During earlier months of David Moss AMAs (Ask Me Anything), I complied a summary / takeaways in my Strong nodes passive income post (these were great AMAs but often noisy with duplicate questions). As of October 23rd, a more structured format was introduced (yey!) allowing for more in-depth responses.
It now makes more sense to log these Q&As in verbatim format. And so here they are…(scroll to bottom of each date for direct link to AMA in the Strong Telegram).
You can find my Strong overview / review here: https://vanlifeincome.net/strong-nodes-passive-income
04 December: now on Discord!
The Strong AMAs have moved to Discord. This means they are much better organised and easier to follow, so no need for any more posts here!
Link to Discord: https://discord.gg/strong
27th November, StrongBlock AMA
From David
“No releases this week. Certik and Hacken are reviewing our remediation's. They won’t have those reverted to us until Wednesday. So ETH 2.0 will now likely go out next week, with Polygon the week after.”
20th November Strong AMA
I hope everyone has had a good week. Lots of froth in the crypto markets right now. Thanks for being part of the STRONG community while all this is going on.
Also, to start, we just received the ETH 2.0 pool Smart Contract audits yesterday. One was their second report on remediation, the other was their first report. We are taking the time to make any remediations called out in the audits. That will be a few days. It’s a drop in the bucket. We need to make sure these contracts are ready to go.
It seems like everything is going a bit slower than normal – supply chain, audits, etc. Lots of people wanting the same thing at the same time. It is what it is. We just need to be patient for a few more days, because we are super excited to get ETH 2.0, Polygon, and Service 2 launched.
Okay, enough of the intro. Let’s get to some juicy questions served up by @baconesq !
Q: What is the company’s plan for current ETH 1.0 nodes and $STRONG ERC-20 tokens when Strongchain comes out in 2022 – MET
Thanks for the question MET.
I regularly get questions about our plans for a new chain. StrongChain seems like a good name (we’ll address it in this session).
Why would we want to bring another chain into the world? We certainly don’t want to compete with Polygon, Fantom, Ethereum. We want to instead be a gateway to those and other EVM-compatible chains. Yet we also want to support the STRONG community.
One of the big issues we see is that it is nearly impossible to participate as a Validator/Miner on most chains. It’s either too expensive, requires insider connections, or both.
We want to change that with fractional Validator participation. A term I’ve mentioned before is Decentralized Democracy. A new chain would allow us to bring that to the community.
To answer your question directly MET: If/when we migrate to a new chain, everything comes along. Ethereum 1.0 nodes included. Keep in mind that our node infrastructure is running on the Ethereum mainnet. It still will. We will also have native validators and full nodes.
Wow, I’m getting wordy here. Let me get to the next question…
…and it’s a multi-part question.
Q: When the service 2 contract is coming out, will it replace the current contract? Or is it an additional contract and both are running simultaneously? Or rewards will go down eventually will that start with the new contract? Do i need a nft to work create new eth 1 nodes when the contract should change? Thanks! – Danny
Danny, that’s a lot of questions to unpack! But thank you!
The Service 2 contract will run in parallel with the current Service 1 contract. Ethereum 1.0 nodes will continue being created in Service 1 contract at first. Polygon and others will go onto Service 2. A migration option will be provided to migrate Ethereum 1.0 nodes from Service 1 to Service 2.
Service 2 has a flexible mathematical curve algorithm allowing for different types of contributions and rewards. In some cases, rewards will remain basically the same. In others, you will still recoup at the same rate, and then they will start to decrease over time. Information on this will be provided for each protocol. The goal here is to provide a similar reward system, while making the protocol more sustainable. It’s one of many approaches we’re taking. In some cases, we may even just do a pilot for a short time to see if a particular approach works.
You will not need an NFT to create new Ethereum 1.0 nodes on either Service 1 or Service 2. For Polygon, the first nodes created will require an NFT. Everyone who holds an NFT will eligible. After that, anyone can create a Polygon node.
Q: Can you clarify what a Decaying rewards model means for node holders? how soon after creating a node will reward begin to “decay” – Hasnat
Thanks for the question Hasnat. This follows on with what I was talking about earlier. A “decaying” rewards model (a useful mathematical term, but perhaps we need a better term – suggestions are welcome) means that you will get a return on your contribution in the same timeframe you currently do. Once that is reached, then the rate at which you get rewards slowly begins to decrease.
There will be more information on this in a Medium post when we get ready to go live with Service 2 in December.
Q: What do you think is the biggest risk to Strongblock project moving forward and what are the preventive measures for that risk. – Gosu
Thanks for the thoughtful question, Gosu.
