Urgent Concern: Melea Validator's Misleading 0% Commission Claim
Updated follow-up post can be viewed here . Dear Cosmos Hub Community, we are posting to bring attention to a serious concern regarding Cosmos Hub ATOM validator, Melea. It has come to our attention that Melea is advertising and claiming to offer a 0% commission rate for delegators. However, this claim appears to be false and in direct contradiction with the Cosmos Hub’s hard-coded minimum commission rate of 5% for all validators. Key Points of Concern • Misleading Advertising: Melea is actively promoting itself as a 0% commission validator, which is technically impossible on the Cosmos Hub. • Lack of Transparency: Despite multiple attempts to verify Melea’s claims, we cannot find any concrete proof of their alleged 0% commission structure. We are unable to locate on-chain data that shows a rebate of any kind or funds sent to delegators from Melea’s validator wallet. • Potential Harm to Delegators: If Melea is indeed charging the minimum 5% commission while advertising 0%, delegators are being misled and effectively having their rewards reduced without their knowledge or consent. • Website Issues and Lack of Communication: Several problems with Melea’s website…
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Let’s do some back of the napkin math.
4,500,000 ATOM staked with Melea.
At 14.95% APR that’s 672,750 ATOM in rewards per year or 448,500 over the past 8 months.
5% of 448,500 is 22,425 ATOM or $104,724 (likely more than that) he collected that he promised his delegators.
If he cannot prove rebates since the v15 upgrade 8 months ago, he has been misleading people, every person who restaked rewards with him and especially new delegators.
Otherwise all validators who only charge 5% commission should put NO FEE in front of their names.
Posts such as this are extremely valuable, appreciated and needed from Validators. Thank you for leading the way with this alert.
Hello AtlasStaking, Firstly, thank you for addressing these problematic behaviors. To provide some background for readers, proposal #885 was put forward to raise the minimum validator commission to 5%, following a previously approved on-chain discussion via proposal #826 . We encourage community members to review the rationale and the community debate prior to the vote. TL;DR: The purpose of this proposal was to establish a 5% minimum commission rate, enabling validators to generate more sustainable revenue and reducing the staking APR by 1%. Previously, certain validators employed near-zero fees to attract delegators, creating a pattern of dubious incentive structures and leading the network into a downward trend. Many of these low-fee validators primarily attracted short-term, “mercenary” capital, often delivering below-average operational standards. These practices were seen as unfair by the community and, over time, led to negative network outcomes. Attempts to establish a 5% minimum fee had previously failed due to the stake concentration of low-fee validators, but the passage of proposal #826 essentially curbed these unsustainable practices. However, more than six…
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I see that the problem here is there’s no way to enforce validators to have monikers reflecting the commission that they are charging. The code doesn’t have anything to fight this, and honestly I think it should stay this way, as managing it on a code level (like, forbidding a validator to say “0% commission” on a min 5% commission chain) adds extra complexity, moreover, we have quite a lot of similar cases outside of crypto, like false advertisements. Another thought: we have such things in our society that are not unlawful, but immoral/unethical, and such things shouldn’t be treated and punished as breaking the law (like slashing in Cosmos Hub), but instead should be publicly called out. What would be nice to have though is somehow managing it on the UI side, like: • having a notification for a validator that claims 0% commission that the actual min commission is 5% • having a notification encouraging stakers to investigate these validators who are promoting themselves via airdrops/bonuses to delegators • raising awareness as a community by pointing it out publicly • have penalties (full/partial ineligibility) for such validators as a part of a delegation program (both…
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Alternatively, perhaps what’s needed is a comprehensive governance constitution framework that explicitly defines acceptable practices and standards, as well as unacceptable and punishable behavior. We plan to lead this initiative early next year—unless, of course, someone else steps in beforehand. We believe your involvement in these discussions would be valuable, particularly as validator ethics are likely to be a key section in the overall document.
We’ve shared our initial recommendations in the previous post, and this governance reform will naturally incorporate perspectives from the entire community to achieve balanced and effective compromises. We look forward to see you participate!
Thank you for your thoughtful reply. We have no problem with validators offering incentives. Creative marketing is part of business and can actually push ecosystems to evolve. What we have a major problem with is lying and stealing. If Melea could prove he sent a rebate to delegators we would have no issue, but there is nothing on-chain that we could find. Every one of Melea’s new delegators who staked with them after the v15 upgrade 8 months ago thought they were getting 0% commission and didn’t. All Melea’s delegators paid 5%, which @BlocksUnited pointed out, is likely over $125,000 and probably higher. Additionally, Melea is doubling down by sending us threatening tweets of a man pointing a gun and we are the only ones tagged in the response, so it sure seems like a threat. We’d post links to the image or a screenshot, but the forum doesn’t allow either. Melea has posted multiple memes and GIFs in response to our tweets. These memes and GIFs make light of the situation, seemingly spitting in the face of our community. He is literally daring us to do something about it. Melea refuses to remove 0% commission and NO FEE from his moniker, despite our polite attempts to…
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I suppose wallet providers warning users is an idea, but what if Melea was actually rebating delegators? How would Keplr’s warning system see that and know the “NO FEE” was legit?
What makes the situation worse is that Melea is one of the largest validators and originates tons of blocks. He’s lying and stealing publicly and continues to make more and more money off his dishonesty.
We have exposed Melea publicly on all social channels and here on the forum. He is taunting us on X to actually do something about it, so we feel somehow levying a stiff financial penalty is appropriate, but how?
AtlasStaking:We have no problem with validators offering incentives. Creative marketing is part of business and can actually push ecosystems to evolve.
We firmly oppose the use of validator name tags as marketing tools to advertise any form of financial incentive. This practice should be strictly prohibited, and we are committed to advocating for this stance in the governance framework discussions. While it’s acceptable for validators to run independent incentive campaigns, they should not use their validator name to promote them. Standard channels, like social media, already serve this purpose effectively.
A clear policy line is essential, as is enforcement, including the potential jailing of non-compliant validators. We’re confident that such a resolution would receive majority support, but we look forward to an open discussion. Should the majority disagree, we will of course respect the community’s decision.
Yes, we agree with you on moniker. 0% commission and “NO FEE” and “FREE Validator service at 0% Commission” should not be allowed in on-chain monikers.
We have no problem with validators offering rebate specials or NFTs as part of campaigns solicited elsewhere.
Marketing campaigns should be separate from on-chain monikers, ESPECIALLY when they aren’t true!
This is a real problem that needs to be addressed, I will vote yes to any proposal that would make the validator competition fair again.
We need to figure out what can actually be done first.
We would like to see him barred from voting on network proposals for at least a year.
We would like to see a 100% tax imposed for every month of dishonesty. So far that is almost nine months that all Melea’s rewards go straight into the Hub community pool.
Perhaps that tax could be distributed pro rata to all the validators in the bottom half of the active set to help the network decentralize.
@freak12techno @Govmos @FHZ @BlocksUnited
Govmos:to advertise any form of financial incentive.
Agreed with this statement, as far as Validator names being misused to lure, and allegedly mislead, financial incentives. Otherwise, be free to market however you please.
freak12techno:raising awareness as a community by pointing it out publicly
A fair solution you, @AtlasStaking, have rightfully adopted. Thank you again for notifying the broader Cosmos Hub community via this forum.
RE what should be done, I look forward to seeing other Hub validators engage and respond.