Airdrop Ethereum Validators (Beacon Chain Contract Depositors)

Addresses that deposited to Beacon Chain Contract ( ETH validators ) should be included in further distributions

I think this deserves its own thread so I created one as I think it will get buried under the airdrop #1 feedback

purpose of this thread is to gauge interest and discuss before a governance proposal can be made.
not to criticize airdrop #1, instead look forward and support rewarding beacon chain depositors in subsequent community distributions

Why Beacon Chain depositors
These actors have proven
โ€ข ๐ฅ๐จ๐ง๐  ๐ญ๐ž๐ซ๐ฆ ๐š๐ฅ๐ข๐ ๐ง๐ฆ๐ž๐ง๐ญ ๐ฐ๐ข๐ญ๐ก ๐„๐ญ๐ก๐ž๐ซ๐ž๐ฎ๐ฆ, ๐ž๐ฌ๐ฉ๐ž๐œ๐ข๐š๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ฒ ๐ฉ๐ซ๐ž-๐ฆ๐ž๐ซ๐ ๐ž
โ€ข ๐š๐ฉ๐ญ๐ข๐ญ๐ฎ๐๐ž ๐ญ๐จ ๐ซ๐ฎ๐ง ๐ง๐จ๐๐ž๐ฌ /๐ฌ๐ž๐ซ๐ฏ๐ข๐œ๐ž ๐ญ๐ก๐ž ๐ง๐ž๐ญ๐ฐ๐จ๐ซ๐ค
โ€ข ๐‘๐ž๐š๐ฅ ๐ซ๐ž๐ฌ๐จ๐ฎ๐ซ๐œ๐ž๐ฌ ๐ฌ๐ฉ๐ž๐ง๐ญ ๐ญ๐จ ๐ฌ๐ž๐œ๐ฎ๐ซ๐ž ๐ญ๐ก๐ž ๐ง๐ž๐ญ๐ฐ๐จ๐ซ๐ค, ๐ญ๐ก๐ข๐ฌ ๐œ๐š๐ง๐ง๐จ๐ญ ๐›๐ž ๐’๐ฒ๐›๐ข๐ฅ ๐š๐ญ๐ญ๐š๐œ๐ค๐ž๐
If OP plays a role in decentralisation of the sequencer then this makes even more sense, existing validators are most likely to run nodes for optimism. every validator Iโ€™ve spoken too, has expressed interest to run nodes on L2.

Every airdrop eligibility criteria I have seen in this space can be gamed, but addresses in this set must have committed a non-trivial amount of capital until the merge, must be confident in the Ethereum communitiesโ€™ ability to execute its roadmap and be positioned for long term success. must provide physical infrastructure or pay for it to keep the validator active on the Network, this must be persistent which incurs electricity costs, hardware costs, internet provider costs and time/effort for maintenance.

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Yes! Thank you for posting this.
The only thing that I would add are a few items to ward off the obvious criticisms.

1 - I think that testnet validators should be included here as best is possible. We donโ€™t want the aesthetic that airdrops are only going to folks who already have at least 32 ETH.
2 - Exchanges (e.g. Coinbase, Kraken, Binance) and semi-centralized stake-as-a-service providers (e.g. Lido Finance) should be removed from consideration here. I think that it would be easy to filter depositing addresses (e.g. see pools.invis.cloud for a list of staking pools)

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Wow, thatโ€™s actually a really good idea. However I do agree with Boodle that it might be problematic if the staking services also get these airdrops. Would nice to exclude or limit them somehow.

Maybe airdropping a fixed amount to anyone running 1 or more validators is an option? That way it doesnโ€™t matter if you run 1 or 1000 validators on your node.

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Yes, I agree that it would be a single flag for yes/no, would not depend on the number of deposits made.

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Good points

Determining solo stakers : I agree that exchanges and LIDO should be excluded from distribution for the sake of decentralisation (these addresses are known and easy to implement)
If controversial to completely exclude LIDO then there should be a decay of heavy penalty, at the end of the day they have provided a useful service to the network.
In my opinion this should target solo stakers only, those providing and maintaining the resources backing the deposit

@smartcontracts brought up an interesting concept of rewarding minority clients, Iโ€™m not sure how to match clients to address, if possible, maybe a bonus for using a non-majority client?

High barrier to entry : Majority of Ethereum validators are early supporters of the ecosystem who have benefited from capital appreciation for that early support and risk.

Rocketpool does reduce the barrier to almost half to join the beacon chain and validate. But maybe we should consider Gnosis chain validators, an Ethereum aligned sidechain with the same codebase and much lower staking requirement to solo validate 1GNO.

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This is an opportunity to incentivize decentralized staking for the good of the entire ecosystem. Incentive more people to actively stake their ETH in their own validator rather than passively through centralized providers.