There are always risks in any project.
One risk is longevity: Will a project stay relevant over time?
StrongBlock – as a Nodes-as-a-Service project – is going to be one year old on December 3, 2021.
That’s quite a milestone and, if it were a child, it would just be starting to take its first steps. For a DeFI project, it’s more like dog years. But staying relevant is always a risk. We counter that risk by continuously looking for new ways to keep the community growing and engaged.
Another risk is competition. When we started, there were other NaaS projects, none offering rewards. Now some are following our lead. That’s flattering. Will the space become crowded? Maybe. There are certainly many, many chains that need validator and node support. The way we handle this risk is again by giving the STRONG community – the #NodeArmy – new ways to engage and participate that are several steps ahead of the competition. We’re doing that as well.
Black Swan risks: One of our advisors says that every project should find what its Black Swan – an unpredicted, world-changing event – is. That’s hard to conceive. Few people predicted COVID. It changed everything. Our Black Swan could simply be that blockchains themselves get regulated, making it impossible for anyone to participate without having a regulartory warchest to comply. We don’t think that will ever happen, but our response would be to figure out a way to bring the community along to something even more compelling.
Wow. Long answer. Okay, time for a short one:
Q: Hi David. How about a community competition to choose StrongChain's new token name? Perhaps with a Strong reward going to the winner's chosen charity? – Nelly
Whoa Nelly: Isn’t StrongChain already an awesome name? But, sure, we are open to suggestions. The biggest issue is getting trademark protection or not using someone eles’s trademarked name. StrongBlock is a USPTO registered tradename. There are others who are using components of that name illegally to confuse people. So, we need to keep that in mind.
Q: With Service 2 launching shortly, are you able to please expand on the details for Polygon: cost per node, rewards per node, and maintenence fees?- Skppy
Hey Skppy. Good peanut butter, too much sugar for me.
Right now, it looks like our cost for creating and running Polygon Full Nodes will be similar to running Ethereum 1.0 nodes. So the initial and maintenance fees will likely stay the same.
However, with the Service 2 contract, we have the option of making the contribution and rewards proportional. So, for example, there could be a 1 STRONG contribution – instead of the current 10 – and then 1/10th of the rewards. We’re not certain if that’s the right way to go or not. We may try that with other nodes. But we’re interested in the STRONG community’s feedback.
Q: Sustainability, revenue, and liquidity security are all hot topics as you know. Would you please give us greater insight into StrongBlock's plans for Protocol-Owned Liquidity? An Olympus-style treasury that's generating revenue for the project while locking up liquidity seems like an important piece in what will likely be a shotgun solution to sustainability. – Skippy
Hey Skippy. Are you the same person as Skppy, or was that a typo? Either way, great question.
We will be deploying ETH collected from NFT sales in ways similar to Olympus.
The first of these pools will be backed by 32 ETH nodes, each of which require that 32 ETH be staked, for a total of 1024 ETH.
You’re exactly right that this is the key to protocol sustainability.
We’re looking at other pools backed by validators we run, or simply ETH or other tokens that we stake. The model is that 90% of the yields will go to the community in the form of rewards. Then we get back to risk – with frothy markets, we have to make sure that the underlying validators or pools are low-risk but high return. That’s where we can also leverage StrongChain.
Q: Please tell us about the StrongBlock Service Contract appearing on Avalanche! The interacting addresses all seem to be talking quite a bit with Wonderland TIME…
I’m not certain what you’re talking about here. We have created an ERC-1155 bridge that we’re testing for Polygon, Fantom and a few others. That requires contracts on both sides. If it’s something other than that, please send me the smart contract information.
Q: When Transfer Wallet Feature goes live will there a way for people with hacked wallets to save their nodes? – CW
Transfers will be possible with the introduction of Service 2. You will be able to transfer nodes from Service 1 to Service 2. The caveat here is that, whoever you gave control of your wallet to will be able to do the same. So we have some ideas about front-running the thieves that we are testing.
Q: Any update from the Swiss economic advisor regarding reward sustainability & longevity? – Kyle
Hey Kyle. The anonymous Swiss advisor has great influence on our decisions, including the creation of the ETH 2.0 pool and the big burn. Many more ideas we’re discussing and researching. It’s an ongoing dialogue. We have a number of amazing advisors whom we rely on to give us a swift kick as well if we are not paying attention to the community – when we get too heads-down on building because that’s who we are. That really helps.
Okay, time for the one-minute flood of questions. Be brief, just ask one question, keep it simple, please don’t ask questions I just answered.
