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Aptos Improvement Proposals (AIPs)

Enable updating commission_percentage

AIP-19 - Enable updating commission_percentage in staking_contract module

Section titled “AIP-19 - Enable updating commission_percentage in staking_contract module”

Summary

Section titled “Summary”

This AIP proposes an update to staking_contract.move, which would allow the stake pool owner to change commission_percentage.

Motivation

Section titled “Motivation”

Currently, commission_percentage cannot be changed. The updating commission percentage feature will allow for better adaptability to changing market conditions.

Rationale

Section titled “Rationale”

Considerations:

  1. The staking contract tracks how much commission needs to be paid out to the operator. Updating commission_percentage is a convenience function added to staking_contract.move to allow a stake pool owner to update the commission percentage paid to the operator.
  2. Commission_percentage can be updated by the stake pool owner at any time. Commission is earned on a per epoch basis. The change takes into effect immediately for all future commissions earned when the update function is called, but will not be retroactively applied to any previously earned commissions.
  3. UpdateCommissionEvent gets emitted when the update_comission function is called

Alternative solutions:

The staking contract would have to be ended and a new one has to be created in order to change the commission_percentage. This is a less ideal solution as it creates more operational overhead and would result in missed staking rewards.

Reference Implementation

Section titled “Reference Implementation”

https://github.com/aptos-labs/aptos-core/blob/main/aptos-move/framework/aptos-framework/sources/staking_contract.move

https://github.com/aptos-labs/aptos-core/pull/6623/

Risks and Drawbacks

Section titled “Risks and Drawbacks”

Changing commission_percentage may introduce uncertainty into commission earnings because it is possible that operators are paid at different commission rates during an unlock cycle. However, there is no additional action required for the operator as changes take into effect immediately.

We can mitigate this in a future iteration by implementing a max commission change per period. This is not a concern with the current owner-operator structure.

Future Potential

Section titled “Future Potential”

This feature will give the stake pool owner more flexibility over the commission_percentage to reflect changing market conditions.

Suggested implementation timeline

Section titled “Suggested implementation timeline”

Targeting end of Q1

Suggested deployment timeline

Section titled “Suggested deployment timeline”

This feature is currently on devnet and testnet as part of v1.3.