Since NodeSet revealed the Constellation project in early 2023, we’ve been hard at work implementing the designs laid out in the original litepaper. Along the way, we partnered with Gravita to launch a StakeWise v3 integration and onboarded over 250 operators.
Today, we’d like to share some exciting news and provide an update on the progress of Constellation.
Constellation and NodeSet
First, let’s clarify some details about the relationship between NodeSet and Constellation. Constellation is a free/libre open source software project, and NodeSet is the development team solely responsible for the ideation, design, and development of Constellation.
When a web3 protocol is developed the developer or an affiliated entity (e.g. foundation) often deploys a canonical public version of it, with forks or private versions deployed as appropriate by the same entity or other teams. However, NodeSet is a decentralized infrastructure provider, not a DeFi platform or protocol foundation. While we believe Constellation represents a unique and compelling LST design, NodeSet is not planning to release Constellation on Ethereum mainnet as our own product. In addition to the multitude of regulatory complexities involved in creating and releasing this kind of product, we want to be focused on doing what we do best — providing decentralized infrastructure.
Of course, there are DeFi specialists who are excited about the possibilities that Constellation affords. We are excited to announce that Gravita is committed to launching a public instance of Constellation as their own product, and based on our expertise with this system, they have chosen NodeSet as their service provider. In practice, this means that Gravita is taking full responsibility for their deployment of Constellation, while NodeSet provides administrative support, and we will refer operators from our community to Gravita to provide validation services.
Constellation Roles
Original Roles
As you’ll recall from the original litepaper, Constellation defines several user roles: operators, xrETH and xRPL (LST) holders, and an administrator. The administrator is responsible for protocol stability and may adjust various protocol parameters such as liquidity reserves and RPL collateralization ratios, while operators create Rocket Pool minipools using the ETH and RPL assets deposited by xrETH and xRPL holders.
New Role: Treasurer
To better fit the real-world separation of responsibilities between fee owners and service providers, we’ve added another role to Constellation: the treasurer, which controls all of the collective, protocol-wide fees. More information has been added to our WIP documentation of Constellation.
This allows for the code to reflect the real relationship that Gravita has with NodeSet as their service provider, but it also allows for more flexible types of organizational architectures where others may use the Constellation technology to create their own approach to second-layer staking. For example, in another deployment, the Administrator could be one segment of a DAO made up of the system’s operators, and the treasurer could be another segment that is responsible for protocol-wide incentives or ecosystem growth.
Ultimately, the flexibility afforded by this separation of administrative duties and collective fee aggregation makes Constellation a better foundation for any kind of second-layer staking project on Rocket Pool, strengthening its value as a public good.
Constellation Launch Status
We’re pleased to report that our work on Constellation is nearly complete, and independent security researchers have already begun reviewing the smart contracts. In the next two weeks, NodeSet will open-source the repository and launch a Holesky testnet. After community testing and review, Constellation will be ready for deployment on mainnet. Gravita is planning to launch their version of Constellation in October 2024, so stay tuned for more details!