Let’s go.
AtillaTheHun ®, [20 Nov 2021 at 15:53:14]: Is the decay only for the new nodes or also for the 1.0 ETH-Nodes ?
The decay model will only be available in Service 2. If you migrate there, it will be as if you just created your node, no matter when you actually created it.
Do you believe sustainability of the project is also a major risk factor or is it something you're not really concerned about?
Good point. Sustainability is always a major factor. We devote most of our time with our advisors and in strategy sessions to looking for ways to increase sustainability. So, yes, it’s always a risk. That’s why we’re focused so much on reducing or eliminating that risk. We believe that sustainability will be achieved by carefully deploying resources to generate rewards.
Hi David, is there any plans to look at how Strongblock can cater to the Metaverse projects or space, given it's the new hype? – HODLingNews
Yes. We have two metaverse companies we’re talking with about providing validators, nodes and possibly even a chain. That would all be available for participation by the STRONG community.
What seems to be the bottle neck in bringing on new projects to the Strongblock portfolio? – HODLingNews
Bottleneck is that many projects, despite heavily marketing their projects as providing grants to the developer community, have not followed through. That is now the emerging playbook.
Justin – Why did it take the SB team almost a year to realize chains will not pay rewards for nodes, seems pretty basic consider it was potentially the main revenue stream.
From the very start, we were aware that nodes are not rewarded by protocols. It’s in our earliest statements about why we wanted to provide those rewards. Our hope was that the marketing hype by many chains of providing rewards was real. It turns out that it’s quite difficult to achieve, and mostly hype. So, we’re doing it ourselves. That’s a good thing.
CMC – Reward pool is on a downward trajectory right now if we compare week on week. Has the rewards cut been planned to be executed in the near future to counter this trend?
I don’t understand what you mean by “downward trajectory”. Of course we’re always concerned about sustainability. Every protocol is. The Service 2 Smart Contract addresses the concern of providing sustainable rewards models. It’s a few weeks away from being launched.
Chris Lee – Apart from supporting Strongblock, (which I intend to do) is there any benefit in buying nodes on the different networks? I kind of regretted buying my DVPN node, for various reasons and just wished I’d bought another ETH node.
There is a huge benefit to creating nodes on different chains. The more chains you support, the more you make blockchains stronger. There isn’t any difference in support DVPN vs Ethereum 1.0 vs Polygon vs Fantom vs…
Zahid – when will we know the 3rd partnership?
We have 3 we’re talking with. Sometimes the talks go slow. We don’t need their permission to launch nodes and validators. We’d just like it if they supported their own network. So there may be some protocols that we simply support, whether or not they provide support to us. Queen of Dragons approach.
Justing – DM, it appears the SB code is poorly written which is causing the high eth gas prices, SB is continually one of the highest gas guzzlers. Can you provide an actual timeframe of when SB will be on another chain?
Um, it’s not gas guzzling on a per-transaction basis you’re seeing in the Etherscan chart. t’s the massive use of the contract. Two different things. It’s extremely popular. It adds up. There are many factors to moving to another chain. Which is why we are considering creating our own.
Xpr Marcus – U mentioned I believe there would be new nfts being added can u elaborate more on thoes?
In 2022, we will be adding earnable NFT’s in a gamified ecosystem. Some will have long-term effects in the protocol, others may have a short expiry.
Xrpblast – hi can u plkease explain the SHELF LIFE to us all….thank david
Shelf life of NFT’s? It means that new NFT’s may have an expiration date – use for 30 days, then they are burned. That’s for earnable NFT’s.
Sean Manley – Good morning Mr Moss we had talked about binance in a previous AMA any news news regarding a protocol with them or listing?
Due to legal restrictions, I can neither confirm nor deny any discussions like this.
That’s all for this week folks!
Please remember that we are all part of the STRONG community, part of the greater blockchain and crypto ecosystem, part of our own communities, part of our countries and societies, part of the world, and part of our epochs. All at the same time.
Be mindful and thoughtful with yourself and others. Take care of yourself. Spend time with others and outdoors. I’ve got to remind myself of this, as it’s tempting to just sit here endlessly. But sustainability is not just for STRONG. It’s for you and your family and our society.
Have a great rest of your weekend!
20th November Strong AMA link: https://t.me/strongblock_io/475547
13th November 2021
Q: My question is basically about fractional node ownership. My question is couldn't this be done through an update in the app where people contributing to a node would just have their associated addresses and number of STRONG contributed logged by the app? Then they would get that percentage of rewards based on their contribution.
