112. [Easy] Who Validates the Validators

This dashboard looks at different metrics of Terra validators, and more specifically, what defines an excellent validator. As one might guess, validators validate transactions on the Terra network, but they also have a major role in governance. LUNA holders can stake their tokens to validators, and the validator gets voting power proportional to the amount of LUNA staked to it. In return, the LUNA staker earns a percentage of the revenue the validator generates. This revenue comes from computing fees, stability fees, seignorage rewards, and swap fees. There are two main metrics that a Terra user can look at to decide which validator to delegate to, uptime and commission. Uptime is the amount of time the validator will be running, ideally 100%, and commission is how much of a commission the validator takes, so the lower the better. Another metric to look at is how much self-bonded LUNA the validator has, as more represents more of a stake in the ecosystem. The top 5 validators in terms of voting power as of now are Staking Fund, Orion.Money, B-Harvest, DokiaCapital, and Certus One. Looking at the graph in this dashboard, we can see that Staking Fund and Orion.Money are far above the others in terms of voting power and are currently head-to-head. So, what makes Terra users delegate to these validators over others? All of these top 5 validators currently have a commission of less than 10%, with Staking Fund and Certus One having a 10% commission, and the others having a 5% commission. In addition, each of them has an uptime of 100%, meaning they are constantly active and earning rewards. Interestingly, self-delegation does not seem to be a contributing factor in choosing validators, as the top validator, Staking Fund, has only .02% self-bonded, and Orion.Money has 0.0% self-bonded. In conclusion, the most important metrics in choosing validators seem to be an exceedingly high uptime, ideally 100%, and a commission of 10% or less, with not much thought given to self-delegation.