Polygon Labs, the driving force behind the Polygon (MATIC) network, has recently proposed a significant change aimed at bolstering the network's decentralization. The proposal, submitted by Vasanti Rode and Parvez Shaikh, members of the Polygon Labs Validators Support Team, suggests increasing the number of validator slots from the current 105 to a maximum of 125.

The team believes that this expansion will lead to a more geographically diverse distribution of nodes, reduce stake concentration, and improve the network's Nakamoto coefficient, which measures the minimum number of validators required to compromise the network. The plan involves increasing the validator slots in phases of five, allowing for careful monitoring of the network's response to these changes.

However, some validators have expressed skepticism about the proposal, citing that the main issue is poor stake redistribution rather than a lack of validators. According to Smart Stake Analytics, the bottom 70 validators control less than 10% of the network's voting power, with the bottom 40 controlling only 1%. This significant concentration of stake among a few validators indicates that the network's decentralization concerns are not solely due to the number of validators.

Smart Stake emphasized that increasing the validator slots without addressing stake redistribution would likely have little impact on decentralization. Another validator corroborated these comments, stating that the proposers have "the logic inverted."

The Polygon 2.0 roadmap envisions validators validating transactions across multiple blockchains, not just Polygon. Failure to address centralization concerns now could have significant implications for the network and the multiple blockchains that comprise the Polygon ecosystem.