About us
Background
Founded on May 2nd, 2022 , the Staking Defense League (SDL) is a blockchain agnostic collective of crypto infrastructure providers committed to decentralization in Proof of Stake (PoS) Networks. In collaboration with industry stakeholders, protocol developers, and the larger PoS community, the Staking Defense League will develop resources, open standards, and take action to address systemic issues of decentralization in PoS.
Our Mission
There are a number of stake centralization vectors in PoS that deserve attention: capital centralization, diversity in client software, diversity in location of servers and nodes, over-reliance on centralized cloud infrastructure, etc. SDL will make efforts to encourage best practices on all these fronts.
That said, SDL intends to primarily concern itself with two outcomes:
- Increasing the Nakamoto Coefficient of PoS networks
- Increasing the number and diversity of blockchain infrastructure operators
Membership Criteria
At the outset, all blockchain infrastructure operators interested in SDL membership will agree to taking tangible steps toward increasing decentralization among a network’s validator set, most concretely:
If an SDL Member amasses enough stake to be included in the “Nakamoto Coefficient” of any network for which they validate, the SDL Member will:
Actively discourage new delegations
Help identify and encourage delegation to smaller validators
Delegate a portion of their rewards to a smaller validator
Further terms, organization, and code of conduct will be outlined in a forthcoming Operational Charter ratified by the founding members.
Conclusion
Decentralization is a thorny topic. It’s more difficult than it seems to quantify, and much easier than it seems to pay lip service.
The SDL’s intent is not to be the fist-shaking social media curmudgeon, driveling on about false prophets and the corruption of the Holy Blockchain. We believe in the power of web3 and are fully committed to help it realize its true potential. We’ve built our lives and our businesses around this compelling new vision for the world, and we aim to defend it! At its highest aspiration, SDL will build and contribute to building tools and programs with measurable outcomes, and build as transparently and publicly as possible.
SDL would like to close with an open call to membership. If this sounds like your brain, join us, we’ll be glad to have you!