Concentration of Staked LUNA on Validator Nodes

The graph below shows the same groupings as above (validator nodes split by stake size) but this time the graph shows the total quantity of LUNA staked by those validators. Most of the staked LUNA residing on validator nodes resides in a single staking node. If block voting was based on validator staked balance alone, this could indicate a problem with decentralisation on the Terra network.

Distribution of Validator Nodes

The graph below shows the number of valdators with a staked balance (in LUNA) in the various ranges shown. Most of our validator nodes have small stake sizes - more than half have less than 1000 LUNA staked. Only 3 validator nodes have staking balances larger than 100k LUNA.

Terra Validator Network

The Terra blockchain runs on a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus model. Validator nodes listen to transactions sent to the public mempool and include these transactions in the blocks that they sign. The number of blocks that each node gets to propose (and earn revenue from) are proportional to the amount staked on that node. Users can delegate their staked LUNA to validator nodes to get a share of this revenue.

Anyone can create a validator node, however the Terra network allows a maximum of 130 validator nodes Nodes having the largest staked balance get priority if there are more than 130. According to the query output below, there are currently only 58 validators on the Terra network.

Concentration of Delegated LUNA on Validator Nodes

Terra allows users to delegate their staked LUNA to validators. Validators compete with each other to incentivise users to delegate to their nodes. They can compete by reward %, or by other measures such as uptime and reputation. This has the impact of decentralising the Terra voting power across many more staking nodes. The largest nodes have less than 10% of the network, and the top 10 nodes holding only 55% of the total network voting power.