[Proposal] SIP-00010: Reducing Staking Threshold

[jack-story]

Summary

This proposal reduces staking thresholds by lowering the minimum stake, unstake, and redelegate amounts from 1024 IP to 32 IP, reducing the minimum reward claim threshold from 8 IP to 1 IP, and decreasing all staking operation fees from 1 IP to 0.1 IP. These changes make staking accessible to retail participants while maintaining spam protection.

Motivation

The current 1024 IP minimum stake represents a significant barrier for retail investors seeking to participate in network staking. This threshold excludes many potential participants who would otherwise contribute to network security and decentralization.

The 8 IP minimum reward distribution threshold forces smaller stakers to wait extended periods before seeing rewards in their accounts, creating a poor user experience. Additionally, the 1 IP staking operation fee disproportionately impacts smaller stakers — representing over 3% of a minimum stake under the proposed 32 IP threshold.

Lowering these thresholds democratizes staking participation, improves user experience for smaller holders, and encourages broader community engagement with the network.

Proposal

Minimum Staking Amount

Parameter	Current Value	New Value
Minimum stake amount	1024 IP	32 IP
Minimum unstake amount	1024 IP	32 IP
Minimum redelegate amount	1024 IP	32 IP

Minimum Reward Distribution Threshold

Parameter	Current Value	New Value
Auto-reward distribution threshold	8 IP	1 IP

Rewards will be automatically distributed when accumulated amount reaches 1 IP or greater. The distribution queue (32 per block) remains unchanged.

Staking Operation Fee Changes

Operation Name	Function Name	Current Value	New Value
Set Operator	setOperator	1 IP	0.1 IP
Unset Operator	unsetOperator	1 IP	0.1 IP
Set Withdrawal Address	setWithdrawalAddress	1 IP	0.1 IP
Set Rewards Address	setRewardsAddress	1 IP	0.1 IP
Update Validator Commission	updateValidatorCommission	1 IP	0.1 IP
Redelegate	redelegate	1 IP	0.1 IP
Redelegate On Behalf	redelegateOnBehalf	1 IP	0.1 IP
Unstake	unstake	1 IP	0.1 IP
Unstake On Behalf	unstakeOnBehalf	1 IP	0.1 IP
Unjail	unjail	1 IP	0.1 IP
Unjail On Behalf	unjailOnBehalf	1 IP	0.1 IP

Rationale

The 32 IP minimum aligns with common proof-of-stake precedents while remaining economically accessible. The 1 IP reward threshold ensures meaningful, regular distributions without overwhelming the queue. The 0.1 IP unstaking fee maintains spam deterrence while being proportionate to smaller stakes (~0.3% of minimum).

Drawbacks

Lower minimums may increase total delegation and reward distribution count, leading to faster state growth. However, the 32 IP threshold for staking amounts and 0.1 IP threshold for staking-related operations still provides meaningful barrier against spam, and economic costs remain prohibitive for attackers.

Alternatives Considered

• Delegator minimum = 1 IP (instead of 32 IP): Suggested in the forum as the most inclusive option and closer to typical Cosmos delegator UX. Rejected for this SIP due to accelerated state-growth and the 32 IP minimum also needs devnet benchmarking to determine a safe floor before going that low.
• Remove the minimum “top-up / additional stake” amount (allow immediate restaking of rewards): Proposed to enable continuous compounding for delegators and validators and improve validator economics. Not included in this SIP because it is a separate parameter/design change and could increase operation frequency (which is effectively a spammy behavior); we focus here on the base minimums and fee/thresholds (see original post at Proposal Discussion: Reduce the 1024 IP staking minimum)
• Manual reward claiming at any amount (no forced threshold): Discussed as a way to let small delegators claim accumulated rewards below the auto-distribution threshold via a manual transaction. Rejected due to spam concerns — adding fees for manual claims would be impractical given the small amounts involved, yet feeless claiming could be exploited. This SIP addresses the same UX concern by reducing the auto-distribution threshold to 1 IP. Note that delegators receive all remaining unclaimed rewards upon unstaking, so no rewards are forfeited (see post reply at Proposal Discussion: Reduce the 1024 IP staking minimum - #5 by Atlas-Staking)
• Guardrails instead of a higher minimum (rate limits / dust floor / batching): Suggested as mitigations to support lower minimums while protecting performance (state growth, reward distribution throughput, latency). Not adopted in this SIP to keep scope limited and because these require additional implementation/testing (see post reply at Proposal Discussion: Reduce the 1024 IP staking minimum - #19 by Rei.Web3)

User Impact

Retail participants gain access to staking with lower capital requirements. Smaller stakers receive more frequent reward distributions and face proportionally lower fees across all staking operations.

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We welcome community discussion below. A validator community call will be scheduled within 24-48 hours of this post to address questions directly.

GitHub Reference: SIP-00010: Reducing Staking Thresholds by jack-piplabs · Pull Request #12 · storyprotocol/SIPs · GitHub

[Antons_Kurakins]

We support this proposal overall.