Simple. Easy to participate. Interesting approach, and something we’re considering. We haven’t yet applied that approach to nodes, but it’s essentially a pool. That’s what we’re doing with the ETH 2.0 pool, except with staking: you stake STRONG over time to get a weighted percentage of your STRONG and time over the total STRONG and time.
For fractional full and validator nodes, that’s essentially the approach we’ll be taking. First we needed to rework the Service contract to allow for different kinds of nodes, contributions and rewards. Fractional is the next step after that, but is already in development.
Q: Will strong be a validator on ftm & matic? – phonz
Hey phonz! Thanks for the question.
While our goal is to be a Validator on every chain we support, it’s not always possible. In the case of Polygon/Matic, when we first spoke with them, they were increasing the number of Validators – but not by much. The total now is 100. We petitioned to be one of the new ones, but they added very few, and there were groups ahead of us in line. We are on the list if they expand beyond 100.
For FTM, being a Validator is more likely.
If we are a validator for a chain – like we are for DVPN – we’ll either have fractional ownership and/or create a pool where we’ll put the rewards after our costs. We’re pledging to cap our costs at 10% of the rewards.
Q: Any talks or ideas with protocols to support the metaverse worlds with nodes? – jesse
Yes. Nodes and validators on games and metaverse worlds is definitely fits in with our supporting decentralized infrastructure.
Thanks for asking, jesse
Q: David are there plans to implement Strong nodes to help Arbritrum network? – ss chad
Thanks for the question, ss chad
Yes, we want to work with Arbitrum. We are big fans. We have not had talks with them yet.
Q: Has David thought about building state channels on Constellation Networks Hypergraph? HGTP is a layer zero Directed Acyclic Graph designed to securely transport all the worlds data – Petey
Hey Petey
We’ve only briefly looked into HGTP. The goal is to support any chain that needs decentralized infrastructure support. We’re gearing up to add many more chains – EVM and non-EVM compatible – after Service 2 is launched and established.
Q: Will StrongBlock be offering an NFT below Bronze that allows access purely to Service 2? -Skippy
Thanks for the question Skippy
As I’ve mentioned before, we have a new NFT system planned that will involve staking and earning. Most of the NFT’s in that system will have less “power” than Bronze. Some will also have a time cap, say, 30 days of use then it gets burned. Basically, non-Metal NFT availability will expand, but the Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum will ALWAYS have a fixed supply.
Q: Understand that right now most protocols and chains are not willing to pay much for nodes. Since Strongblock is known for its NaaS model, do you foresee NaaS to bring in significant revenue and become the largest revenue contribution for Strongblock in near future ? – gosu
Thank gosu
We originally hoped for significant revenue from full nodes, yet we’re very aware that – in most chains – full nodes don’t get a lot of respect, and few to zero rewards. That’s why we set up our rewards system.
In many cases, it’s difficult for a chain – once it’s live – to add a full node rewards model. Like Validator rewards, it needs to be baked in from the start.
So, on some chains we have arranged to get token grants. We’ll also be a Validator where possible on those chains, and share 90% of the rewards with the community.
But ultimately, we’ve come to the conclusion that we need to show people how it’s done by creating a chain and ecosystem where there are rewards – not just participation trophies – for supportin the network, and you won’t have to be a whale to participate.
Q: Hi guys, when the service 2 contract is coming out, will it replace the current contract? Or is it an additional contract and both are running simultaneously? Or rewards will go down eventually will that start with the new contract? Do i need a nft to work create new eth 1 nodes when the contract should change? Thanks!- Danny
Good question Danny.
The Service 2 contract, which goes out for audit early next week (the week of November 15th), will run in parallel with Service 1, at least at first.
Service 2 has a lot more flexibility to handle different rewards models for each protocol.
Service 2 will start off with Polygon and Fantom, and others will be added. Most of the new features will be added to Service 2.
Service 1 will continue to run, but we are building a bridge for people to migrate their nodes from Service 1 to Service 2.
For Polygon, as I’ve mentioned previously, all metal NFT’s will be whitelisted for creating Polygon nodes at first. After that, you will not need an NFT to create a Polygon node. There will be similar pilots for each new node protocol that’s added.
Q: what are you guys planning to do on the ETH gas fees issue? Its really getting out of hand right now? – Sandro
Sandro, we know. Gas has gotten expensive again. For now, we’re where we are: on the Ethereum mainnet. In the future, we will be on a different chain, most likely our own; that way the community can participate in all parts of the chain, with much lower gas.
