How to identify OAN Validator for staking?

The Open Application Network (OAN) unity has launched successfully and there are large number of Validators/Staking pools providing staking services for $AION. The available number of validators means that those staking Aion have a difficult job at hand to figure out which validator they should stake with. This article attempts to cover the various different parameters on which a pool may be assessed to identify the pool that you should stake with. The article covers in details all the tools available at tools.AionSmartStake.com that will help you make the assessment.

General Assessment

Skip this section if you are interested in performance assessment only

Following is a list of some basic aspects on which most people assess validators/pools as a start:

• Pool website — Check out the website of the pool. A professional looking website is a good indicator that the validator is serious about operating the pool and is spending time/effort in providing a good overall service. Understand the distinguishing factors/offering of the pool based on website content. There could be some exceptions to this but in general, this is an important first step in knowing the pool that you are going to stake your $aion with
• Establish contact — with the pool operator using Telegram, Twitter, or other means. The contact information should be easily accessible on pool operator’s website. This is helpful for few reasons. 1) you will get to know your pool operator better 2) you have a way of reaching out to the pool operator in case the pool is no longer performing well. This is a critical aspect as it has been seen on some occasions that a pool is performing poorly or is not functioning at all and no one know who the pool operator is.
• Fee — is an important metric that everyone tends to focus on but it should not be a deal maker/breaker. At the end of day, you want to pick a pool that is consistently performing well. A poorly performing pool with a low fee is no good as the rewards you earn will be much less. Having said that, there are pools that are performing well and charge relatively smaller fee. Assess the pool operator’s offering and pick a pool that meets your needs.

Pool Performance Assessment

Performance assessment of pools you are interested in is the most important step in picking the pool/pools that you want to stake with. The staking interface created by OAN includes a performance rating in the interface itself. Note: At the time of writing this article, this singular performance rating is confirmed to have a flawed logic and inaccurately identifies some pools as performing poorly and some as performing excellent. The OAN team is aware of it and working on a fix. AionSmartStake.com has created many performance assessment tools to help identify the pool(s) of choice. All the tools can be accessed at tools.AionSmartStake.com

Key definitions :

Please skip this section if needed.

• Stake Weight — Stake Weight is a percentage of the total AION staked on the network that are staked with this pool. It is calculated as: Stake weight = (Number of Aion staked with the pool * 100) / Total number of Aion staked.
• Block Weight — Block Weight is a percentage of the total AION validated on the network in a given day that are validated by this pool. For a pool performing at good levels, Block weight should be comparable or higher than the Stake Weight of the pool. It is calculated as: Block weight = (Number of blocks validated * 100) / Total number of POS blocks validated.
• Block Index — Block Index is a ratio of Block Weight and Stake Weight for a given day. The higher the Block Index for a given day, the better the pool’s performance is on that day. It is calculated as: Block index = (Block Weight * 100) / Stake Weight.
• Average Block Index: Average Block Index is an average of block index for a pool for last 7 completed days. The index can be really high (150+) or really low (0) for pools that have less than 2% stake. Do not use it in isolation when judging a pool’s performance. The higher the Block Index over a longer time frame, the better the pool’s performance is.
• Net Annual Rate of Return (ARR) — Net ARR combines a pool’s performance, fee, annual rewards to provide a net rate of return. The higher the Net ARR, the better a pool’s performance is (from a delegate’s perspective). It is calculated by factoring in the Fee charged by the pool and the pool’s performance over last 7 days. Net ARR can be really high or really low for small pools and should not be used for pools that have very low number of $aion staked. Net ARR is a historical metric. It is not a guarantee of future ARR. Do not use this metric in isolation for performance assessment of a pool.

Tool — Pool List — compare high level performance of all pools

Check the list of all pools at tools.AionSmartStake.com. Compare the 7 day Net ARR to understand the actual current rate of return with a given pool or compare Average Block Index to see if the pools of your interest are performing consistently.

Note that pools with very small total staked Aion will have more swings i.e. they may have more blocks one day but very low number of blocks on another day. Sticking to longer time frame evens out most of such swings (except for pools with <100k Aion that may remain stuck at 0% or much higher % because they validated a block or two less or extra)

Tool — Block Index— compare high level performance of all pools

Block Index chart for all pools is an easy visual way to see how a pool is performing over the course of last few weeks. Chart shown below provides daily summary of all pool’s performances using Block Index (defined above). Use this to rule out pools that are under-performing e.g. the one highlighted in green in the second chart below has been under-performing (validating much less blocks than expected) for the last 2–3 days.

Pools with smaller stake weights will have wilder swings and as long as they are performing at a good average over a longer time frame, the rate of returns should be similar. The tool is available at https://tools.aionsmartstake.com/blockIndex

Assess a pool’s summary

A pool’s summary information can be assessed by clicking on a pool’s name from Pool list screen or by expanding a pool from the pool list screen ( https://tools.aionsmartstake.com/)

The screen provides basic information about a pool including its fee, total staked amount, link to its website, available/free capacity. It also provides a basic summary of pool’s performance in the last one week

Assess a pool’s performance in real-time

This is a useful metric for monitoring a pool’s performance once you invest in a pool but it can be a handy tool to see the performance of a pool in realtime. The screen shows the latest blocks validated by the pool. A key metric being the last time a block was validated by a pool.

To access the realtime performance of a pool, click on Realtime link in the Pool performance tools section of a pool’s summary page.

Assess blocks validated in last 24 hours

A visual tool for assessing pool’s performance in last 24 hours. The chart shows blocks validated in the last 24 hours including the hour in progress.

To check this report, click on “Recent by Hour” link in the Pool performance tools section of a pool’s summary page.

Assess blocks validated in last 7 days

A visual tool for assessing pool’s performance in last 7 days. The chart shows blocks validated in the last 7 days including the day in progress (GMT time).

To check this report, click on “Recent by Date” link in the Pool performance tools section of a pool’s summary page.

There are many other views available on the tools.AionSmartStake.com website to assess all pools in variety of different ways.

Since Smart Stake is an Aion validator/pool operator, there are additional tools available to show the realtime health of the pool. At this time the Health summary and Node health tools are limited to Smart Stake pool only but may be expanded to other pools later on.

Lastly, there are several other tools available in Smart Stake website that are useful once you are already staking or before as well. They are listed here for completeness:

• Rewards — shows outstanding rewards for given set of addresses
• Rewards history — historical listing of all rewards for given set of addresses. Summarizes rewards at monthly/annual levels
• Overall network/Unity stats
• Rewards calculator
• Stake history for Unity and at a pool level
• Top validators (by number of blocks validated in last 7 days)

Happy staking $Aion

Feel free to contact Smart Stake pool on Telegram or Twitter if you have any questions. Like our offerings? Consider staking with Smart Stake.