Introducing a Sector Duration Multiplier for Longer Term Sector Commitment #386
Replies: 24 comments 81 replies
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Curious what @ZenGround0 thinks about this FIP re ease of implementation in the new builtin actors? @nicola @irenegia @cryptonemo - would love your protocol security perspective on increasing the max initial sector duration to 5 years from 540 days? This would mean that if an issue or vuln were found that required sectors to upgrade (ex proofs v1 —> v1.1), we’d probably need to invest in a conversion tool to upgrade a sector from vulnerable to secure instead of just letting old vulnerable sectors expire off the network naturally after their current max 540 day lifespan. |
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This proposal does seem like a generally straightforward way to incentivise longer sector commitments and allow providers to earn greater rewards for doing so. It has some minor interactions with my proposal in #313 to decouple Filecoin Plus rewards from the built-in storage deal market, removing the "spread out" QA power calculations along the way. Something like this change will be required to support user-programmed actors brokering storage deals. The interaction is that a Filecoin Plus data cap allocation will have define an acceptable range for its term (duration), a minimum and maximum. An allocation can only be sealed into a sector with a committed lifespan that lies within the term. In particular, if a FIL+ allocation has a maximum term of N years, it can only be placed into a sector that expires before N years. So if clients want a short FIL+ term, they won't be able to get it into a long-expiring sector. This arises from a product requirement that FIL+ cannot be incentivised for ever, and some clients want assurance that their data will be removed from sealed storage at some point. This is probably ok, because I expect (a) most FIL+ clients will be happy with maximal-length terms, and (b) even for those that aren't, the incentive of the 10x FIL+ multiplier will be higher than the incentive to commit for 5 years. Which raises the obvious question here: what SectorDurationMultiplier function are you proposing? |
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Don't see how this FIP help the ecosystem growth, nor attract new SPs/data clients, so is to follow the trajectory of like other zero sum, financial game projects maybe? |
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Logically, taking more risk worth more reward, right。 Yet , this also means driving away those who can't take the risk, that is small sps. Think about the consequence of this FIP:The total amount of reward will not change, the large sps with lower cost、more tokens、more ways to borrow tokens、healther cash flow can seal longer time sectors and will earn more reward. Yet the small ones, what can they do? Nothing! They may only have 1-2PB, and can’t afford new SPs machines and tokens, they just get less reward and may leave this network after sectors expire and will not reinvest in this. From client view,flexible and low storing time is better than longer storing time, especially lots of client do not know about filecoin, flexible and low time will help client to onboard with lower risk, it will be easy for them to try. |
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I agreed that longer-term sector commitment SPs take more risk, therefore deserve more rewards. But, it is a double-edged sword. The major impact is that this may lead more initial pledge required for the same size of content comparing to the current implementation, which simply increases storage cost (specifically, capital cost), further more, to decrease the willing to add more storage (raw bytes) into the network. And, basically, the initial pledge is mainly designed for quality assurance, though it also play a role in the crypto-economics. we need to focus on the security first, at the same time, thinking more about how to provide secure and cheaper storage for web2/web3 users, i.e. thinking more about the services than the economics. We need to be very careful to introduce this into Filecoin network. If we really think it is required, carefully design the function, and keep the initial pledge at the reasonable level. |
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One question: |
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50x multiplier seems to be extremely high. It would likely to shift the fundamental of the network from a hardware+collateral model to a mostly collateral only model, diverging the network from its actual utility which is storage & retrieval of data. Similar to many Defi projects, whales would dominate the lending infrastructure and siphon most of the rewards, and leave SPs strangled with the 5-year commitment. |
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We will need to think more about if encouraging “keep data as long as possible” is the one size fits all solution, Another choice could be keep it as is, let the client and SP to negotiate how long the data should be kept instead of making a protocol change to encourage or discourage certain time conditions, and that decision might be made by varies considerations including data retention policies required by different jurisdictions (data remove could be required after the retention period) or other business decisions. Generally just thought we should be more inclusive for all data scenarios in protocol level and let the market decides the preference, not to the opposite direction. |
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This proposal will interact with FIP-0034: Fix pre-commit deposit independent of sector content. FIP-0034 sets the pre-commit deposit (PCD) equal to the storage pledge for a fully-verified sector, regardless of whether the sector actually has verified deals. (Note the storage pledge is one part of a sector's total initial pledge – the consensus pledge is additional.) If the potential quality multiplier and hence storage pledge is larger, PCD will increase too. This mainly affects CC sectors, which must post the same PCD as verified sectors. With the current 10x multiplier, the CC PCD is still always less than the full initial pledge that will be required at prove-commit, so basically no issue. However with a higher multiple for a longer committed duration, the CC PCD will rise above the CC sector initial pledge, perhaps by some multiple. The PCD is still only a temporary pledge, with any surplus to initial pledge returned at pre-commit. But it will affect SP capital efficiency a little. A larger issue might be that the penalty for a failed pre-commit for a long-term CC sector would become overly punitive (the target is just 20 days' reward). SPs will factor in some non-zero operational failure rate to their economic models. |
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A few thoughts on this proposal:
