Celestia Foundation Delegation Program Cohort 5 is open

The Celestia Foundation Delegation Program for Cohort 5 is now open. If you are currently receiving delegations as part of Cohort 2 as found in the spreadsheet here, you must reapply to Cohort 5 to be reconsidered for delegation.

For all new validator applicants, you can proceed with the application form. Upon selection, new validator applicants must complete a compliance screen.

All applicants, whether renewing their application or applying for the first time, must apply on the form found here.

Cohort 5 has 15 seats up for delegation. Members of Cohort 5 will receive delegation for up to 12 months as long as they follow the Delegation Program guidelines.
Please note that Cohort 5 features a few changes, including allowing to be jailed once and less weight on contributions as before due to the new program that we have launched. The new program will run as an addition to this one. Please read more about it in the separate forum post.

For all new and existing validators applying to Cohort 5, please follow the application information found in the docs here.

The Celestia Foundation

Thanks for sharing this, @ismail

We’ve just submitted our application for this round (Cohort 5) and wanted to offer a bit of feedback from a validator’s perspective.

We’ve applied in all four past cohorts and were not selected each time. While we understand it’s competitive, what’s been difficult is the lack of a feedback loop—without even minimal insights, it’s hard to understand what we should improve upon. A small note on application weaknesses would go a long way in helping committed contributors get better.

Additionally, we believe that the review process should ideally be handled by the Foundation team rather than fellow validator teams. As the ecosystem scales, it’s important to guard against any perception of favoritism or closed circles. A more neutral and transparent evaluation process would build greater trust and encourage wider participation.

We say this with full respect for the work being done and in the spirit of constructive feedback. Looking forward to seeing how the program evolves!

As a bit of feedback to the current program for the next round:

I think it would be good if the program would focus more on longevity for the validators selected. Meaning validators that don’t live and die by the delegation of the foundation. There is a lot of churn and new faces everytime the cohort changes. This mean the bottom part of the set has a very hard time keeping stake as they might be kicked out by cohort changes. Additionally it means delegating as user to a cohort validator might mean that in 6 months your stake might be inactive as the validator falls out again. This might mean needing to delegate smaller tranches than 3m flat or supporting validators that have siginificant outside stake more.

Additionally, It seems there is an insanely large focus on the location of the hardware used by the validator. To such an extent that dedicated-server validators in more remote locations are favoured over validators that use co-located or self-hosted hardware in more packed jurisdictions. This is partially the case as well because of people following team recommendations for physical location enmasse by just switching. I think this bad policy if "true decentralisation” is the actual goal.

Best,
Gijs
Lavender.Five Nodes