Contingent Staking should be added to Cardano.

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Con: The architecture of staking on Cardano requires that a public staking key form part of the address at which all staked ADA resides. Were Contingent Staking implemented it would be possible for anyone to see whether or not a transaction is to/from an address staked to a non-compliant SPO. Regulators could specify that transactions to/from addresses staked to non-compliant SPOs must not be processed by compliant SPOs and/or lead to tainted coins that CEX/regulated services refuse to accept.

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Con: An analogy for the slippery slope argument would be vehicle "kill switches". It has been technically feasible to implement kill switches for *decades* now, and yet governments never mandated car makers to put them in. This is even though governments have long viewed vehicles as dangerous instruments that require many regulations (speed limits, safety devices, drunk driving laws etc). It wasn't until GM proved kill switches to be cheap/easy that government mandated it across ALL future cars.

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Pro: 5) New Business Models and Compliance (see details in the "quote")

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Pro: 3) More SPOs, More Decentralisation (see details in the "quote")

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Con: CS adds complexity to staking by allowing SPOs to choose which stakeholders to accept or deny delegation from. This may confuse users who have to understand different criteria for delegation. This could lead to reduced participation and network security. Governments enforcing different laws on the chain would make it even more complicated for SPOs who may have to comply with multiple regulatory requirements. This increased complexity could result in less participation and less network security.

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Pro: 2) No Trade-offs (see details in the "quote")

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Con: A lot of people have forgotten that the purpose of stake is to secure the network, not to earn rewards. The whole security of a PoS network relies on the assumption that financial incentives align with the actions to secure the network. Furthermore, the ability to move stake freely and fast makes the security more robust and prone to attacks. Contingent staking removes this ability, skews the incentives to secure the network, and introduces new attack vectors from external actors.

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Pro: Governments will impose regulation regardless of a specific protocol's ability to do X or Y. Adding CS as an option for SPOs adds flexibility and that's it. This is not a discussion on KYC, but a discussion on adding options for SPOs. More options equates to a protocol that can adapt to changing landscapes. Neutrality should be the goal. Having options like CS provides a neutral position at the protocol level for an SPO to adhere to rules in their jurisdiction or not.

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Pro: This gives cardano delegators and stake pool operators another option. this is the beauty of decentralization. This is how we continue to evolve. To me this really has nothing to do with KYC, sure you could include KYC with CS and keep regulators like the SEC happy, but this is decentralization at it's core. This is Cardano's mission and I love it.

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Pro: Because Contingent Staking is not mandatory on the chain, smart contracts can require specific conditions based on levels of participation. Such as a tier based market for businesses vs consumers. This will allow for consumer protections etc related to smart contracts such as lending. This would allow a centralized business to more easily regulate as a DAO.

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Pro: Contingent staking elevates the rights of SPOs. They are the backbone of the networks infrastructure!

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Pro: Under extreme regulation, Cardano will be more resilient with Contingent Staking as opposed to 100% of SPOs being deemed non-compliant.

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Pro: 4) More Freedom, More Choice (see details in the "quote")

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Pro: 1) Aligned with Cardano's Vision (see details in the "quote")

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Pro: Limiting stakers to your pool as an SPO is a competitive disadvantage. Free market forces will ensure a strong cohort of anonymous pools. Adding the OPTION for contingent staking is an ideal solution for those wishing to remain in compliance of whatever rules are made while also allowing those who wish to subvert the rules to continue on as they are now...

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Pro: Contingent Staking is not the same thing as full KYC, in a lot of cases it could just involve checking an IP address, checking the nationality on a DID

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Pro: Contingent Staking enables new business models that would not be possible without it.

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Pro: 7) Charles Recommend (see details in the "quote")

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Pro: 6) Increase ADA Value (see details in the "quote")

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Pro: I agree. and in my opinion, to become a world operating financial system, you need ways to act within a regulated environments . We are not going to be the financial operating system of the world if we can't work with them.

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Pro: Legislators don't make up their mind based on the capabilities of any given blockchain. You can either comply with legislative requirements or you can risk to be sued. Unfavorable national crypto legislation is not something Cardano can solve, only the citizens of a country can influence this by voting accordingly

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Pro: Contingent Staking gives stake pool operators an additional tool that they can use to express their freedom of association.

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Pro: Contingent staking is about freedom, it doesn`t take nothing from anyone, you as a user/delegator will have more choices and they will matter way more, you wanna participate in traditional financial system, picks SPO`s that comply with the regulation you also need to comply, you want a free and permissionless financial system with all the consequences that may bring, go for it, go for traditional staking pools. CS will only open up Cardano for more people.

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Pro: 1. CS doesn't remove the existing staking method. 2. Its an additional tool in the toolbox for those who need it. 3. This gives choice to both the staker and the SPO. 4. Should there be laws which have some information requirements then it gives entities the OPTION to be compliant. Otherwise they might be forced to leave the ecosystem.

