A Polkadot referendum has authorized a 100-validator reduction in the network’s active set, leaving a ceiling of 500 and potentially changing which nominators earn staking rewards in each era.
Referendum 1966 was confirmed at 12:49 a.m. ET (5:49 UTC) Sunday, Nov. 8, with 99.9% support. About 48.14 million Polkadot (DOT) votes favored the measure, compared with 36,388.1 DOT against it.
Block 33,814,400 on the Relay Chain is the scheduled point for the approved call to take effect. The 500-validator limit begins in the era after enactment; when the next election runs determines which election first uses the new ceiling.
Polkadot updates its active-validator election each era, a cycle of about 24 hours. A nominator may miss staking rewards for an era if every validator they chose falls outside the active group.
The measure also reduces the validator-incentive allocation from the Dynamic Allocation Pool in step with the smaller active set. It modifies settings on the Relay Chain and Coretime chain as well.
This is the first stage of a wider plan to lower the active set to 400 and then 320 over three weeks. Those later cuts still need approval. The proposal says validator operators would also have to run collators on Asset Hub and People Chain, while supplying Polkadot App with light-node access and RPC services.
