Prop 797: Increase the validator set of Cosmos Hub to 180 from 175

Problem

Currently, the validator set size in the Cosmos Hub is 175, and the last validator has 113K Atom delegated to them (at the time of writing), which translates into 1.2 million USD worth of Atom. This higher requirement barred many Cosmos community validators from validation on the Hub. It is extra difficult to get into the active set with this barrier even if a validator receives delegations or tokens for their contribution (such as ICF delegations or Game of Chains/Game of NFT projects) or if they are bringing value into ecosystem in any other way.

Proposed solution

Increasing the validator set to 180 from 175 can solve this problem.

Originally, the Cosmos whitepaper stated that the validator set size should increase 13% yearly until it hits 300 validators as a cap. In July 2019, proposal #10 suggested a new way to set the validator set size: through governance.

The decision of increasing the validator set just by 5 spots, as opposed to past proposals, was done to ensure increasing validator set would be safe. If this proposal passes, the community can later decide whether the Hub wants to allow more validators to join after analysing how this proposal affected the validator set, and submit another validator set expansion proposal, if needed.

Governance votes

The following items summarize the voting options and what it means for this proposal:

YES - You approve this increase in the validator set to 200 from 175. NO - You disapprove of this increase in the validator set to 200 from 175.

NO WITH VETO - A ‘NoWithVeto’ vote indicates a proposal either (1) is deemed to be spam, i.e., irrelevant to Cosmos Hub, (2) disproportionately infringes on minority interests, or (3) violates or encourages violation of the rules of engagement as currently set out by Cosmos Hub governance. If the number of ‘NoWithVeto’ votes is greater than a third of the total votes, the proposal is rejected and the deposits are burned.

ABSTAIN - You wish to contribute to the quorum but you formally decline to vote either for or against the proposal.

Commonwealth thread with pre-governance discussion: https://forum.cosmos.network/t/proposal-draft-increase-the-validator-set-of-cosmos-hub-to-200-from-175/7283