Decreasing number of active bakers

[Vlad_Citadel.one]

Hi, I’m a Community Lead of Citadel.one Delegation Service and Tezocracy Baker. Earlier I expressed my concern about decreasing number of bakers on reddit, and this thread caused a lively discussion, so, I’m crossposting the message here:

Earlier we published a fresh Weekly Metrics Report on Tezos blockchain.

And regarding the report I’d like to express my personal concern about the dropping number of active delegators.We’ve been making this report since August, and I noticed that active bakers amount is constantly decreasing, while the number of delegators is growing. August 21 there were 418 active bakers and 65,446 delegators, now there are 403 and 72,665 respectively. You can check all our reports:

Aug 21 https://twitter.com/CitadelDAO/status/1297884312889634816?s=20

Aug 28 https://twitter.com/CitadelDAO/status/1300562440632107008?s=20

Sep 04 https://twitter.com/CitadelDAO/status/1301891538490994691?s=20

Oct 03 https://twitter.com/CitadelDAO/status/1312372822455574531?s=20

Oct 15 https://twitter.com/CitadelDAO/status/1317066814078259205?s=20

Has this issue been addressed before? Is it fine?

Tezos is an extensive and strong project, but it seems to me that the ecosystem may not be very friendly for new bakers. I also noticed it’s really hard even for us to get noticed by the community and offer new products, content and simply participate in community life.

[gorfl]

Bottom line is the interest in Tezos is falling, especially after some other projects launched(like DOT). What can we do about it? We as users and “members” of the Tezos community not so much more. We are already advertising Tezos on daily basis via comments, retweets, blog posts, etc. Problem is this is happening in a circle of people that are already in Tezos.
I think that the only solution to stop this decline is a better brand management and brand building. We already have the best blockchain with awesome devs out there. The only thing missing is better brand positioning.
And ofc the implementation of privacy and finality into Tezos ASAP.

[Tezos-Hunter]

I don’t think this is concerning.
It’s not easy to be a good Public Baker, and i think a lot of bakeries are starting to see that. It’s not just about making blocks and regular payments while charging a small fee (which is already hard), but i can see a lot of delegators choosing their bakeries also based on more factors, like:

• Community engagement;
• Participation in the governance (which need some study and research to do it properly);
• Other activities by the bakerie (like Tezos.Rio developing TEZOSJ_SDK or even Citadel.one reports);

There is also the “competition” against exchanges. It’s easier for newbies to simply hold their XTZ in the same place where they bought it (and a lot more factors, of course).
The competition is getting fierce, so i think this is a phase where we will some bakeries closing down.
There was a impressive growth in the number of delegators, and i think that’s what matters for the network at this point.

This number will go up again when other numbers go up, like transactions made per block (fees) and the price of $xtz.