0249-delay-commission-updates.md

simd	title	authors	category	type	status	created	feature
0249	Delay Commission Updates	Justin Starry (Anza)	Standard	Core	Review	2025-02-18	(fill in with feature key and github tracking issues once accepted)

Summary

Allow validators to update their commission values without restriction but delay those commission changes for at least one full epoch.

Motivation

Stake delegators should have time to re-delegate their stake in response to validator commission rate changes.

New Terminology

NA

Detailed Design

• During inflation reward distribution for an epoch E, use the commission rate set in the vote account state at the beginning of the epoch E - 1 when calculating validator commissions. This is the same vote account state used to calculate the leader schedule for epoch E so it must already be available in-protocol. The only exception is inflation reward distribution for epoch E == 0. In that case, use the commission rate set by vote accounts in the genesis config.

• Update the core vote program to no longer restrict commission updates in any way.

Alternatives Considered

An alternative approach is to track recent commission values over the past few epochs in the vote account state. This bookkeeping increases state size requirements of the vote account for each type of commission set by a validator.

Impact

• Validators will need to wait at least one full epoch before their commission updates are applied.

• Stake delegators will have at least one full epoch to react to commission updates.

Security Considerations

NA

Drawbacks (Optional)

Why should we not do this?

Backwards Compatibility (Optional)

No backwards compatibility issues. Commission updates will be less restrictive.