NNS: Post-31DEC

A review of where we stand

December 31st brought some craziness, so let’s look at where we are now in terms of the NNS.  First the heavy data info:

·         Known locked ICP: 114.6M

·         Known dissolving ICP: 113.5M

·         Known ICP in dissolved neurons: 95M

The above is for neurons that we know exist and they total 310M voting power on the NNS.  There are neurons that are unknown due to a lack of indexing of neuron IDs… something hopefully the NNS team can address in the near future.  We know that a total 402.9M voting power exists on the NNS (due to voting) so that means a total of 92.9M voting power is in unknown neurons.  It’s likely that 64M of that unknown neuron voting power came from events of 31DEC, all from 6 accounts.  Let’s call the entities that owned these 6 accounts “Unknown Whale” (although, it could be any number of entities had ownership of the 6 accounts, including just one entity).  I believe, given staking habits of non-genesis known neurons, that the remaining 28.9M voting power in unknown neurons is likely to be locked and have a dissolve delay between 4-8 years.

So where does this leave us?

In terms of known voting power, genesis accounts still have 301.3M voting power, led by seed round investors (147.4M) and early investors (52.8M).  The ICA has 5.2M in voting power and node operator bonus accounts have 1.7M voting power.  This leaves 101.6M voting power (25.2%) in non-genesis neurons (it’s unlikely that any unknown neuron are genesis neurons).  Of that 101.6M, 64M is made up of the “Unknown Whale”, 28.9M is in additional unknown neurons and 8.7M is in known neurons that we can analyze.  In short, we know a lot about the genesis accounts, but until indexed neuron IDs are added, the non-genesis accounts will be challenging to analyze.

What does this mean for decentralization?

Tell me how you define decentralization and I’ll tell you how we are doing.

Is decentralization based on non-genesis accounts getting more voting power than genesis accounts?  If that’s the case then we are making progress.  25.2% of voting power is now held by non-genesis accounts.  In addition, a total of 59.5M genesis voting power will be removed from dissolving over 2022… if we continue to see ~500k ICP newly staked on the NNS over the next 12 months it’s likely we will end 2022 with 1/3 of voting power held by non-genesis accounts.

Is decentralization based on more voting power being held in non-whale accounts?  Currently, among known neurons, only 24.3M voting power is held by neurons with less than 10,000 ICP.  An additional 63.4M voting power is held in neurons with 10,000 – 20,000 ICP.  So among known neurons 28.2% of voting power is in neurons with less than 20,000 ICP.  It’s possible that unknown neurons have a decent amount of ICP in smaller neurons (perhaps up to 28.9M vp), but we will need to wait until neuron indexing to know for sure.

Is decentralization defined by Dfinity and ICA having less voting power?  If so, we are practically decentralized.  The ICA has 5.2M in voting power and another 94M exists in genesis neurons in which I haven’t figured out the owner.  This means, at most, the ICA and Dfinity have a combined 24.6% of the voting power (and it’s likely far less than that).  However, all of ICA’s 5.2M voting power and 58.2M of the unknown genesis voting power is currently in 8-year neurons, so much of that percentage is unlikely to change moving forward.

2022 Resolution

I believe 2022 could be a phenomenal year for decentralizing the NNS.  Many genesis neurons are dissolving and it seems likely that events like 31DEC (which led to more centralization) are becoming less likely.  There is currently 50.6M ICP dissolving in 2022… I think the IC community should make a goal to get those 50M ICP re-staked on the NNS by the end of the year.  This would require a HUGE increase in staking, but I believe it is possible.  If we can accomplish that, we would be entering 2023 with immense momentum and the possibility of claiming the NNS is decentralized by any form of measurement.