Validator selection during staking

[kcole16]

Overview

There are currently 52 validators in the active, previous, and upcoming sets. This is already fairly overwhelming for users, and will get substantially more overwhelming post-sharding (when the set will likely multiply).

There are several important considerations when choosing a validator to stake with:

• Validator fee
• Current stake
• Minimum stake required to be in the active set
  • Falling below this means missing out on staking rewards
• Uptime
  • Anything below 95% will cause validator to be kicked out
  • Rewards are proportional between 95-100%, e.g. a validator with 97.5% uptime will get 50% of the rewards as the same validator with 100% uptime
• Decentralization
  • The number of validators cumulatively controlling 33% of the total stake should be maximized

Outstanding Questions

1. Which information do we display to users during the staking flow?
   a. Where and how do we display the information?
2. Do we attempt to nudge users towards supporting validators with less stake?
3. How do we keep users informed of the status of their validator's performance?

cc @corwinharrell @vgrichina @Patrick1904 @mattlockyer @marcinbodnar @jimmy3dita