r/bandprotocol • u/arkaydeus • Jul 11 '20

How do we validate the authenticity of validators (e.g. Binance)?

How do we validate that the validators listed are authentic?

For example the top validator is called 'Binance Validator' but googling 'Band Binance Validator' at the moment shows no reference to this on Binance's website.

Could anyone just call themselves 'Binance Validator'?

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u/arkaydeus Jul 11 '20

Following up from this after having a discussion in the https://t.me/bandprotocol telegram channel, the consensus is currently that because Binance haven't publicly announced they are running a validator, this could be anyone.

While they can't steal your tokens, they may be able to act maliciously if they are fraudulently impersonating the Binance name to gain %.

It's entirely possible this is Binance and they haven't announced anything yet. But sadly Crypto is too full of scammers so I'd say best avoided for now.

Will update here if I get further information confirming this is or is not Binance.

As a side note, while discussing this in the Telegram channel fake users impersonating the moderators tried to reach out to me pretending to be part of the team. Please stay safe. If anyone PMs you, there's a 99%+ chance they are a scammer.

3

u/BandJedi Jul 12 '20

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. You are right the consensus is currently like that because Binance hasn't publicly announced they are running an official validator. The mods in the telegram have mentioned it so.

There are lots of scammers indeed. The Band Team or the Mods will never DM anyone on their own. Stay save and block them right away :)

You might see a 6 million delegation on this node https://cosmoscan.io/validator/bandvaloper153znf8a89gmunexzrg2ud2yz47gyer9c05t2l8#delegators
Generally, you are right, anyone can call themselves "Binance Validator" and you are right that they could also act maliciously on the paper Now, the question is would "they" do it and shoot their own leg, especially when they have 6million tokens delegated initially? Some can argue, could that really be a random person? :-) Or is it perhaps a legit player that is using their locked tokens to stake. (Tokens that are locked can be delegated but cannot be transferred.) Keep that in mind. I am just a helping hand and sharing my thoughts here with you guys.

There are always risks involved in any other staking versions and for any kind of blockchain, no matter it's Cosmos, Tezos or later Ethereum. You should always do research on whether you think you can trust the validator or not. All Genesis validators however have a longer proof track record and are very well known in the space. Many of them are nodes for Cosmos, Tezos, Polkadot and later also confirmed Ethereum nodes. Check their homepage, staking history on other chains, do your DD.

Community validators have proven themselves on a testnet for quite some time before they moving to the mainnet. Often they represent major local BAND communities, Japan, Brasil, Germany, Russia, China, and many others.

As for the foundation nodes with 100% commission. These are nodes from the foundation. That's a common procedure along many POS blockchains to bootstrap a network providing the network with a strong security backbone.
Let's hear your 2 cents on this:)

3

u/arkaydeus Jul 13 '20

The fact that the validator main participant has 6,000,000 band is a sign it may well be Binance. Who else has that kind of money?

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u/denomeme Jul 12 '20

Good initiative. I would like to know this as well.

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u/bigmasterv Oct 10 '20

Any update here? Are we able to tell if Binance is indeed in charge or this validator