Casper: will you need to buy the right to be a validator or will it be free?

Question

According to this document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Xf_iHGI51Lp6nVHPZo0SdUw60-NA6YJUvk2s-eYaxLE

citation 1:

maxDeposit - the maximum deposit allowed to become a proof of stake validator. If you want to deposit more, you must purchase multiple slots. Set to 50000

citation 2:

Alongside this, another question is how to target the minimum entry size and a possible entry fee. One approach is to auction entries, thereby resolving many preference revelation issues and allowing targeting a fixed PoS participation rate, but at the cost of introducing or exacerbating selfish-mining attacks.

Looks like there is a talk about to make paid participation. And maybe there be a market of participation. With which, I'm, personally, perfectly fine and I think this is very good thing (see conversation in this question).

The path how I found it was: Ethereum documentation --> Other Ethereum Links: Giant Ethereum Resource List --> Proof-of-Stake Resources: Vitalik's CASPER Spec Google Document

Can't be sure is it relevant now.

So is there such a plan?

Answer 1

It changed a bit over time. First it was about 1500 ETH, then we heard about 32 ETH as minimum stake and 1000 ETH to be profitable... It can still change until the final Casper FFG implementation is deployed but for now since The Ethereum Sharding Meeting #2 - Berlin you can find that the Full Casper chain v2.1 specification indicates 32 ETH.

Validator - a participant in the Casper/sharding consensus system. You can become one by depositing 32 ETH into the Casper mechanism.

But anyway, being a validator in PoS (Proof of Stake) requires that you put something at stake. So you'll have to lock some ETH in a dedicated contract to be able to access the waiting list of validators, whatever the amount. Then if you are selected, you'll begin to validate. Your stake will be there as a incentive to act the right way and don't cheat. There will be penalties if you act wrongly and these fines will be taken from your stake. But if you validate correctly (meaning on the main chain following the consensus) you'll be rewarded.