Fifth part of the Journey: The Local Government
A thorough analysis on the state of governance on NEAR.
Introduction
A good government is another fundamental pillar of a well-established society - whether it is a physical government or a decentralised collection of validator nodes. Near’s government takes the form of the second kind, and in this dashboard, we will analyse the state of governance provided by Near. Our journey through the City of Near has been quite exciting so far, but now it’s time to investigate the serious business once again.
Get ready to tackle the following aspects of Near’s governance:
- The daily and the total number of users who delegate and UNdelegate their assets to Near validators.
- The daily and the total number of delegation and UNdelegation transactions to Near validators.
- The daily and the total amount of Near delegated per validator, as well as the UNdelegated amounts and the net of delegation per validator.
- The daily average amount of Near staked per user.
Methodology
I initially hoped to asses particular proposals and deep dive into what users are voting for and at what frequency, however, I came to the realisation that the Meta Vote has not launched yet, meaning that there is no way to access on-chain governance - I was unable to find any direct votes to proposals on Nearscan. Therefore, this dashboard will mostly investigate the delegation/UNdelegation behaviour of users, which in turn will let me assess how decentralised NEAR really is - based on how each validator is doing in comparison to other validators.
Key insights:
Aurora.poolv1.near
has seen the biggest number of stakers, as well as the biggest number of staking transactions. However, it is interesting to see that it is not the validator with the most amount of NEAR staked - as this title belongs tometa-pool.near
.- The cumulative sum of the amount of NEAR delegated shows us that the rate at which users are staking their assets has slowed down quite a lot. It could be that in the current bear market users don’t want to be staking with validators, as they have potentially sold their assets - or are potentially waiting until the bear is over so that they can start engaging with validators again.
- The average amount of NEAR delegated per staker is also a quite interesting insight. We can see some major spikes in the last chart, which could be a sign of the presence of whales. On some days, the average amount staked per staker reaches a few millions - which possibly implies that on those days there were a few massive transactions - which in turn implies the presence of whales. Now, how does this affect the state of decentralisation of NEAR is an open question, but it’s usually not good news to see one whale being in control of a validator, as this is the complete opposite of a decentralised government! However, it’s also good to see that on other days the average is much lower - which implies the presence of normal users, rather than whales.
Key insights:
- The validators that have seen the most undelegation-related actions are
astro-stakers.poolv1.near
,nearcrowd.poolv1.near
andblackdaemon.poolv1.near
. - As in the case of delegation behaviour, we can also see some spikes in the average amount of NEAR unstaked per unstaker - which as discussed above, could imply the presence of whales in the government.
Conclusion
This dashboard has looked into the staking and unstaking behaviours of NEAR’s citizens. We have seen which validators have seen the most popularity among NEAR’s citizens; which validators have had the most staking transactions and the most amount of NEAR delegated. We have also looked at the same metrics for the undeleagtion-related behaviour of NEAR’s citizens. By the looks of it, it seems that NEAR is on a very good path to a well-established decentralised government - there are a lot of active validators that continue to see a big number of staking transactions by many stakers on a daily basis. If NEAR picks up the growth in terms of validators and these continue to be supported by average users, the hope for an even more excellent governance stands strong!
The Rainbow Bridge, The Capital, The Financial District, The Arts District, The Government… It looks like we have explored all of the key places in the City of Near, so… what now? It is time to back to the guide, where we will look at the final part of our journey, leaving the City and considering where to go next - but if you love Near as much as I do, feel free to stay here for a bit longer!
- Dashboard (and artwork created for the purpose of this tournament) created by -pine-nat-#4310
- Twitter:
- Refresh Rate - Daily
- Data from FlipsideCrypto
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