Lowering the minimum stake / unstake / redelegate is a meaningful step toward making staking accessible to retail participants and improving decentralisation . The current threshold is a clear barrier for smaller holders, and lowering it should broaden participation and community engagement, especially since we’ve also faced difficulties attracting retail delegations due to the high minimum.

At the same time, we believe it’s important to keep the 1024 IP requirement for validator self-stake when spinning up a validator, in order to maintain strong operator commitment and preserve the quality of the validator set.

Crouton Digital (Story Protocol Validator)

[Ertemann]

I think this will help unlocked validators significantly to attract stake and thereby help decentralize the chain and increasing user participation.

We are in favour and will adjust our staking-dashboard as soon as the change goes live.

best,
Ertemann
Lavender.Five Nodes

[Rei.Web3]

Hi folks. We’re generally in favor of lowering the thresholds and as we mentioned earlier in a similar discussion, we believe the right model is “low entry for delegators while keeping high standards for validators.”

Lowering the minimum stake/unstake/redelegate to 32 IP and the auto-reward distribution threshold to 1 IP will noticeably improve retail UX and broaden participation without compromising security. Reducing fees to 0.1 IP also looks reasonable, but it’s important that spam protection doesn’t weaken: we should carefully benchmark the impact on latency, reward distribution queue throughput (32/block), and state growth under a large number of small delegations/operations. If testing shows risk, we’d rather keep the guardrails strict (payout threshold/rate limits/a minimum dust floor) than roll back the idea of accessible staking.

cryptomolot validator

[NODERS]

Hey guys!

We’re in favor of this proposal because it meaningfully lowers the barrier to entry for retail stakers without weakening the network’s spam and abuse protections. Moving the minimum stake/unstake/redelegate amount to 32 IP, dropping the auto-reward threshold to 1 IP, and cutting staking operation fees to 0.1 IP materially improves the day-to-day UX for smaller delegators while keeping the distribution queue limits unchanged. While lower thresholds can increase delegation count and state growth, the proposed floors and fees still create real economic friction against spammy behavior. Overall, this is a pragmatic upgrade that broadens participation and strengthens decentralization while keeping operational safeguards intact.

[KYVE_Foundation]

Hi everyone,

It’s great to see this moving forward. Based on the recent forum discussions, the 1024 IP floor was definitely a high hurdle for creators looking to get involved. Moving that bar down to 32 IP is a huge step toward a more open and decentralized ecosystem.

The fee reductions and lower reward thresholds are also a big plus, it actually makes staking worth it for smaller holders now rather than having rewards eaten up by costs. It’s a great step toward decentralization and making the ecosystem approachable for everyone. Fully support this.

[DeSpreadHans]

We support SIP-00010 and strongly agree with the direction of lowering the staking threshold to encourage broader participation in the Story network.

Reducing the entry barrier is an important step toward improving stake distribution and strengthening decentralization, especially by enabling smaller token holders to participate directly in network security and governance.

[Edouard_Stakin]

Edouard from Stakin by The Tie here. Thank you for this proposal.

We believe that lowering the minimum stake and reward thresholds will improve the user experience of Story stakers and make non-custodial staking more accessible to all holders.

This proposal is also aligned with SIP-00009.

We will happily support the proposal. Happy to see this move forward.

[karlo]

Hi everyone!

Endorphine Stake supports this proposal to reduce the minimum stake amount for retail investors — more participants means more liquidity.

At the same time, we agree with @Antons_Kurakins that the minimum self-stake for validators should keep at 1024 IP, as this will definitely reduce spam in the validator set.

Reducing the minimum reward distribution threshold and commissions is also a very good proposal. It makes setting up auto-compound services even more attractive.

[Atlas-Staking]

Hey Jack,

We are thrilled that our forum proposal discussion received so much interest. That’s awesome.

Most of this proposal looks great, but I do have a few concerns…

1. Why is it that rewards have to be automatically distributed? Reasons given “Rejected due to spam concerns — adding fees for manual claims would be impractical given the small amounts involved, yet feeless claiming could be exploited.” Every other Cosmos chain I use has no reward claim minimum and a fee. Average Joe waits to claim until it makes financial sense. I don’t think I’ve seen an attack on any chain through reward claiming, so I really don’t understand this argument. If delegators are fee-sensitive, they wait to claim until they’ve accumulated more.

Additionally, when validators use the REStake docker for automated compounding of delegator rewards, we validators pay the fees.

2. “the 32 IP threshold for staking amounts and 0.1 IP threshold for staking-related operations still provides meaningful barrier against spam, and economic costs remain prohibitive for attackers.”
   I’m not sure I understand how attacks can be made by staking. Attackers flood the network by staking less than one IP token from a million addresses? Not that it can’t happen, but I don’t believe I’ve seen such a thing on any other Cosmos chain.

