This would actually be a great opportunity for them: Work with an endorsed delegate who knows the ecosystem inside out for voting, while concentrating on what they do well: running nodes.
Thankfully we have both capabilities inside StableLab. 
Well, they donāt run the nodeā¦ they only lend the name.
Meria is running the node in name of Ledger.
So if they also outsource governance, then what are they actually doing?
They donāt run the node, they donāt do governance, they donāt do marketing. So there is actually nothing they contribute, but they still reap in rewards.
they bring ledger stakers basically.
If we speak about the governance most of the validators just vote yes for every proposal without any activity at the forums or discord. Only few are active
By being active I mean not writing āwe vote Yes because proposal is really wonderfulā. I mean serious discussions about the future development of the protocol
To whereā¦
It is more the service being delivered to hold and stake the asset possibly via the Ledger Live app. But the service is exactly compareable to that of centralized exchanges. And from them we donāt accept it, but it is ok from Ledger?
I havent seen but I bet its an integration in ledger live app where you can stake your tokens.
Of course its a little bit against decentralization and not motivating user to stake into validators that bring other value to the protocol.
But what is different with CEXes in ledger its your tokens on your wallet. If its centralized custodian service from Ledger than its bad in my opinion
Personally I have much more questions why coinbase cloud got a delegation.
Was that mentioned somewhere in this thread? I was more referring to the list of top ranked validators according to the mintscan score mentioned earlier 
Exactly, now if Meria, a node operator, pairs with an endorsed delegate you have good specialization. Those how know how to run nodes, run nodes.
Those who know about dYdX vote.
That is still not the point.
Meria is operating both a validator of their own AND a white-label validator for Ledger:
I donāt think we should promote white-label validators, before you know it half of the set is controlled by one party. And where are we in that case with our drive for decentralisation?
Decentralisation is not only voting power, but also geographical, server provider AND who is pulling the string in the back.
I guess we can agree to disagree.
Geographically it is very hard to run a node outside of Asia atm, because latency will mean you miss a lot of blocks. We have tried 
Wrt decentralization: Right now both the Ledger and the Meria validator will make similar decisions.
But with x/authz being added in the next Chain update, and delegation being a real possibility, both these validators could have different delegatesā¦
That would be an improvement, I think.
Whatās more concerning to me is that the top two validators control 36%ā¦ Thankfully these are trustworthy operators, but in terms of censorship resistance and decentralization it is not ideal.
Remember that in a POS Chain 33% is enough to control a chain.
Oh yeah, that is indeed a serious issue. Totally agreed on that one.
But the answer to it is to attract more unique validators, not white-label onesā¦ otherwise you are just introducing a new issue down the line.
With respect to the missed blocks; I can imagine that because there is such a voting power concentration at the top2 it has a lot of negative effects on possible latency and missed blocks. Decentralisation of voting power is hard needed if I hear like this ^^
Itās definitely something to keep an eye on! I 100% agree there. Meria is transparent about its white-label operations. Others might not be. So this isnāt necessarily easy to watch. But worth watching, regardless.
I would like to address the economic aspect of the existence of the endorsed delegates program. Up until now, validators have been sufficiently fine in voting for every proposal without any discussion on the forum or discord
Accordingly, I see the following options for such a scheme to be functional:
I think it is worth to take even one step back; what is the direct need of Endorsed Delegates on the Cosmos-based environment? Is there a need or it is it something which was related to the earlier versions of dYdX?
In general, there is no necessity for such Endorsed Delegates, however, their presence could contribute to increased community engagement in governance, enhance competencies within the community, and more. There was an interesting experiment some time ago with the Ambassadors programāan excellent concept, but not suitable for dydx V3. It would have been more meaningful for V4.
Here we take a step back and ask whether the project needs an active community and at what cost. To attract retail users to the project is undoubtedly necessary, as is achieving a sufficient level of decentralization.
Agreed.
Then the model maybe needs to be two-fold.
A part of the rewards for staking directed to chain security (validating) and a part to governance.
Whereas you can delegated your VP in terms of chain security to validator A and the VP in terms of governance to Endorsed Delegate X.
For both you can get rewards as delegator. And a small commission charged by the Endorsed Delegate ensures some payment towards those active in governance. They can be people from a validator business ofcourse, but also completely separete actors.
Great discussion here. As I outlined in my report for Flipside Governance, delegates could help attract stake for validators and, in return, receive a portion of the generated rewards.
We think delegates have a valuable function if they commit to the work, write rationales, develop reporting and insights, and/or host community calls where interested members can discuss.
We will see whether this happens in a grassroots manner, or if it requires a formal delegate (on dYdX Chain) program.
On the one hand, it is true that delegates can attract stake, but I do not believe that it is their direct responsibility to write to all VC firms and request delegation.
Personally, I would prefer that potential delegates focus on contributing to the utility of the protocol, as you described in the second paragraph.
Yeah I think if a delegate shows up on the Forums and Discord and from time to time mentions that supporters can stake with X to help him, this might be an option.
Alternatively, delegates could get stake directly from the staking dashboard and then negotiate with Validatorsā¦
That would need to be developed first, though.
Yeah. I have a hard time believing that the community actually cares though.
What the experience learns from the ecosystem is that technical developments are awarded with a lot of delegations (from both teams as well as individuals) and where more soft factors (marketing, community, governance) are only slowly picking up. There are some exceptions though, but most validators offering soft services are not found in the top of the rankings. So the big question is whether the individual delegators will do the effort of bringing their funds to a separate location where potentiall they need to delegate their funds.
That can only be countered if the rewards (inflation / staking rewards) of the chain are also directed towards Endorsed Delegates.
The challenge, as I perceive it, is that building an active community is not an overnight process. In my view, the process within the dydx community abruptly came to a halt when the ambassador program concluded.
What incentive does a non-stakeholder have to frequent a forum and participate in discussions or make suggestions? For stakeholders, it is often easier to address any issues in a non-public setting.
If the openly expressed opinions of community members are disregarded, if these members do not have the opportunity to grow with the project, and if they do not benefit from the projectās growth, such individuals will inevitably leave and seek to apply their skills and time elsewhere. This is why no one writes or poses questions.
There exists an information asymmetry due to the lack of public discourse