I am bumping this thread, because there might now be a reason to increase the number of validators on Polkadot.
Recently Polkadot was added to: https://nakaflow.io/
This keeps track of the Nakamoto Coefficient for various Proof of Stake chains.
At the time of writing this, Polkadot is ranked #2 with a coefficient of 93 behind Mina which is 95.
If we were to increase the number of validators on Polkadot from 297 to ~320, thanks to the Phragmen Election algorithm, we will likely get our Nakamoto Coefficient up to around 100, and take the #1 position.
Kusama has been running steady with 1,000 validators since its genesis, so I think an increase to 320 would be of little technical concern. I am aware that number of validators can add a burden to the Parachains protocol, but someone who has that technical knowledge should speak on the effect of this change on the network.
Now truthfully, I don’t think there is really that much to gain by being #1 in this arbitrary list, but it always helps to cement ourselves as a leader in the blockchain ecosystem.
I would like to re-seed this conversation:
- first figuring out if it would be fine to increase the number of validators to 320 on Polkadot
- second figuring out when in general we should change the number of validators on Polkadot and Kusama
- for example always to cement ourselves as a leader in such metrics