Hi Flow community,

First of all, as contributors to the Flow ecosystem, we want to thank all new and existing members for helping to secure and operate the Flow network. Your support has been very important and we are grateful to have you here.

Regarding the recent event involving the increase in the total staked FLOW following the decrease that happened a few weeks back, please read below a joint statement from Dapper Labs and the Flow core contributors.

From Dapper Labs

We apologize for the surprise caused by the recent increase in the amount of FLOW staked by Dapper Labs compared to the past few weeks. We should have alerted the Flow community of upcoming big shifts in staking that involved unstaking and re-staking part of FLOW. Since unstaking takes 2 full epochs cycles to complete, many community members did notice a sudden increase in effective APY (up to around 10%) compared to the baseline protocol APY of 5%, as outlined on the staking reward page.

The rationale for the recent events was to rebalance the network staking distribution across node types. In addition, that was a good opportunity to stress test the network involving the unstaking procedure of a significant portion of total FLOW and how that would affect the network reliability in preparation for similar future events. We promise to improve our communication with the community going forward whenever big changes occur to our staking composition.

From Flow core contributors

As you may know, the amount of FLOW staked in the ecosystem has direct implications on the security and stability of the network. From time to time, staked amounts might need to increase or decrease to rebalance the staking ratio.

Besides that, you might also notice temporary changes in the total FLOW staked for a few epochs due to ecosystem reserve movements. FLOW may move between and among various ecosystem parties to support the ecosystem growth and to build a thriving community around the world.

A good source of reference is this staking reward page, where you can find some reference on the approximate staking reward rate on an annualized basis (APY) across epochs, currently in the 5% APY range. This page was released in the beginning of the year and since then, the reference rates haven't changed.
Like all blockchains, staking activity in Flow will reflect the activities of many actors and may continue to exhibit variability. As part of the Flow ecosystem, we will try our best to share information promptly whenever we are aware of any upcoming big changes to the staking composition.