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Changing the gameplay and passive locking for a longer time are only internal factors, and ultimately driven by external factors, such as the ecological explosion based on FVM. Storage providers begin to charge for orders and commercialize them, more WEB2, WEB3 use cases, more capital invest,,,, |
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Some comments in this discussion is against higher initial pledge to be required in average after introducing a sector duration multiplier for longer term sector commitment. This is not explicitly mentioned, but it looks commenters assuming this. So, could we make it clear? will this result in higher initial pledge required for a fix-sized (say 32G) sector in average? It may or may not, depending on how we design this. @vkalghatgi , any idea? Given that pledge is for securing the network, if total pledge secures the consensus now, we should not expect total pledge to rise. If it does rise, what's the justification? |
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In addition to the changes initially proposed (altered duration limits and a duration multiplier), the #386 topic authors would like to suggest reassessing the Initial Consensus Pledge target multiplier. This number is currently set to 30%. Suggested values to consider are 40-50%. This suggestion seems unrelated on the surface but there is a clear rationale. Sector durations are coupled to Initial Consensus Pledge target, through their effects on SP returns and supply dynamics, therefore these should be considered concurrently. Moreover, both are economic changes specifically designed to make the network more long-term aligned. The primary way a new target pledge multiplier can contribute to this is by improving the macro setting, aiming the network's trajectory towards a more stable rather than declining percentage locked supply. This supports more predictable SP returns which are essential for the overarching goal of long-term aligned data storage. |
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CEL has set out a summary of econ analysis points on this notion page. We hope people find it useful to add more detail to this FIP discussion. In short, out of the options introduced, we think a slope 2 linear duration multiplier function on 1-5 year sectors, with Initial Consensus Pledge target multiplier of 40 or 50%, is a good place to be in. Our current assessment is, this has properties likely to improve long-term storage outcomes for the network, and this is the key scenario the community should be considering. |
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This proposal interacts somewhat with future plans for scaling the capacity of the Filecoin blockchain to account for committed storage by making sectors more heterogeneous. We put quite a lot of thought into this in mid 2021 when the capacity growth was going exponential. The growth rate has since levelled off at a level that pushed such problems far enough out into the future that we moved on. I've just copied out some of our design ideas from that time into the CryptoNet notebook for reference here: Fungible Committed Capacity and Project Neutron: Exponential Storage. However, the solutions to this eventual problem revolved around removing per-sector information from the chain. The sealed CID is about half of it, and metadata about weights, activation/expiration epochs etc the rest. To scale exponentially, we need to remove all that per-sector information, making sectors more homogeneous. Giving sectors radically different rewards based on their duration will be a bit difficult to reconcile with handling sectors in ever-larger aggregates. For Neturon, when merging [super]sectors we had to pick some policy on merging expiration epochs, and would probably take the max. This is straightforward when the merged supersectors have power linear in their weight only, but not obvious when the duration itself affects rewards. The takeaway here is that proposals that identify and distinguish individual sectors could be a severe limit on the design space for handling more growth or other complexity in the future. I would prefer the direction was toward aggregate per-miner accounting. |
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If this proposal were considered - We’d like to propose decoupling:
into two fips, (which the later May bring security vulnerabilities to filecoin network and needs much more research and analysis from various teams) |
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Firstly, adjusting the power can greatly satisfy the needs of clients who wish to store over longer periods of time and motivate SPs to make a long term commitment to the Filecoin community. We are looking forward to the beneficial impact which this will bring to the community. But one thing we must consider is that the data stored in the CC sector is not really dedicated to the advancement of the community. Rather, because of the application of the incentive system, it is not difficult to foresee a reduction in the data selection criteria of SPs. And this will eventually lead to a large amount of useless data being stored. Moreover, this is incompatible with the idea of storing the humanity’s most important information that web 3.0 has held since the beginning. There is no positive impact on either the reputational impact with the Filecoin network nor Fil. In short, I think it would be the most appropriate to suspend the sealing of the CC sector and apply the power adjustment to the DC sector only. |
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i see the danger of people leveraging the fact that rewards now are higher than in the future --> getting a lot of power now might get returns high enough to take the 90 days termination penalty mid way through the commitment cheaper than for x1, x10 sectors we might want to consider changing the termination fee calculations to something that is based on the remaining sector lifetime. |
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A question for Econ team, when you say sector duration, what’s the definition of it? |
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Please note that @vkalghatgi recently presented this FIP to Core Devs. For a detailed technical breakdown of the proposal, as well as a Q&A session, you can review meeting notes or watch the recording of Meeting 1 and/or Meeting 2. I also have a few questions to ask:
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Is there a plan to set a new baseline storage power for the network with this FIP? Without one, SPs that seal or extend long duration sectors early after the upgrade will be at a significant disadvantage. Ex: Let's consider the current proposal with sector duration multiplier slope of 2 where 5-year sectors get an additional 10x storage power. Let's also say (for argument's sake) the entire network extends their sectors all to 5 years (or close to it).
