Request for Alteration of the ICF delegation program Cycle 2

Dear Cosmos hub validators, Stakers and community members, Last week the ICF announced the conclusion of their Delegation cycle 2 validator selection ICF Delegations Program: Meet the Validators (Cycle 2) | by Interchain | The Interchain Foundation | Nov, 2023 | Medium . This is based on the criteria and proposal originally voiced here: ICF Delegations Policy v2.0 - #20 by ZoltanAtom We and many other validators with many contributions were awarded with a high points rank and thereby a high delegation. There is just one problem, a point cap based on VP ranking. Although we agree that promoting decentralisation like this is helpful, the problem with the cap is that it INCLUDES tokens staked in delegations cycle 1. Let me illustrate with an example. Lavender.Five Nodes Posted many contributions for the delegation Cycle 1 and were awarded 430k ATOM in delegations moving them up from rank ~ 110 to 65. After half a year of additional contributions the community awarded them with another 10 spots being at rank ~55 right now. Our total delegation of 880k ATOM is now being considered for the voting power Cap. In cycle 2 we are again rewarded with a relatively high point total…

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Ertemann: We propose the ICF Re-calculates their delegations with a point cap but EXCLUDES all delegations made by them in Cycle 1. Before the final updated ICF Delegation Policy for the cycle 2 and before the application period started, the ICF requested feedback here from validators and the community and considered a lot of this feedback to update and improve the new Delegation Policy ( ICF Delegations Policy v2.0 ). Why are you providing this feedback months later after the evaluations have been completed and the new redelegations are about to be implemented rather than months ago when the ICF was requesting feedback? Furthermore, you were actually aware about this feedback period and even provided your own feedback about relayers ( ICF Delegations Policy v2.0 - #12 by schultzie ), but at that time you never said anything about the CAP points system, you are giving this feedback months later once the evaluations have been completed. Why did you think that the CAP points system was a good idea during the feedback period and you didn’t recommend any modification to the CAP points system, but now after the evaluations you want to modify the evaluation criteria that was…

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Dear @Ertemann Thank you for raising this topic in a public forum, so that we can collect community feedback and ensure at the same time full transparency on these conversations. Indeed, for a validator, the potential impact of the ICF delegation program is relevant, even more so during a prolonged crypto winter that we all had to face in the last years. Saying so, I would like to raise a few notes about the cap system and snapshot in general: • the cap point system was introduced with this delegation cycle, having in our mind the will to offer some concrete sign of support and recognition to the many, many validators that are incredibly active and helpful through the whole ecosystem but that, at the same time, struggle on attracting delegators at the lowest positions. In our eyes, this was seriously compromising a. decentralization b. diversity c. the possibility of seeing more meaningful contributions emerge from new and enthusiastic teams. • We made the cap point one of the main focus of this year, saying this up from the very first draft of the new policy presented to the community this summer. The community was very supportive and happy to see this policy…

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Not realising something was a problem then doesn’t mean we cannot realise it later and bring it up now.

I acknowledge this post is late, maybe too late. Nonetheless not sharing the feedback would be worse than sharing it late.

So yes feel free to comment on lack of finding this problem earlier, but i don’t think it adds any actual value to the rest of the problem at hand.

Thank you for the deep-dive answer. Ill be honest and say i didnt calculate through as far as you did, so this is helpful context. • I understood that the ATOM per point value was lower and i don’t think that particular change between the 2 cycles is up for discussion. We were expecting a smaller delegation even with the same points total and are 100% okay with that. • Thank you for calculating this through, i hope it becomes valuable context for the next cycle or a full re-calculation can be done for all parties to see how the delegation program would differ even in Cycle-2. I just want to clarify that we are not necesarilly complaining about the fact that we get less delegations, its about the fact that the Points cap is hurting validators with higher contributions in Cycle 1 more than validators that did NOT apply or had lower contributions. The cycle 2 program shows us that the difference in delegations between doing less than average and more than average has shrunk - especially for validators with more VP, idk yet if we will action on that but it definitely hurts the contributions we make. We will continue to contribute and attract delegations from other parties…

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did you mean to place this comment here instead? [Discussion period] - Cosmos Hub IBC relayer cost restitution plan - FeeGrants