Better Stacking after Nakamoto

Starting another stacking cycle after Nakomoto, here are two ideas how to improve the stacking experience. Looking for feedback about effort to implement and usefulness.

  • Remove cool down cycle: With Nakamoto, the anchor block is found quickly. Therefore, during prepare phase different things can happen: unlock stacked stx happens at the beginning of the prepare phase. Anchor block is found in the last blocks of the prepare phase. Stacks can be locked until the Anchor block is found. This would remove cool down cycles when users want to change their stacking configuration/switch pools/etc and increase the competition between signers.

  • Remove Pool operators: Direct stacking and pooled stacking are streamlined. Stackers can directly delegate to signers. Signers lock and aggregate the delegated stx. Miners send rewards to signers’ addresses instead of stackers’ addresses. This would create better incentives for signers, simplify the pox contract and decentralize voting power better.

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Adding a +1 to this - especially as the network grows, increasing competition between stacking options is good for network health. Currently users need to lose out on an entire cycle of stacking rewards (as well as run multiple contract calls at different times) to switch to a different stacking setup.

Removing these barriers (while still retaining the lock through the end of the current cycle) would be good for decentralization and users.

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