Popular Science: What is the effective balance of a validator in Eth2

Editor's Note: This article comes fromEthereum enthusiasts (ID: ethfans)Ethereum enthusiasts (ID: ethfans)

proof of stake

Ethereum enthusiasts (ID: ethfans)

, Author: Jim McDonald, translation & proofreading: Min Min & A Jian, reprinted by Odaily with authorization.

secondary title

proof of stake

For all blockchains, the core competitiveness is the ability to ensure their own security. On a secure chain, transactions are verifiable and historical transaction data cannot be tampered with, that is, on the blockchain, anyone can obtain the detailed information of a historical transaction and ensure that the information has not been forged , and it will not be replaced by another transaction or changed in the order of occurrence in the history.

To encourage positive behavior by validators, and to avoid situations where validators are too lazy to attest to blocks, or intentionally lie about the validity of blocks, they are given monetary rewards (or penalties) for their actions. Before a validator can activate validator status, a full deposit of 32 ETH (Ether currency) needs to be submitted to the network; this is the validator's initial balance. Every 6.5 minutes or so, the network will measure the behavior of each verifier, and give appropriate rewards and punishments, which will be included in the verifier's balance. The exact amount of the bonus or penalty depends on the validator's current balance; validators with larger balances get higher rewards and penalties for providing proofs, and vice versa.

It is important to understand the concept of rewards and punishments: Rewards are used to encourage actions that lead to consensus in the network, while fines are used to punish actions or inaction that prevent the network from reaching consensus. Therefore, the verifier who seeks to maximize the benefits will also bring the greatest benefits to the overall network.

This article explores the relationship between validator balances and rewards; if any validator wants to contribute to the network and be rewarded accordingly, there are a few things that must be understood.

secondary title

Rewards and punishments

image description

-Figure 1: Fictitious Verifier Balance Changes-

Every other period of time, the network will evaluate the participation of the verifier, and then give rewards and punishments accordingly, resulting in periodic changes in the balance. The validators in the figure are both rewarded for good performance and punished for poor performance:

image description

The figure does not clearly show the changes in rewards and punishments at different stages. For example, period 5 has a much higher penalty than period 12, even though both periods have similar balances. There are 4 key points in the above figure that deserve our further consideration. The first key point is located in period 3, which is the highlighted part of the icon below:

image description

-Figure 3: Reduction in reward and punishment amount-

image description

-Figure 4: The amount of rewards and punishments decreased again-

At this time, the balance of the verifier has fallen below 31 ETH, and the reward and punishment have been reduced again for unknown reasons.

image description

-Figure 5: The amount of rewards and punishments has not increased as expected-

At this time, the balance of the verifier has risen back to 31 ETH, but the reward and punishment amount is still the same as before, and has not increased.

image description

-Figure 6: Unexpected increase in the amount of rewards and punishments-

At this time, although the balance of the verifier does not exceed a certain amount, the reward and punishment amount has increased.

• All in all, this reflects that the changes in the amount of rewards and punishments are haphazard. To understand why these reward and penalty amounts change, you need to understand what an effective balance is.

• secondary title

• What is an effective balance?

Effective balance cannot exceed 32 ETH. In other words, even if the verifier has a balance of 100 ETH, the effective balance is only 32 ETH.

The effective balance can only be a multiple of 1 ETH, and the decimal point is ignored. That is, assuming the validator's balance is 29.9999 ETH, the effective balance is only 29 ETH.

Only when the validator's balance is 1.5 ETH higher than the current effective balance, the effective balance will increase. That is to say, when the balance changes, the balance will rise to 26.5 ETH before the actual balance will rise to 25 ETH.

According to the above rules, the effective balance of the verifier changes as shown in the green line in the figure below:

• image description

• -Figure 7: Comparison of current balance and actual balance-

• The effective balance is derived from both design and technical requirements. From a design point of view, limiting the effective balance of an individual verifier to 32 ETH can prevent a verifier from voting too much on the state of the entire chain. Technically speaking, reducing the frequency of effective balance changes allows Ethereum to run on low-power hardware, because each change in effective balance requires expensive calculations.

• In period 3, the validator's balance dropped below 32 ETH, so its actual balance dropped from 32 ETH to 31 ETH according to the second rule. The amount of rewards and punishments is determined by the actual amount, so the rewards and punishments become smaller.

At period 5, the validator's balance dropped below 31 ETH, so its actual balance dropped from 31 ETH to 30 ETH according to the second rule. The amount of rewards and punishments is determined by the actual amount, so the rewards and punishments are further reduced.

At time period 9, the validator's balance increased to 31 ETH, but did not meet the criteria mentioned in the third rule above, so the effective balance will not increase. The reward and punishment amount is determined by the actual amount, so it remains unchanged.

secondary title

Effect of Effective Balance on Validation

Small changes in validator balances can have long-term effects on effective balances, so keep track of this.

secondary title

validator validity

secondary title

Summarize

Other Factors Affecting Rewards