If the minimum to add to one’s initial stake is 32 IP, this still makes it tough for the little fish delegator. They have to potentially wait a long time before they can compound rewards, especially since the trend for long-term staking reward APY for all chains as they mature is lower.

We understand the accelerated state-growth and devnet benchmarking comments though, so perhaps down the road the staking minimum could again be reduced, from 32 IP down to 1 IP.

A happy medium to discuss might be an initial stake minimum (say 32 IP so state growth can be somewhat controlled) but no minimum when adding to one’s initial stake. That seems like it would protect the network from attacks and still allow Average Joe to compound his rewards, either manually or by using a validator that has set up a REStake docker. In turn, it also allows validators to grow quicker.

Thanks for all the hard work the team has put in on this.

[STAKEME]

STAKEME team support this proposal as it meaningfully improves staking accessibility without compromising network security. Lowering the minimum stake and fee thresholds removes unnecessary friction for retail participants, improves UX for smaller delegators, and encourages broader participation in securing the network.

At the same time, the proposed limits (32 IP minimum and 0.1 IP fees) maintain a sufficient economic barrier against spam and uncontrolled state growth. Overall, this is a well-balanced step toward a more inclusive and healthy staking ecosystem.

[ContributionDAO]

ContributionDAO supports SIP-00010 and agrees that reducing staking thresholds is an important step toward improving accessibility and UX for retail and smaller delegators.

Lowering the minimum stake and fee thresholds meaningfully reduces friction for participation, while the proposed limits (32 IP minimum and 0.1 IP fees) still maintain a reasonable economic barrier against spam and excessive state growth.

Overall, we see SIP-00010 as a well-balanced proposal that encourages broader participation without compromising network integrity, and we are supportive of its adoption

[jesus]

DragonStake support SIP-00010. Lowering staking thresholds and fees can materially broaden participation, which is valuable for decentralization and long-term community alignment. A more distributed staker base often translates into stronger ecosystem “social capital” and sustained mindshare over time.

To maximize confidence in the change, I’d encourage the team to publish a clear validation plan and post-change KPIs. In particular, it would be helpful to see benchmark results (or devnet simulations) covering: (1) state growth attributable to staking/rewards accounting, (2) staking-operation throughput under “many small delegators” scenarios, (3) expected reward distribution latency given the fixed queue capacity, and (4) validator/node resource impact (CPU/RAM/IO and sync behavior). In addition, a simple “risk budget” analysis—estimated cost to generate large volumes of staking operations under different IP price scenarios—would help the community assess the robustness of the proposed fee levels.

Finally, I see this SIP as a strong step toward a broader staking community. In parallel (as a separate, future initiative), it may be worth exploring measurable, non-inflationary incentives that reward meaningful ecosystem participation, so that staking and real engagement reinforce each other.

[Nico]

Thanks for this proposal. We are happy to support it and see staking become more user friendly.

[Krews]

Krews supports SIP-00010. We believe the proposed values strike a solid balance between accessibility and network safety, and we support moving forward with this change.

[kamil_chmielowiec]

P2P.org strongly supports this proposal. As already mentioned by others, lowering staking minimums and fees meaningfully improves accessibility for retail participants the network is currently missing. While the exact values can be debated, we believe the proposed parameters are already well-considered and strike a good balance between inclusivity and network safety.

[Evgeny_Garanin]

Story protocol will definitely benefit from this change as it will lower the bar for retail stakers.

As of now, we can see that number of delegators is substantial, but not astronomical. Hopefully, this will improve if we let this proposal through.

The dynamics of delegations can be checked in the analytics section here:
https://story.explorers.guru/analytics

[ITRocket]

We generally support SIP-00010 and agree that lowering staking thresholds improves accessibility and makes delegation easier for retail token holders, which is positive for the network.

At the same time, we believe it is important to keep the minimum self-stake requirement for new validators at 1024 IP. This helps ensure a basic level of economic commitment and operational responsibility from validators, reducing the risk of low-effort or short-term participants while maintaining network stability.

Overall, this approach strikes a good balance between inclusivity for delegators and robustness of the validator set.

[danielmandragora]

As we commented last time, this proposal was published as a signaling one to gather feedback and reach social consensus. We are strongly in favor of the SIP-00010 proposal, as it will let average/small stakeholders be able to participate in the network voting power decentralization, as well as institutional and large stakeholders willing to use their unlocked tokens for the same reason. Also, lowering fees at the above mentioned numbers will considerably reduce the entry barrier in that matter.

In a nutshell, it’s a win-win scenario for the overall community in general, as validators will also be able to self-delegate low amounts of IP tokens without the need to accumulate 1024 IP every time.

[Hossein]

Republic supports this proposal. Lowering the staking threshold is a meaningful step toward broadening participation in the Story network. The current 1024 IP minimum creates a barrier for many retail participants who want to contribute to network security and governance. We believe the proposed parameters represent a reasonable balance between accessibility and maintaining network integrity. Making staking more inclusive will strengthen decentralization and help grow the ecosystem over the long term.