FLR moving to a staking model?

Wondering how everyone feels about this or at least the timing. Having been part of the Flare network community for a while, I’m curious to see what the sentiment is. It’s worth noting that since Flare was launched in observation mode last year, this isn’t exactly new and was always part of the original plan.

The objective is to decentralize validators from its current set of 20 which I think is a really good move for the team. However, I am concerned about security once this happens. Yes I know. ‘Web3 - yay for decentralization and having networks powered by participants’ but there are a lot of malicious actors unfortunately.

At least from my perspective, I am very confident that the team has it in hand as they have phased this transition and in true Flare style, they have informed the community adequately on phase 1.

To summarize other important changes, Flare validators will also be responsible for providing data to the network as part of a data as a public good mission. This means that they are transforming the traditional validator role which is what I’m rather intrigued by as the new title is a ‘infrastructure provider’ ????

The move doesn’t involve a change in their economics which is also rather reassuring as validators already play such a huge role but there are rewards still to be had. As part of their new staking model, these ‘infrastructure providers’ will be able to earn a base income so rest assured that validators will have less incentive to collude.

Overall I’m feeling like this a really positive move from Flare and I recommend having a look at the changes itself so if you’re interested, take a look at the announcement yourself. Information on Stages 2 and 3 should also be coming so I’d certainly keep following up with how it's progressing.