We can avoid the situation above by setting a new network baseline for this upgrade by making an educated guess at what the inflation of network power is going to be by estimating the new average sector lifetime on the network. |
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Alternatively, would it be possible to incentivize long-term storage by tieing rewards to the renewal of a storage deal instead of extending sector lifetimes? |
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The complexity of this FIP has led to a very long community discussion. As a result of this discussion, the FIP authors have retracted their original PR and pushed an updated draft for consideration. The original draft is available HERE. Please note that this FIP is still very much a draft; community review and feedback is still very much welcome. For ease, this discussion thread will be locked. A new discussion thread, corresponding to the new FIP draft, can be found HERE. |
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Authors: @AxCortesCubero, @jbenet, @misilva73, @momack2, @tmellan, @vkalghatgi, @zixuanzh
Simple Summary
Problem Motivation
Currently, storage providers do not receive any additional compensation or incentive for committing longer term sectors (whether that be CC or storage deals) to the network. The protocol places equal value on 180 to 540 day sectors in terms of storage mining rewards. However, in making an upfront commitment to longer term sectors, storage providers take on additional operational risks (more can go wrong in a longer time period), and lock rewards for longer. Furthermore, in committing longer term sectors/deals, storage providers demonstrate their long-term commitment to the mission and growth of the Filecoin Network, and are more aligned with client preference for persistent storage. Therefore, the added value of longer-term sector commitments, coupled with the compounded operational/liquidity risks storage providers incur for longer term sectors should be compensated for in the form of increased rewards.
Specification
Current Protocol Configuration:
The current sector quality multiplier follows from the spec here. The notion of Sector Quality distinguishes between sectors with heuristics indicating the presence of valuable data.
Sector Quality Adjusted Power is a weighted average of the quality of its space and it is based on the size, duration and quality of its deals.
The formula for calculating Sector Quality Adjusted Power (or QAP, often referred to as power) makes use of the following factors:
dealSpaceTime
: sum of theduration*size
of each dealverifiedSpaceTime
: sum of theduration*size
of each verified dealbaseSpaceTime
(spacetime without deals):sectorSize*sectorDuration - dealSpaceTime - verifiedSpaceTime
Based on these the average quality of a sector is:
The Sector Quality Adjusted Power is:
Proposed Protocol Change:
Introduce a multiplier based on sector duration
This SectorDurationMultiplier would be a monotonically increasing function of sector duration. (TBD and further discussion on this function/multiplier necessary). Therefore, the new suggested Sector Quality Adjusted Power is:
Design Rationale
The rationale for the specification is to achieve the goals and desired behavior with minimal code changes. Introducing a duration multiplier should flow into collateral requirements, consensus power etc with minimal change.
Backwards Compatibility
This policy would apply at Sector Extension and Upgrade for existing sectors.
Test Cases
N/A
Security Considerations
There is a potential added risk to introducing a strong economic preference for longer term sectors. Sectors that are locked for extended periods of time may be able to exploit emergent security vulnerabilities and expire off the network much later once these vulnerabilities are addressed.
Incentive Considerations
As discussed in the problem motivation section, this FIP introduces incentives to further align the cryptoeconomic schema of the Filecoin Network with intended goals of the network to provide useful and reliable storage. We introduce the idea that longer term sectors represent a long-term investment and commitment to the Filecoin ecosystem, and therefore should be rewarded proportionally with greater block reward shares.
Note, we also introduce the possibility for storage providers to receive additional multipliers from committing CC for longer. Even this has added value insofar as it represents a commitment to the ecosystem long term that should be rewarded.
Implementation
TBD
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