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Pro: Contingent Statking is a Game Changer. "Cons" not looking at the bigger picture. Maybe CBDCs will operate as a sidechain on day. Not a problem if we have CS... I LOVE this idea of CS

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Pro: Contingent Staking does NOT require permissionless block production to be removed/changed. Therefore, Cardano would remain permissionless for everyone to transact on. Permissioned staking is the proposed change; i.e. how delegators get to interact with a SPO.

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Pro: Contingent staking makes possible additional benefits to delegators without incurring counterparty risk to the SPO. Let’s say a company decides to run a stake pool for its employees and offer year-end bonuses proportional to the amount staked. Without CS, the company could renege on the agreement.

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Pro: There is absolutely nothing more that regulators can do with CS than what they can do today! Anyone who remotely understands how regulations works, can see that this is all an unnecessary fear mongering based on purely assumptions. On the other hand CS does open up a sea of new opportunities which many of us can't even comprehend. I am a realist & with this one, the reality is somewhere in between the two extremes! I want mass adoption with freedom. Extremes never help mass adoption!

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Pro: Not having Contingent Staking centralizes the network by homogenizing all SPOs.

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Pro: Contingent Staking enables people who value privacy/anonymity to share the blockchain with people who value compliance.

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Pro: CS gives more choice to SPOs and should be viewed as a feature that can add value / increase decentralisation to the network at the very closest point to the Ouroboros consensus protocol at the very tip of staking iceberg.

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Pro: Regulations will come regardless of one POS chain making a potential option available or not. Adding this feature will not suddenly create regulations, it simply allows options to react and allows choices when they come.

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Pro: Cardano has unique features that few other chains have. CS is yet another trick up its sleeve that gives some actors choices other blockchains don't have.

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Pro: Contingent staking makes Cardano more functional and adds options. The idea is to add functionality, not to remove functionality. If Cardano is going to be a "financial operating system" this type of functionality needs to be added.

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Pro: Cardano needs to evolve by adding relevant features to meet the needs rather than ossify.

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Pro: if the network is to have a neutral disposition then the choice must fall on the participants. limiting choice on the rules of association between participants and pushing delegation without recourse or options is not the neutral position.

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Pro: Contingent Staking is just another option on how to run a stake pool. The free market will guarantee that as long as there is demand for unrestricted stake pools, there will be unrestricted stake pools

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Con: Contingent staking could affect security parameters of the protcol through potential delegation patterns, and should be investigated before implemetned.

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Pro: There are sanctions in my country made against Russia due the war (Not comenting if it is good or bad, just as it is). My goverment is not against SPO per say but due to missing option of exclude ppl from Russia i could get in trouble. Also: We have pretty complex tax code that has a lot of exceptions for countries within EU borders. I would love to have the option to accept only delegates within its borders. Same goes as for same country customers and foregin customers

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Con: As a delegator, I'm concerned that an SPO might kick me out of the pool without notice.

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Con: CS could help mass adoption but we should be very careful. With CS big financial institutions will be able to run custodial CS SPOs as a business, offering much higher ROI than any other SPO, doesn’t matter if it's CS or not.Which will take the network to big centralization, run by few financial entities. That is why first we should implement some tools, parameters to secure decentralization. If not, what is the point to build New Financial System if it will be run by the old financial players?

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Pro: I am for CS. Why? I don't like the maxi type approach of exclusivity & cardano IMO is inclusive for all. Refusal to add capabilities for allowing the other side is following the maxi approach. Cardano doesn't follow but chooses to be different. One thing that makes cardano resilient & full of potential. Why settle for billions of value when you could have trillions of value. Adding this capability allows a path to adoption for many. Those against CS are still our brothers and sisters 🙏🏿

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Con: Proposing that users who do not wish to delegate to CS pools can simply self stake is absolutely preposterous. How can a delegate with a meager amount of ADA, staked to their own pool produce blocks? I'll wait....

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Pro: We should vote on it, blame simple. Yet I struggle to see how that would be harmfull since it owuld be optionnal. There is no chances SPO would need to check people are not from lets say the USA as no one can prove they are not something only they are something.

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Pro: The argument for CS for/against is a bit redundant. If the gov chooses KYC for all stake pool operators you will either have to comply or operate illegally. Cardano is built for regulated and unregulated entities, both have equal access to the Cardano Blockchain. As the user, you choose which entities you invest or Stake your ADA with. The underlying principle here is choice. The choice is your own that you can express by where you spend or delegate your ADA. Choice = Freedom.

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Pro: Government will implement regulation either way. So it's a good thing that this tool is made available as an option. Imagine if in the future, the government just decided that Staking needs KYC. If we don't have CS, then Cardano's adoption with exchanges in the US is doomed and cease to exist

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Pro: Cardano is designed to be a world financial operating system. The ability to KYC when required is a requirement if we ever expect to reach that goal. It is also better to be in control of the upgrades to the system than waiting to be told how we need to upgrade the system. We get to control how KYC is handled. It can be anonymous.

