right now?

Correct, a slash of the underlying FLIP would lead to a negative rebase, or the amount of stFLIP you have decreasing. Operators may consider reimbursing slashes depending on the circumstances.

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Yes we have multiple engineers on call at all times, hence we are adding more and more people to the Discord as Chainflip becomes part of this 24/7 monitoring and response process.

We are definitely here when help is needed and have also given feedback to the team on multiple occasions. Not all communication happens on Discord though.

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The on-chain proposals have been created by the governance multi-sig signers! The voting period is two days long. If they do not hit quorum, the proposals will pass optimistically.

Add Chorus One Operator: StakedFLIP | Proposal

Whitelist Chorus One’s Validators: StakedFLIP | Proposal

This marks LST history as the first vote that can be vetoed by LST holders.