Node Pool Withdrawal Update

Node Pool withdrawals slower

If you use Node Pool, you’ve probably already seen the last update about delayed withdrawals. For anyone who would like more details, this post can help.

What happened?

As you know, the PRV you place in the Node Pool goes toward staking new Node Virtuals, the returns of which pay the Pool rewards, fund projects, pay operational costs for the nodes, etc. This means that the PRV is tied to the nodes it’s staking, and must be unstaked when you withdraw.

To allow for instant withdrawals, a pool of PRV was dedicated to withdrawals, which would be replenished once the unstaking occurs. It’s a method that worked well for normal deposit/withdraw levels, with room to spare.

However, there has been a substantial increase in Node Pool withdrawals recently, which has exhausted the reserve pool.

What does this mean?

This means that for now, withdrawals will come directly from unstaking nodes, and will be delayed. We’ve staggered Node unstakings to mitigate the wait time, so that you won’t have any chance of needing to wait a few weeks while Nodes cycle through the validator lifecycle.

The current estimated wait time for Node Pool withdrawals is 3 days or less.

Because of this, you’ll also notice a decrease in the number of validators on the network, and may have seen some already.

Is this permanent?

No. Once the larger amounts of pool withdrawals have been met, the reserve pool can be replenished and withdrawals can resume as normal.

Ultimately, the withdrawals/unstaking won’t have a potent effect on the health of the network or the project itself. The only adverse effect is the delay in the wait time, which has been mitigated as much as possible and will eventually return to normal. In the meantime, thanks for being patient!

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Hi Aaron…question real quick…does that mean that when the reserve pool is replenished and things go back to normal will the amount of validators on the network increase and return to normal as well?

Hey, good question.

Well, it depends on deposit volume. The withdrawal time will become instant again, but how many nodes the pool can stake depends on how much people deposit. So over time, it will likely increase further than it was before, but that’s a separate occurrence from the reserve pool refilling.

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Thank you for the answer Aaron…:sunglasses:

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@aaron, thank you for the info! Any update on the wait time for unstaking from the pool?

Could this be sped up? If I’m just withdrawing < 10% of my pool stake couldn’t that be instantaneous? It’s taking 12 hours just to withdraw a small amount from a pool. With Thorchain Defi, they give you the withdraw instantly, but you’re only allowed to pool withdraw once every 24 hours. Could Incognito do something like that?

At the moment, no, because time for withdrawals depends on unstaking nodes/withdrawing liquidity, etc. Another factor isn’t just how much you withdraw, but how much people are withdrawing in general.

However, alternative ways to speed it up are worth looking at, you should make a post about it in the ideas category!