Pooled THORNodes

According to THORChain documents, Skilled Node Operators who don't individually have enough $RUNE to run a node themselves can use the Bond Provider feature to bootstrap bond from other $RUNE holders. Or several nodes can pool together as a single node to maximise their payouts.

Node Operators can define up to 6 THOR addresses as bond providers. These addresses will be able to Bond and Unbond to the node, and earn rewards based on the amount of bond they contribute. Node Operators take a fixed fee of 2000 basis points (20%) on all rewards from the Bond Providers' bond. In the future this fee may be configurable per node.

Rationale

The minimum $RUNE needed to churn in as a THORNode is currently set at 300K - but with bond competition this number could be much higher.

Not many people in the world have both the technical skills to run a Validator AND at least 300K $RUNE, which limits the supply of Node Operators who secure THORChain.

Pooled THORNodes provide a way for a skilled Operator to enter a trusted agreement with known Bond Providers to bootstrap enough capital for running a THORNode. The Network's security increases, and more RUNE holders have access to yield-bearing bond-space.

Methodology

Using the data from flipside_prod_db.thorchain.bond_events I have gathered the info about number of unique entities that are participated as bond providers. As it is a relatively a new feature, I didn’t expect a large number of providers. I have created my analysis by categorizing data into:

• Number of unique new entities (bond providers)
• Number of bond providers with none-zero RUNE bonded
• Number of unique bond providers daily
• Total current pooled $RUNE
• Pooled Rune amount per each bond provider
• Pooled RUNE categorized

Observations

Most of pooled validators (72.2%) have bonded between 100k and 1M $RUNE

Around 1/3 of pooled validators bonded 0 RUNE and are not recognized as Active, hence only 223 ones have active bonded $RUNE.