Penumbra Today
On a proof-of-stake blockchain like Penumbra, delegators need to know about their validators, so they can make an informed staking decision. This information is not only vital for any individual delegator when they stake their own funds on the competence of a validator, but it is equally essential for the health of the protocol as a whole.
Why? Proof of stake asks delegators to vote with their wallet for the validators they trust, and through the incentive of delegator rewards, translates the nuance of human trust into a numerical score that the chain's consensus algorithm can understand. But none of this works if delegators are flying blind: their staking decisions need to be well-informed for them to provide meaningful feedback to the protocol.
Announcing Penumbra Today
Today, Starling Cybernetics is excited to announce the launch of a new resource for Penumbra delegators and their validators: Penumbra Today, a dashboard for information about the Penumbra blockchain.
Helping Delegators Understand Validators
On Penumbra Today, delegators will find detailed information about the validator set, including their published on-chain descriptions, status, voting power, signing performance, and more – as well as more general information about the chain as a whole.
Helping Validators Understand Themselves
Penumbra Today is also intended as a resource to assist fellow validators in monitoring and debugging their configurations. On each validator's details page is a handcrafted comprehensive live visualization of that validator's uptime, serving as a resource for validator operators looking to diagnose issues with block signing.
Ready to Launch?
On the validator leaderboard of Penumbra Today, there's also another special feature to help delegators and validators alike prepare for Penumbra's mainnet (here's hoping it will be soon):
Validators who have generated permanent identity keys and are using them on the Penumbra testnet can mark themselves as ready to launch in their on-chain validator description, and receive a rocket emblem 🚀 on the leaderboard.
At the same time, delegators looking to stake on Penumbra in the future can find validators whose on-chain testnet identity already is aligned with their future mainnet identity.
Starling Staking is the first Penumbra validator – hopefully of many! – to be verified as ready to launch. Will you be the next?
More Soon...
There's much more to come for Penumbra Today: live-updating validator information is only the beginning. In the future, we plan to include indexed chain history, governance information, and more kinds of interactivity.
But that's for tomorrow. Today, I give you Penumbra Today.
Happy Penumbra Day,
—finch
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