In the last two months I’ve noticed several concerning actions from multiple collators (mainly new ones) on both Moonbeam & Moonriver that I suspect the same entity operates.
My suspicion is that they are exploiting their anonymity. None of them have any way to communicate with - no website, no Discord, no Element, no email and no Telegram - absolutely nothing. Therefore, they are using different identities to break the four-collator rule per individual/entity.
Proving such an accusation is difficult because collaboration between collators is permitted (I have done it myself multiple times and am still doing it). However, some of their actions are so obvious that this is much more than a regular collaboration, leaving no room for doubt (for me at least).
I’ll give a few examples without naming the collators (but I’ll share everything internally with the Foundation):
1. A single address that bonds the same collators and is well-coordinated when nominating, revoking, etc. This isn’t just random bonding, but actively bonding, revoking, etc., always involving the same collators and at the same time.
2. Different collators are sending their rewards to the same address. Why would they do that unless this address belongs to them? some can claim it’s maybe a whale that is getting paid by those collators, however it doesn’t look like a whale account, but more like another shared one.
3. Linked proxy accounts between collators. Again, why would the proxy account of Collator A be linked to an address associated with Collator B?
4. Collators deliberately chilling themselves or going offline to support “other” collator. This behavior is the worst because it hurts nominators’ rewards and innocent collators. To illustrate: let’s say a collator wants to help a “different” collator on the waiting list but lacks sufficient tokens to do so. The first collator then chills itself for a short period, allowing the “other” collator to become active and gain votes. When the “other” collator is strong enough, the chilled collator returns online and kicks out another innocent collator.
IMHO, All these behaviors are abnormal and show no respect to nominators, collators and the network.
Assume these actions came from collators with basic identity; in that case the Foundation (and anyone else) could easily contact them and ask questions. However, when these actions come from accounts with no identity, it raises even more questions.
Therefore, as a first step I suggest that all collators should have at least one communication channel with their nominators and the Moonbeam Foundation. This should be strict at the protocol level; without it you cannot become a collator.
Secondly, I’d allow the Moonbeam Foundation to retain the right to interview any collator it believes is misbehaving or performing poorly - especially those with 4 nodes and the new ones that recently appeared on both the Moonbeam & Moonriver networks.
I’ll be happy to get your support here.
Best,
Rafael