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Pro: Contingent staking offers the protocol the ability to be compliant with the current regulations which forbid many jurisdictions from doing business with sanctioned countries and persons. Failure to add this ability runs a very real risk that Cardano staking will be considered per se in violation of existing rules, and any argument of 'but it's software' will not fly as agencies and govts will say that the fundamental design of the protocol is illegal and thus Cardano as a whole will be injured.

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Pro: Governments will do what they want. Is this not happening? Less flexibility, or options in the protocol can result in exclusions from commercial opportunities, and blacklisting by governments since the protocol does not meet what is required or allowed by the government or the commercial entity.

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Pro: As a Stakepool operator that has been in the negative / nonprofitable side of operations (-$5000), since i started 10 months to ruining a node on the cardano blockchain. I vote yes on Contingent Staking. More / different choices for delegators seem like a good idea on which stake pool they decide to support . Sounds like a good idea to me.

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Pro: One possible approach to improving contingent staking on Cardano would be to incorporate it into the Plutus smart contract language, which is designed to allow for sophisticated and flexible smart contracts on the Cardano blockchain. This could enable stakers to write and deploy custom contracts that specify their contingent staking conditions, while also providing robust security and performance guarantees.

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Pro: CS gives more freedom and possiblities to SPOs, while not creating more risks for regulations of the protocol. CS in itself cannot enable KYC or AML as transactions are still permissionless. At best it could limit delegation but would not be an efficent way of regulation, and you are free to delegate elsewhere or start up your own pool.

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Pro: Yet to see the opponents articulate how we lose the slippery slope past CS that could be forced upon Cardano community without its own consent. No one can take away current staking protocol without Cardano community voting it out. But CS is a tool that would not only help bring on more mass adoption, but help with decentralization by allowing for more SPOs (universities, etc) that have legitimate reasons to maybe create tools to limit who stakes with them (even a simple age verification, etc).

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Pro: If governments decide that their citizen SPOs are not allowed to accept delegations from hostile governments, SPOs can use Contingent Staking to keep from having to shut down, leave the jurisdiction, or face charges.

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Con: It is talked about that SPOs should have the ability to decide with whom to do "business". The problem is, that a delegator is NOT a customer of the SPO. The SPO is offering a service to secure the protocol. SPOs are not in contact with delegators and that's for a good reason. It makes things at the base layer easy. Not having the choice is much less of a burden than having it. CS makes SPOs vulnerable because they had the choice to refuse and may be accused they did not do their due diligence.

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Pro: Arguments against Contigent staking seems to rely on theoretical ifs that when explored seems technically impossible.

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Pro: The act of staking is not a permissionless act it is something you as a delegator choose to do towards a staking pool. A pure permissionless staking would mean random delegation etc. Why should it be any different for the SPO to be able to choose who delegates to him? This is different from a transaction as anyone can do this at any time by signing own wallet.

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Pro: The regulation is going to arrive whether we like it or not, the question is whether the contract is made by a third party, therefore it may have flaws or bad intentions or the protocol does. example AXIO that had the ISPO at 100% and later when the ISPO ended they changed the rules of the game, returning the adas

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Pro: Average person who is not able to select the correct TV input, set up an internet connection, or use internet banking won't be using a regulatory non-compliant blockchain through DEXes. There are no masses waiting to fight the system. Regulatory compliance and clarity will only bring regulated businesses and institutions. If we want adoption, some compromises would be needed.

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Pro: Contingent Staking is inevitable, if Cardano should to become a relevant network for trade and commerce around the world:

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Pro: This offers flexibility to Cardano

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Con: This could be dangerous because it creates a precedent in implementing some privacy control on Cardano. Which is to say that later a government won't ask to implement more transparency and control tools in their favor and the argument that it cannot be done because it is a decentralized and permissionless blockchain will not be so valid anymore.

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Con: The existence of contingent staking will end up w/ many spos being required to take steps to make sure that those on sanction lists are not delegators. It's NOT the same as saying EVERY spo will be affected, but it's disingenuous to not acknowledge that many will. The US government is like the camel who stuck his nose in the tent and ended up living there. SPOs could end up having to issue 1099s as to the 'interest' aka rewards they get. (This does not negate my ultimate PRO stance however.)

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Con: The future of contingent staking could evolve into the sanction wars of today.

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Con: Opening your own SPO is a “straw man” argument. There are many reasons this is not possible, because of lack of access to infrastructure, financial means, and technical ability.

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Con: This whole CS, or not to CS, for the base layer of the Cardano ecosystem is everyone completely misunderstanding what happened last week with the SEC vs Kraken Staking for a profit. A private company. This is not what the base layer of Cardano (L1) is for. It's a security protocol and ledger. There is absolutely no need for CS to even be considered at the protocol level. We don't KYC to interact with IP addresses do we, or any of the other internet protocols.

