Shaping the Future of Delegation with Ike: Gathering Community Insight

GM Aleph Zero Community,

At Ike, we’re committed to creating a community-driven liquid staking experience on Aleph Zero. As part of our journey toward progressive decentralization, we’re thrilled to introduce the next step: three proposals for the Initial Validator Registry, designed to kick-start Ike’s liquid staking operations. Now, it’s time for you, the community, to help shape our path forward.

The Importance of Validator Selection

Validators play a crucial role in maintaining Aleph Zero’s security, performance, and decentralization. With Ike’s liquid staking, selecting the right validators for the Initial Registry is critical, as they will manage the delegated assets while securing the network.

We believe in progressive decentralization, where the community plays an increasingly active role in governance. This is just the beginning of Ike’s progressive decentralization journey.

How We Chose the Validators

Our selection process was guided by the following criteria to ensure the best mix of reliability and alignment with Aleph Zero’s goals:

• High Uptime & Low Fees: To ensure consistent rewards and reliable performance.

• Experienced Node Operators: Proven technical expertise to safeguard the network.

• Aleph Zero Alignment: Validators deeply integrated into Aleph Zero’s ecosystem.

• Support for sA0: Validators committed to building and participating in the sA0 ecosystem.

• Telco & BD Partnerships: Nodes with strong business development and marketing opportunities to help grow Aleph Zero and Ike.

How You Can Participate

On 12/11/2024, we’ll run a community vote on Discord and X. You’ll have the opportunity to review the proposals and vote for the validator registry you believe best supports Ike’s mission. We encourage you to review the proposals, share your feedback, and help us shape this critical step.

Your participation is crucial in shaping Ike’s future. This vote empowers you to influence how delegations are managed and ensures that our liquid staking model aligns with the community’s values.

Introducing the Validator Proposals

Each proposal represents a thoughtfully curated set of validators based on a balance of key factors like performance, diversity, and strategic alignment with Aleph Zero. Here’s a summary of each:

1. Global Vanguard

2.  Innovators Collective

3. Foundations and Frontiers

A Step Toward Full Governance

This poll is just the beginning. We envision a future where Ike’s governance will operate independently, allowing for permissionless validator additions within a capped limit determined by gas constraints. The intention of this DAO structure is to ensure that receiving delegation is always a fair game, open to all Aleph Zero Validators with transparent bonding requirements and incentives for the community to optimize performance similar to managing a fantasy football team, maintaining performance and competitiveness within the network. Above all, maximizing network security. Ultimately, our goal is to empower the community with the ability to manage and grow Aleph Zero’s staking ecosystem autonomously, creating a robust and scalable DeFi environment underscored by composable liquid staking rewards that unite staking & DeFi across L1 & L2.

Built from the bottom up with the specific goal of giving the community token weighted control over what % of the total stake in the Ike smart contract, goes to each validator on the registry, in the end state Ike will not only create massive liquidity at the base layer, it will also be a massive force for keeping the Aleph Zero validator set decentralized.

Help Shape the Future

We’re excited to embark on this journey with you. Stay tuned for detailed instructions on the proposals and how to vote. Together, we’ll lay the foundation for a staking model that reflects the collective vision of the Aleph Zero community.

Thank you for being part of this pivotal moment. Let’s build a decentralized future, together.

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