Near and Solana: Staking actions in 2022

📜Introduction

NEAR Protocol is a public Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain that aims to bring DeFi to the masses with low transfer fees and fast transactions. NEAR competes with Avalanche, Solana, Cardano, Algorand, the new version of Ethereum, and other PoS networks.

Since its inception, NEAR Foundation has been committed to not only helping build a fast, secure and scalable blockchain, but to facilitate the decentralization of network to the community.

Not only are concrete steps being taken to fast-track the decentralization of NEAR’s underlying technology and infrastructure, but massive contributions are being made towards galvanizing the developer community, ensuring that power lies with the community upon which NEAR thrives.

Decentralization as a core principle doesn’t stop with NEAR’s underlying tech. Rather, the concept has been applied by the NEAR community to further its mission of engaging the worldwide community to have a voice in the future of blockchain and Web3. The NEAR Governance community acts as a forum for the community to discuss topical NEAR protocol improvements and governance initiatives. Development of the protocol is open source, inviting all to join an already thriving, diverse, and decentralized community.

These metrics show a perspective of the current actions being done on Near and Solana in terms of Governance.

• The donut chart shows that approximately 64% of the distribution of staking actions on Near is related to staking and approximately 35% is related to unstaking. Daily changes also show that staking is more than unstacking on all days.
• But on the other hand, looking at the Solana actions, you can see that almost 16% of the activity distribution is related to staking, 32% of the activity is related to unstaking, and the highest distribution of activity is related to split with 32.5% of activities. As you can see, activity increased in August. In daily changes, it can be seen that unstaking activity is more than staking on most days.

🤖Method

In order to answer the bounty question and To conduct our study, we are using the Flipside schema (Near and solana).

In this analysis, we are going to see How centralized or decentralized is NEAR and also Solana.

Study Period

From the start of the year 2022 till 6th November 2022.

Dashboard sections

• Staking actions in 2022
• Is delegate more or undelegate?
• Validators
• Nakamoto Coefficient

Near and Solana: Is delegate more or undelegate?

Near and Solana: Validators

In these charts, we can see firstly the change in the number of delegators on each chain, as well as the cumulative change over the current year.

If we observe closely, we can see how the major of the days on Near have been negative while for Solana the major of them have been positive, gaining more delegators.

In fact, if we take a look at the cumulative charts, we can observe opposite trends on these chains. In total, Near has lost more than 4.8k delegators while Solana has won more than 100k.

In general, the number of active validators on Solana is more than the number of active validators on Near.

In these given charts, you can see weekly changes in validators.

Near and Solana: Nakamoto Coefficient

Looking at the power distribution of validators grouping them by ranges, we can see how over the current year, the top 10 validators’ holdings reduced from almost 70% of total staked NEAR to around 45%.

On the other hand, the power distribution of validators on Solana seems to vary a little bit more. In this case, Solana has more validators on the top. In this case, the distribution is more heterogeneous which indicates a more healthy blockchain in terms of decentralization

Another interesting metric to measure the decentralization is the Nakamoto Coefficient.

Based on a Monthly basis:

• we can see how the amount of needed validators in Near increased from 6 to 9 showing an improvement on the Near decentralization.

• On Solana, the Nakamoto coefficient has also increased from 1 to 41, which is a huge increase.

These two charts show the Staked Near and Solana; On 7th November, 265.67M Near and 221.26M Solana have been staked.

During the last week of August, about 34M Near was staked.

It seems that the major amount of validators were registered on mid-August.

Findings 👀

• Approximately 64% of the distribution of staking actions on Near is related to staking and approximately 35% is related to unstaking. On the other hand, looking at the Solana actions, we can see how in this case, the unstaking actions represent more than the staking ones. (almost 16% of the activity distribution is related to staking, and 32% of the activity is related to unstaking).
• In terms of delegators, Near has been negative over the current year while for Solana the major of them have been positive, gaining more delegators.
• In total, during the current year, Near has lost more than 4.8k delegators while Solana has won more than 100k.
• Looking at the power distribution of validators grouping them by ranges, we can see how over the current year, the top 10 validators’ holdings reduced from almost 70% of total staked NEAR to around 45%.
• According to Nakamoto Coefficient we can see how the amount of needed validators in Near increased from 6 to 9 showing an improvement on the Near decentralization.
  • On Solana, the Nakamoto coefficient has also increased from 1 to 41, which is a huge increase.

👩‍💻 Author

Gmail: ftmkhodabande@gmail.com

Tweeter: @busygirlcom || Discord: Jinx#6675

> Special thanks to my friend camp#4286