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Con: Delegation is key to participating in consensus in Cardano right now. A lot of people do not have millions of ADA to open a block producing private stake pool. Adding 'optional' permissioned delegation would allow entities to enforce requirements at the base layer. If you value censorship resistance and neutrality, contingent staking is a step in the wrong direction. An example of giving options like this: Ethereum had optional privacy through Tornado Cash, now their blocks are OFAC compliant.

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Con: If SPOs have the power to deny delegations, governments will use that ability to force them to require KYC.

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Pro: Not only should we add CS, we should add it soon to lead on technological, governance and regulatory fronts. We need to be ahead of the regulations in order to help shape them.

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Con: Increasing complexity for running a stake pool is a cause for concern wrt decentralization.

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Pro: This may compel the network to redirect delegation from such pools.

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Con: You may be able to choose between a contingent staking or non-contingent staking pool, but you cannot choose which pool mints the block containing your transaction. We may run the risk of enabling individual stakepool operators to censor not just delegations, but also transactions that don't conform to whatever local jurisdiction that is regulating that pool. If this is the case, then we have now re-created the ETH OFAC madness on Cardano.

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Con: Prevent staking go against the core protocol idea of security and stablishes a first and foremost contradiction in the its design. Classifying stake as good or bad is a power that should be left out of primary system

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Con: In current reward formula the measure to evaluate a honest SPO is pledge, the higher the pledge the more the SPO is trusted by the protocol. Implementing contingent staking makes it easier to introduce new incentives that further swing the pendulum of evaluating a stake pool operator's honesty into social measure. It increases the complexity of the "staking game" and thus introduce new attack vectors to the network.

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Pro: CS != permission of transactions and not against decentralization. SPO's choose protocol parameter for fees, they choose to upgrade nodes, they choose to run a node - CS will give them more choices. System is still decentralized as any pool can choose to participate the way the like.

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Con: Big US SPOs may have their lucrative businesses affected as stake moves off-shore.

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Con: Cardano doesn't need Contingent Staking because you can already do all of things it aims to do using private pools instead.

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Pro: I LOVE KYC. i wanna be KYC'ed up the a**. Why shouldn't i be able to? who are you to tell me how i interact on the network? you can have your freedoooom pool to stake with. why shouldn't i have mine? i wanna KYC on every pool that'll allow me to on every jurisdiction. what's it to you?

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Con: Pt. 1 of 2: Does it set a deleterious precedent on the fundamental principal of enabling a global, permission less blockchain? Whilst the concept of enabling CS is not a bad idea, in that it would allow "compliance" with regulators in say the US, it is the driving force behind it that could do much longer term damage if this precedent, say, became a framework for deciding who could run a staking pool.

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Con: Changing how stakepools operate at a fundamental level could potentially introduce a social loophole where an attacker could exploit how the new game theory dynamics work to potentially compromise Cardano's network.

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Con: If a jurisdiction forbids such harmless act as operating a stake pool, the jurisdiction should be fought, not accomodated

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Con: The choice to make delegation a right to all ADA holders is not the best for business but it’s the best for the humans the system was built for. If we are going to make a new financial system for the future it must be predicted on principles like equity and access. CS will disenfranchise some members of our ecosystem.

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Con: Pt. 2 of 2: Or taken further, deciding upon who could buy, or trade ADA, or write something to the blockchain that went against the [enter your authoritarian jurisdiction here] or their "narrative". Where do you stop once you open yourself up to being beholden to the global regulatory bully boys who do not want permission less and independent blockchains that threaten their vested interests and control...

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Con: If majority of stakeholders enable CS with a low list of participants, the protocol security will decrease

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Con: The potential risks outweigh the potential benefits.

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Con: Because it would be ahead of a regulation in which you do not know if as this would happen, not have the certainty of such a ban. Once there is such regulation, openly expose the proposals, which would not be only from the technical point of view but that sustain the philosophy of the network, many people are here for that reason, perhaps they do not represent the capital of the few who move the price, in any case if it is privileged as a business system, Its adoption will be only corporate

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Con: It will distort luck if large holding is congregated into CS pools. You could see the majority of block production from private CS pools only.

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Con: Contingent Staking introduces additional censorship possibilities onto the Cardano blockchain.

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Con: CS is optional as far as vaccines were optional during covid. People lost their income, citizenship and freedom for keeping their bodily integrity. We can't be decentralised if we make our changes to pander to a central authority. We must at most make this a L2 Solution.

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Con: There is no meaningful mechanism available for distinguishing delegates from each other. Until DIDs, SSI, and ZK technology are standardized we should table CS

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Pro: Cardano forever

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Con: Contingent Staking should not be added to Cardano directly because it would be better on a sidechain or L2.

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Con: SPO will have individual liability contingency staking will allow authorities to pick away at SPO one at a time one audit at a time. Where if SPO’s do not have decision making power with delegation and it’s a process level, protocol designed, consensus mechanisms SPOs will be a unified block because all are acting as fungible source of blockchain inflation.

