Cosmos-sdk: Increase the maximum validator count automatically each month

[cwgoes]

TBD: by how much.

cc @ebuchman

[ebuchman]

See https://github.com/cosmos/cosmos/blob/master/WHITEPAPER.md#limitations-on-the-number-of-validators

The idea was to increase to 3x the size (300 vals) in 10 years, at ~13%/year. This was before we really knew about things like BLS though, which should radically change our ability to scale validator sets.

[cwgoes]

How about we keep it simple and have two parameters in governance:

• MaxValidatorIncreasePerMonth
• MaxValidatorCap

where each month, the maximum validator count will increment by MaxValidatorIncreasePerMonth until MaxValidatorCap is hit - and governance can later change either parameter or both with parameter change proposals.

If we want to stay true to the whitepaper, MaxValidatorIncreasePerMonth would be about 2, although I think we could safely set it to a much higher number (it will be a genesis parameter, so validators can always elect to disregard our suggestion if they prefer the whitepaper value).

[ebuchman]

I like keeping it simple, but not sure it should be under direct control to change it.

[cwgoes]

I like keeping it simple, but not sure it should be under direct control to change it.

As in, it shouldn't be a governance parameter but rather a hardcoded constant (requiring a software upgrade to change instead of a parameter change proposal)?

[jackzampolin]

Sounds like we don't want to do this automatically. Can we go ahead an close this issue? Also is this #prelaunch?

[rigelrozanski]

don't close this issue, all conversation here suggests we _do_ want to do this automatically but simply make it hard coded instead of governance parameters

[cwgoes]

cc @sunnya97

[jackzampolin]

I think we can go ahead and close this issue.

[cwgoes]

I think we can go ahead and close this issue.

Why? Did we decide not to do it? It certainly hasn't been implemented.

[sunnya97]

Was decided to push to a post-launch upgrade during an in-person discussion with @jaekwon @jackzampolin and @sunnya97.

Issue should probably be reopened and tagged #postlaunch.

@cwgoes do you think it needs to be done prelaunch?

[cwgoes]

@cwgoes do you think it needs to be done prelaunch?

Nope, sounds good to me, re-tagged postlaunch.

[jackzampolin]

I think we should talk about doing this soon.

[alexanderbez]

This can now (should?) be done via governance param change proposals.

[jackzampolin]

Ah thats def the right call. I think _should_ is the right word there. Closing this.