Dear community,

This proposal seeks to increase the validator minimum commission from 10% to 15% with the goal of improving the sustainable operations of validator nodes. It is believed that in doing so we are improving the security of the network by properly incentivizing validators.

Present revenue:

At present validators share a reward of ~800 KSM per 6 hour era, at 10% commission and a KSM rate of $16.50/KSM a validator is expected to earn -> (800 KSM / 1000 validators) * 10% * 4 eras * 30 days * $16.50 = $158.40 / mth.

Proposed revenue:

Applying the same calculation as above but replacing commission at 15%:
(800 KSM / 1000 validators) * 15% * 4 eras * 30 days * $16.50 = $237.60 / mth.

I remain confident with research done in previous proposals that an ideal revenue for a Kusama Validator lies between $300 - $500 / mth, this affords enough revenue to cover expenses for a server, tooling, compensation for time invested and to afford the validator some profit (after tax).

At present rates, it is difficult for a validator to justify the need to operate a validator as revenue barely meets the cost of a to-spec server. It is also difficult for individual validators to justify the desire to spend time and effort to gain nominations to become "independent", this activity takes several months and in my own experience years.

The proposal of 15% takes a conservative position which matches the maximum commission set by the Decentralized Nodes (DN) programme. It gives existing validators an opportunity to reduce their exposure and some incentive for DN validators to gain some more revenue while also being competitive. I hope to complement this proposal with another (more drastic) proposal to increase inflation while locking some of the additional rewards.

Previous proposals:

• The first successful proposal to increase the minimum commission to 3%
• The second successful proposal to increase the minimum commission from 3% to 10%

Regards,
Will | Paradox | ParaNodes.io