Hey team, appreciate the transparency and detailed transition plan. We wanted to share some perspective as operators who’ve spent time across multiple ecosystems and care about where Story lands long-term.
We get the “why” just think 21 is too aggressive a jump.
The math makes sense. Going from 6320 messages down to 420 is a huge improvement, no argument. But a set of 50 gets you most of that benefit, down to 2450 messages, which is still a 61% reduction. It’s meaningful and it keeps a much broader validator set intact.
For what it’s worth, here’s what we’ve seen across other networks navigating similar decisions…
Osmosis has reduced gradually over time from 150 to 120 to 100, and currently sits at 90. Each step was measured before taking the next one.
Band Protocol landed at 53 validators when they launched v3, specifically citing the need for tight coordination with 1 second block times. Similar performance goals to Story and roughly similar solution, but to 53, not 21.
Sei is an interesting comparison with 400ms finality, super fast. Their active set is 39 validators and every one of those runs on a foundation delegation. Even with that level of central coordination and control, they still maintain nearly double what this proposal targets.
The SIP references Binance Smart Chain and EOS as examples of successful 21 validator networks. Its worth noting though that BSC actually expanded beyond 21. They added 24 candidate validators in the 2024 Feynman upgrade, bringing their total participating set to 45. Even Binance decided 21 wasn’t quite enough.
Nakamoto Coefficient…
With 21 validators and CometBFT’s 2/3 threshold, you need just 15 validators to finalize blocks. Depending on how stake concentrates, the number of independent entities needed to halt or censor the network could drop into single digits. That’s a meaningful shift in Story’s network security and the kind of thing that’s hard to walk back once institutions start evaluating the chain.
Brookings published a piece in April last year specifically about recentralization risk in blockchains. They called out that smaller validator sets create concentration risks and noted that Cosmos ecosystem chains have generally promoted decentralization by expanding validator participation, not contracting it. So it can be argued when mainstream policy institutions are watching this stuff, the optics of going to 21 matter beyond just the technical tradeoffs.
What we’d like to see…
We’re not saying don’t reduce the set, but that a gradual and measured reduction is worth considering.
Start at 45-55. Measure block finality, consensus times, bandwidth and the actual bottlenecks. If the numbers say you need to go smaller, go smaller with evidence behind it.
Consider a validator call before moving to on-chain vote. The operators running this infrastructure might reveal things that aren’t obvious from the protocol side.
Where we stand…
Full transparency, Atlas Staking has been selected for a foundation delegation and would hopefully land in the top 21. So this isn’t about protecting our seat.
We’re raising this because we think Story has a real shot at being a category-defining network and the validator set is part of that. We’ve built content, participated in governance, and invested in infrastructure here because we believe in what this team is building.
Happy to jump on a call, write up more detailed analysis, or help however is useful. We’re here for the long haul.
Matt & Eric
Atlas Staking