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Con: Contingent Staking will add KYC to Cardano on the L1.

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Con: CS removes the ability of over saturation as a means of preventing malicious behavior or protest by community. This is a tool many small fish could use to exercise their voice.

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Con: How does this Bank the unbanked?

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Con: What is the reason for the protocol to be concerned with the ethical standards of a delegate?

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Con: We already can’t trust the deep state military industrial complex, we already had Daedalus Turbo. Which may or may not be from oligarchs aimed at killing freedom. We cannot give them more tools to our demise before critical mass of adoption.

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Con: Governments will force pools that use Contingent Staking to reject blocks/transactions from pools that don't use it.

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Con: Allowing this would be a novice mistake, it would be like shooting ourselves in our feet. It is to open a large Pandora's box that will allow strangers to impose on us and force more things. Contingency staking would be just the beginning, they are taking us from our noses to their land, get ready.

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Con: I don't like the idea of this control being in the hands of the SPO. It is not transparent. This type of control may come with unnecessary responsibility - stake pools could decline. This opens up more questions for me. How will this impact performance? Will it lead to more regulation at this level? Are there alternatives? What are the alternatives? Can we vote on alternatives? Does KYC integrate with this? Is it really necessary at this time? Are SPOs really complaining? What's the big picture?

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Pro: It will be impossible for the ecosystem to grow without regulation. If we don't have the ability to serve dapp developers along with real use cases, there will be no ecosystem.

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Pro: It will be impossible for the ecosystem to grow without regulation. If we don't have the ability to serve dapp developers along with real use cases, there will be no ecosystem.

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Con: In my humble opinion, the whole purpose of a decentralized and permissionless system (such as Cardano) is to make regulation IRRELEVANT, not comply with it. Instead of making regulation possible, we should focus on making the protocol more resilient and more capable of running in adversarial conditions (with privacy and anonymity enhancing technologies).

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Con: Showing the slippery slope steps shouldn't be the responsibility of those how oppose the change. The arguments for the change are valid. However, the requirement to not increase regulation risk is also valid. So those for the change must show that the change does not add risk. I haven't seen that yet.

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Con: Cardano deserves a rigorous approach for this problem too. We should model it and study it carefully before making any decission. Not a Con, just a thougth.

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Con: It wasn’t the tea sales tax what triggered the American Revolution since the people were paying that tax already but the competitive advantage given to one English company over the colony merchants to collect the tax and sale to other countries. How this is not a competitive advantage for pool operators?

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Con: Individuals should have the custody of their identities, not stake pools. Other trust less methods of identification should be developed. Otherwise stake pools will replace current institutions in their roles.

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Con: As mentioned many times goverment will force pools and companys staking to Contigent Staking. This alone can make higher rewards on CS SPO so it leads more stakers there and will finally will bring cencorship to ADA because there are not enough free and uncensored SPOs

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Con: The argument that Charles has brought with "Charles Chicken" in video is bullshit in view of cardano, because a delegator can never harm the pool with the delegation. Even when Russia delegates to a Ukraine pool a fee is paid for pools work and for freedom purposes its not interesting where to money came from

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Pro: Yes, but not without making sure to spend the effort to educate that this is OPTIONAL to be set by an SPO for added flexibility of varying use cases and collaborate with wallets to clearly distinguish "open" and "contingent" pools from each other to try not to worsen the UX for delegators too much (it will get more complicated either way). Crypto media will quickly weaponize this as "Cardano becomes a permissioned blockchain" hurting our perception, if we don't have clear preemptive messaging.

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Con: Yes, I see the use cases. However, contingent staking should not be implemented as a layer 1 solution. We should first think hard and long about improving first implementations on layer 2 solutions (see dcspark's first quick implementation) for contingent staking. The base layer meant to secure the network should remain permissionless.

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Pro: CS adds functionality and governance at its core is about evolving with the times and beeing able to evolve the protocol. Not adding CS is a potential slippery slope where ecosystem is afraid of any new L1 functionality aka same as how bitcoin purelalists do not want any new functionality away from the ideals of the original whitepapers of electronic cash not electronic gold. Cash usecases and permissions evolve with time and technology.

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Pro: As a result, from the regulatory point of view, if the sec strongly demands the application of regulations anyway Coin networks will be asked to create an environment according to legal standards, whether it is Layer 1 or Layer 2, but I think that one way to respond flexibly by introducing CS and taking a long time to suit the ecosystem

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Pro: CS is a double signed stake by delegator and pool. Changing citizenship cant be blocked by CS once its signed nor what transactions a delegator use so fears of KYC and KYT on L1 are overblown as it is not possible.

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Con: CS provides flexibility for SPOs to offer new services and adjust business models this adds flexibility to the staking process, but this is not directly related to Cardano's goal of adding expressiveness to blockchain tech. Expressiveness is the ability to write complex smart contracts in a safe and efficient manner using programming languages like Plutus. While CS indirectly contributes to expressiveness, this can be achieved through apps and smart contracts.