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That would fit with how the rest of the airdrop was distributed. It didnโ€™t matter how many times you had donated to Gitcoin grants rounds, so it shouldnโ€™t matter if you run 1 or 20 validators on the same machine. I would suggest RocketPool MiniPools should be included under the flag as well, as they provide the opportunity (via rETH) for small holders to stake without contributing to the centralization risk of Lido and CExs, however for full disclosureโ€ฆ I run one so might just be biased.

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Something else that came to mind when thinking about this is that people who are running validators today, might also be the people who are interested in running nodes for Optimism in the future.

If the OP token is somehow connected to decentralising the sequencer, then airdropping OP tokens to stakers might increase the participation in the future.

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I run via rocketpool as well, The node account which handles the RPL rewards and ETH fees is just a standard address that RPL node operators are in full control off, which would be included in the Beacon Chain Contract deposit list.

On Bias, I already got a generous allocation from Optimism, however if Iโ€™m truthful I absolutely gamed this, and know many of my peers did the same.
the reason Iโ€™m advocating for validators is because it canโ€™t be gamed, nobody is spinning up validators to speculate on airdrops and if they did they canโ€™t do it without locking up capital and providing useful resources to the Ethereum network.

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100%, this is one of my main arguments for my position, I go into this on Ethereum Layer 2 Tokens โ€” GLCstaked

Iโ€™m part of a few groups that focus on node operation, the type of market participant here are developers, network engineers, more technical people who donโ€™t care much for trading.
Most are running ETH & Gnosis Chain, everyone is interested in running L2 nodes.

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100% agree. I canโ€™t think of a class of users that is more aligned with the future of the Ethereum ecosystem than validators, as they locked their assets not knowing for how long.

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I agree with this. However, not sure if Staking services should receive the airdrop

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If exchanges, Lido, etc. get the airdrop, wouldnโ€™t their staking customers demand their share of the airdrop? Unless the majority of their staked ETH does not belong to customers, idk.

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If the airdrop is the same for one validator vs 1000 validators, Lido will only get 21 airdrops for all the millions of ETH they stake. Thatโ€™s basically ignorable for the end users

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Lido will only get 21 airdrops for all the millions of ETH they stake.

That sounds like a good outcome to be honest.

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Surely encouraging people to do this fits precisely with how the airdrop and Ethereumโ€™s Phoenix are supposed to work. What better public good to incentivize for the ecosystem than getting more people to stake themselves (whether with a minipool or solo staking).

With that in mind maybe this would be better for an airdrop nearer to when withdrawals are enabled for validators on the Beacon Chain, with the plan to issue some rewards on the same basis in the future. That way people who are currently using CEXs/Lido to stake would see home stakers be rewarded and be able to withdraw their funds from centralized services, set up their own validator and expect a future airdrop for doing so as a way to overcome the friction of effort it entails.

EDIT - โ€ฆ but I donโ€™t have any idea how many people with >16 or greater than >32 ether use centralized services and would therefore be targets for this.

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I think perhaps a good way to reward Ethereum validators would be to use that as a bonus criteria multiplier in a future airdrop?

So that we can determine that they are active on L2s and optimism in particular, then they can have an extra x amount of OP tokens?

Rather than make being a validator a single criteria as a lot of people view that as someone whoโ€™s extremely wealthy in crypto already and it would maybe hurt the narrative of Optimism?

Just a thought

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If the staking services such as Lido, Rocketpool etc commit to re-distribution among their depositors, we could let them receive the airdrop. That way, the 32ETH aesthetics problem flagged by @boodle is taken care of with also the smaller ETH2 stakers get their share.

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Letโ€™s be honest: some beacon chain node operators werenโ€™t altruistic in locking up their ETHโ€ฆ they we trying to get some of that 8%+ staking yield that was available early on. But given that the merge has been continuously delayed and yield rates have dropped significantly, many of them are probably feeling some โ€œpainโ€ at this point and would be grateful for an OP relief package :slight_smile:. And well deserving, considering they are providing the backbone to the PoS chain.

Running the numbers on how much OP would be available to each of the 371,030 validators: Genesis token count is 4,294,967,296 OP, of which 14% (601,295,421) is still available to airdrops. If we allocation 10% of that (60,129,542) to retroactive beacon chain validators, thatโ€™s only 162 OP tokens per validator. Granted, some of those would be excluded if they are part of staking pools, but even with 50% cut out, thatโ€™s still โ€œonlyโ€ 324 OP tokens per validator. Maybe thatโ€™s fine, but definitely some food for thought.

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onlyโ€ 324 OP tokens per validator.

Thatโ€™s about the amount you got from Airdrop 1 for having been โ€˜priced out of Ethereumโ€™ or voted in DAO governance previously, so seems a reasonable order of magnitude.

Itโ€™s also worth bearing in mind that if the airdrop goes to nodes rather than validators (so you wouldnโ€™t get 2x for running 2 validators on the same machine) then the number of recipients would be much lower, so much less of the airdroppable OP would be needed for this.

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