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Con: Contingent Staking (CS) enable SPOs to deny access to consensus through their pool, making them susceptible to government control. Governments can mandate SPOs to accept or deny delegation to particular stakeholders, surveil ADA holders' identities, and provide lists of approved stakeholders, effectively using SPOs as a tool for enforcement. These practices would give governments significant control and undermine the decentralization values of Cardano.

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Con: While some supporters of Contingent Staking (CS) compare it to businesses' right of association and admission rules, this is not an accurate parallel as SPOs provide a service to the network, not directly to stakeholders. Furthermore, in real life, discrimination is prohibited, and there are legal protections in place. However, with CS, SPOs can deny delegation for any reason, fair or unfair, and there are no safeguards against discrimination.

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Con: SPO management of CS requests should be determined & published. How will the burden of timely responses of delegation requests impact SPOs and delegators? Will SPOs have ability to reject delegations after initial acceptance has been granted to account for possible shifts in acceptance criteria status? How will this impact live stake vs active stake for the delegator?

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Pro: This is no brainer. More functionality increases the the potential for....more creativity, more adoption, more development, more capital investment. There are plenty of coins out there with no functionality. Do we really want to be another Dogecoin that does not do anything.

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Con: Ja

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Con: A community vote on CS should be coupled with an egalitarian method for the community to prioritize its urgency against other critical upgrades required to increase Dapp development, network participation, and decentralization

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Pro: If I understand correctly, CS can be used as options to purpose staking pools. Stake pool operator can choose the purpose so the delegators. I'd like to see rewards used on environment issues for example. With CS its fixed with contract not only words of pool operators.

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Con: History should answer this governments we'll seize your assets if they do not like what you have to say https://www.newsweek.com/banks-have-begun-freezing-accounts-linked-trucker-protest-1680649

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Con: This would be bad system architecture: Never implement a specific function for business assosiations on layer one. As in the past keep layer one pure off from those specific functions. Layer one has to be a rock for the safety of the settlement of block and should never open for potential new attack vectors. Keep it pure. Where is the peer review process for this heavy surgery in cardanos system architecture, where is the paper for it?

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Con: But how about the privacy and the power for the own data? In the past I often heard the argument that it has to come to an end that amazon, google. ... has the power over personal data and protokols like cardano are the solution giving people the power over their data back. With CS we give the power for our data out of our hands once again and we do not know at all what happens with it.

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Con: CS is like Leaving Loaded Gun on the Table --------------------------------------- Who/how/when/exactly step by step will it be used? We don't know......... but it's RISKY ......... Especially when there is are organizations who see you as threat to their power. and are known to shoot people on your side (tornado cash, OFAC ETH blocks FATF etc.)

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Con: There is a argument to be had for CS regarding side-chain delegation, L2 utilization, or even certain DAPP access. But for the love of god. Leave Layer 1 agnostic. Do not ever give any individual, entity, business or government the ability to discriminate in any capacity whatsoever. You give one inch they will take a mile. How does nobody see this as the ultimate conclusion?

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Con: Why was Bitcoin so successful? Lets all repeat this together now class. Because...it...was...permissionless. Last time i checked i didn't have to provide my jurisdiction to the Bitcoin protocol asking for approval to mine.

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Con: Years of peer review and formal methods suddenly whisked aside. Can we not apply the same methodology to this decision before hastilly implementing it? What effect will this have on game theoritics. And how will this prevent wallet blacklisting for delegating to "non-complient" pools?

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Pro: It gives more options to the protocol.

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Pro: CS pools could add value to the ecosystem and align with the goals of integrating with the overall world framework of regulation while keeping core values intact. Existing pools cannot be turned into CS pools, they have allready signed delegation transsactions. CS alone cannot forfill KYC or KYT you can send in a permissionless way funds to any such addresses from any other address. In short the worries about CS being a slippery slope to KYC or KYT has little support when investigated further.

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Pro: CS increases the number of use cases available for business and entreprise, I'm in favor of the enlargement of audience and usage of Cardano. And for sure at least to keep the CS possibility within the protocol to not reduce the business cases already in place.

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Pro: A potentially overlooked benefit would be to maintain pools from reaching oversaturation which reduces rewards due to bandwagon effects or even potentially bad actors attempting to sabotage a pool as more adoption occurs in the long run.

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Pro: Choice is still an option. Staking is NOT required. I can choose to forgo staking a wallet and only lose out on a small % staking reward but, I can still earn interest in DeFi.

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Con: I might choose to forgo staking to help remain anonymous and lose out on a % staking reward and less people would secure the network

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Con: I would love CS if the US Gov, WEF, FATF, IMF, Big Tech other Global Powers, did not have global influence........ But they do....... Let's NOT give them an EASY PATH to MAKE CRYPTO JUST LIKE FIAT........... Show us that if all the world governments collaborated to implement KYC, that cardano would still have a majority non-kyc SPO's, then I think we'd not have a problem with CS.

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Pro: L1 Development and the addition of features should concentrate on capability and what it intends to achieve in the long run, barring any political points of view. It’s a global system that far outreaches the needs of any single authority. Contingent staking adds unique capability that enables a plethora of use cases. At the end of the day, it adds choice. No one is forced to use a CS pool. Pro choice.

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Con: Do we have an example workflow of using a multi-sig transaction, which has a payload to support KYC for complying with regulation laws, that we can use to evaluate how CS would work? This workflow demos integration with OFAC service, has a validity interval, responds with error message, etc. Perhaps, a simple concept of how CS would work is not even going to meet our needs, in case the SEC requires deep checking, detailed reporting, etc. This con is basically- "do we understand the problem".

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Pro: the Cons crowd completely disregard the delegators in the equation. they act like delegators are nothing but automatons in the whole process and that SPO's decide the delegation on their pools. Give more credit to delegators. nothing changes as far as consensus and block production goes.

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Con: Most of SPO stays in US an Europe - it’s not good give government more power to control Ada blockchain.

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Con: It’s bad because if CSP operators start to block ip address of non CSP after some times all non CSP destroyed.(non CSP = normal stack pool)

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Pro: Rebrand contingent staking as flexible staking adaptable for diverse use cases.

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Con: SPO's are yielding ADA for ADA, ADA is asset and the SEC has no business with our SPOs. KYC should be handled by something like Atala PRISM for the convenience of businesses and DAOs who need it.

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Pro: As a delegator/non-operator member of the community, it seems to me a central point of the CS or not debate is keeping the base layer open to everyone. Can a base layer open to everyone be guaranteed? Is it a question of philosophical purity? Without CS, when regulations require some to interact only over KYC, the base layer will not be open to all. With CS, perhaps it is more likely to remain open to most.wholehuman.emanatepresence.com

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Con: Contingent Staking is not necessary. For the small subset of pools that need this feature, 100% margin pools + smart contracts can be leveraged to distribute pool rewards to those that meet the criteria. Those who don’t meet the pools criteria are distributed to the pool owner or back to other qualified delegators. The smart contract can be made a standard and integrate with Prism. The same effect is delivered without having to change protocol level security assumptions.

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Pro: we can add a percentage to contingent staking. for example, only 20% of all active stack pools can be contingent staking.

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Pro: Contingent Staking option is crucial for the survival of Cardano. It increases the adaptability to the difference of regulations in different countries.

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Pro: Yes, it's a privilege for people who want to abide by their government's laws.

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Con: Staking is an essential part of the Cardano eco system. Do we really want to add business agreements at this layer? Maybe business agreements should be kept with conducting real business on Cardano and not implemented at this layer. If we don't want criminals using Cardano, then do it as part of the KYC or some other identity layer. In the example that Charles gave in his CS video using the crazy man, not only do we not want his money, we don't want him in the store. Keep him and criminals out.

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Con: We should carefully consider the consequences of empowering the SPOs too much. They could end up looking more like a Fiat bank than a partner. The more I think about CS the more I am against it. If/When we have to implement KYC, let's see what is required. We implement CS now, how would we revert back if we find it does not work the way it is intended.

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Pro: I wish there were a neutral column to just voice comments/questions. This is about control. SPO decides which delegates will participate in their pool. This could open up competition between SPOs. Contingent Staking is a business agreement. Will the SPO be able to remove delegates from the stake pool at will? Will government require the SPO to disclose who their delegates are and the awards they earn? Will it lead to blacklisting unwanted delegates? CON: What other doors will this open?

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Con: CS will lessen the security of the chain (and value of ADA by proxy) as more will shut down their pools like i just did.

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Con: What kind of metadata should be in the certificate that SPOs will have to review before accepting/denying the transaction, if not user specific information like your name, geolocation, country, etc ? This takes away anonymity from the base layer.

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Con: Prior dependencies must be fulfilled before implementing Contingent Staking.

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Con: This feature may block legitimate ADA holders earning interest from their stake

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Con: Cardano doesn’t need CS to be more fully decentralized. This more “straw manning” by proponents. We have plenty of willing SPOs that are closing pools due to lack of block protection. We don’t need to find more providers we need to fully support those that already exist.

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Con: Loss of permission-less, censorship resistant delegation. Introduces human bias to the layer 1 and creates a mechanism for a powerful entity to centralize the network.

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Con: CS is a binary question, push or no push. CS is turning block production from a public good to a private enterprise. Net neutrality example of public infrastructure right to all citizens.

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Con: SPOs work for the ecosystem that sustains their livelihood. Like a farmer tends the land that bears their fruits. ADA is a commodity produced by carful stewardship of the blockchain. CS is adoption of securities classification.

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Con: There is no such thing as separate and equal. How does one protect the minority from being excluded. To deny access to stake privileges because of preference is a kind to segregation.

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Con: A simple optional single stake key veto transaction preserves SPO right of refusal without adding mandatory contingent multisig to every stake transaction and without adding a regulatory capture attack vector to staking.

Selected thesis

Contingent Staking should be added to Cardano.

Pro claim 1, children below

Under extreme regulation, Cardano will be more resilient with Contingent Staking as opposed to 100% of SPOs being deemed non-compliant.

Pro claim 2, children below

Contingent Staking enables new business models that would not be possible without it.

Pro claim 3, children below

If governments decide that their citizen SPOs are not allowed to accept delegations from hostile governments, SPOs can use Contingent Staking to keep from having to shut down, leave the jurisdiction, or face charges.

Pro claim 4, children below

Contingent Staking gives stake pool operators an additional tool that they can use to express their freedom of association.

Pro claim 5, children below

Contingent Staking enables people who value privacy/anonymity to share the blockchain with people who value compliance.

Pro claim 6, children below

Not having Contingent Staking centralizes the network by homogenizing all SPOs.

Pro claim 7, children below

Cardano needs to evolve by adding relevant features to meet the needs rather than ossify.

Pro claim 8, children below

Cardano has unique features that few other chains have. CS is yet another trick up its sleeve that gives some actors choices other blockchains don't have.

Pro claim 9, children below

Regulations will come regardless of one POS chain making a potential option available or not. Adding this feature will not suddenly create regulations, it simply allows options to react and allows choices when they come.

Pro claim 10, children below

Cardano forever

Pro claim 11, children below

Pro claim 12, children below

Contingent staking elevates the rights of SPOs. They are the backbone of the networks infrastructure!

Pro claim 13, children below

if the network is to have a neutral disposition then the choice must fall on the participants. limiting choice on the rules of association between participants and pushing delegation without recourse or options is not the neutral position.

Pro claim 14, children below

Contingent Staking does NOT require permissionless block production to be removed/changed. Therefore, Cardano would remain permissionless for everyone to transact on. Permissioned staking is the proposed change; i.e. how delegators get to interact with a SPO.

Pro claim 15, children below

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Pro claim 17, children below

Arguments against Contigent staking seems to rely on theoretical ifs that when explored seems technically impossible.

Pro claim 18, children below

This offers flexibility to Cardano

Pro claim 19

Pro claim 20, children below

Pro claim 21, children below

Pro claim 22, children below

Contingent Statking is a Game Changer. "Cons" not looking at the bigger picture. Maybe CBDCs will operate as a sidechain on day. Not a problem if we have CS... I LOVE this idea of CS

Pro claim 23, children below

Contingent staking makes Cardano more functional and adds options. The idea is to add functionality, not to remove functionality. If Cardano is going to be a "financial operating system" this type of functionality needs to be added.

Pro claim 24

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Pro claim 26, children below

This may compel the network to redirect delegation from such pools.

Pro claim 27, children below

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Pro claim 32

I agree. and in my opinion, to become a world operating financial system, you need ways to act within a regulated environments . We are not going to be the financial operating system of the world if we can't work with them.

Pro claim 33

CS gives more choice to SPOs and should be viewed as a feature that can add value / increase decentralisation to the network at the very closest point to the Ouroboros consensus protocol at the very tip of staking iceberg.

Pro claim 34, children below

Governments will do what they want. Is this not happening? Less flexibility, or options in the protocol can result in exclusions from commercial opportunities, and blacklisting by governments since the protocol does not meet what is required or allowed by the government or the commercial entity.

Pro claim 35

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Pro claim 38

Contingent Staking is inevitable, if Cardano should to become a relevant network for trade and commerce around the world:

Pro claim 39

Contingent Staking is just another option on how to run a stake pool. The free market will guarantee that as long as there is demand for unrestricted stake pools, there will be unrestricted stake pools

Pro claim 40

Pro claim 41, children below

Contingent Staking is not the same thing as full KYC, in a lot of cases it could just involve checking an IP address, checking the nationality on a DID

Pro claim 42, children below

Yes, it's a privilege for people who want to abide by their government's laws.

Pro claim 43

Pro claim 44

Contingent Staking option is crucial for the survival of Cardano. It increases the adaptability to the difference of regulations in different countries.

Pro claim 45, children below

we can add a percentage to contingent staking. for example, only 20% of all active stack pools can be contingent staking.

Pro claim 46

Government will implement regulation either way. So it's a good thing that this tool is made available as an option. Imagine if in the future, the government just decided that Staking needs KYC. If we don't have CS, then Cardano's adoption with exchanges in the US is doomed and cease to exist

Pro claim 47

Pro claim 48

I LOVE KYC. i wanna be KYC'ed up the a**. Why shouldn't i be able to? who are you to tell me how i interact on the network? you can have your freedoooom pool to stake with. why shouldn't i have mine? i wanna KYC on every pool that'll allow me to on every jurisdiction. what's it to you?

Pro claim 49, children below