Q: In the last AMA it was said that STRONG could be related to ISO 20022 currencies. we know that, in addition to xrp, XDC is also part of ISO 20022 currencies. the question is: can STRONG adopt XDC as one of the protocols or, more beneficially, use the xinfin network (cheaper and faster than erc) to run STRONG's nodes? Has there been any contact with the XDC people? Thanks. – wiliam
William, we didn’t say that STRONG would be related to those currencies. Instead, we discussed that the StrongBlock protocol could support ISO 20022. It’s something that we’d be doing in 2022 at the earliest.
As I previously answered, moving to another chain seeking cheaper gas has many factors to consider, not just cheap gas.
We have not been in contact with the XDC people. We’re open to talking with any group that works to support decentralized infrastructure.
Q: Could you ask if we can see strong on crypto.com exchange? – kay
Hey Kay, I’m not certain if that will happen, but won’t rule it out.
Q: David please update on fractionalization timeline? 🙂 – vern
Fractionalization of full nodes and Validators is in the works. The first you’ll be able to participate in that will be with the ETH 2.0 pool, where rewards will come from StrongBlock running a minimum of 32 ETH nodes (first time we’ve said that out loud…), and your staking STRONG will get you a share of the ETH rewards when the ETH 2.0 network switches to POS and starts rewarding its validator nodes.
So, that’s the Validator pool approach. The second approach is to have multiple different wallets all have fractional ownership of a full node or validator node. That’s in the queue for early 2022.
Q: Any plan on offering different NFTs with different utility in the future? – Ripple
Ripple, I explained that above. But this gives me a chance to say that the current Metal NFT’s will have expanded capabilities in the future as well. And the new non-Metal NFT’s will have different kinds of capabilities, including duration, etc. So much cool stuff is being brewed up in the StrongBlock laboratory!
Q: Please explain the decay system – cryptic
Hey cryptic
Simply, in a decay-based reward system, the rewards drop slightly over time.
Q: Since there is no cap on the amount of nodes & protocols
STRONGBLOCK will be supporting, when STRONG gets to let's say for example 500k – 1 Million plus nodes & 10+ different protocols, will this be healthy for the environment? What is STRONGBLOCK doing to environmental help produce less carbons as they increase more nodes? – deonte
Great question Deonte.
Environmental concerns are a crucial part of what we’re doing. That’s one of the reasons we want to build a new low-gas, low environmental impact, secure, decentralized chain.
Q: When can compromised wallets move nodes to different wallet? (mine has been compromised) – Bruum
Sorry to hear that Bruum.
After Service 2 is launched, we’ll be introducing the means to migrate from Service 1 to Service 2, to the same or a new wallet. Again, if your wallet has been compromised, the person who did it – shame on them – would have the ability to do that as well. So we’re looking at other safeguards for migration.
Q: Forecast for STRONG chain? -Bruum
The forecast for StrongChain is sunny and clear. And next year.
Q: Clarity about sustainability and rewards decaying? – Bruum
Already answered, but we’ll be providing more guidance in the next two quarters.
Q: Would we be able to add protocols like $ohm & $klima to the rewards pool? put that eth to work?
Yes.
Q: Is there still another protocol announcement before polygon goes live?? Was mentioned a couple AMA's ago? – shaun
Hey Shaun
We’re in discussions with several protocols for this. One of the reasons we slowed down a bit is that we’ve found it’s important to be able to participate more fully in the protocol. So, if we can’t be a Validator to supplement rewards, it lowers the chain in our priority list.
Q: Are original ETH 1.0 nodes that exist today subject to deflationary mechanisms or will they be grandfathered in and fixed at current rates? Any benefits to having nodes prior to Service Contract 2.0? – coffee
Thanks for the question, Coffee
We haven’t added any deflationary mechanisms to ETH 1.0 nodes. That is not to say that they will forever be at a fixed reward rate. The goal is to move toward a more sustainable model for the community, so it’s likely you’ll want to migrate your ETH 1.0 nodes at some point.
Q: How many more announcements of other official protocols that $STRONG will be partnering with can we expect to hear before the end of 2021? – showtime
Hey showtime. I answered that earlier. We’d like to announce several, but they have to support our community while we support theirs, or it’s not fair to our community.
Q: Are you still considering making an NFT marketplace to sell nodes? From a tokenomics perspective, if people sell nodes to each other instead of creating net-new nodes, then no new strong token comes into the reward pool. Unless royalties? Thoughts? – coffee
Selling and collateralization are both still on the table. They would be more likely on StrongChain.
Q: You mentioned last week deflationary mechanisms in rewards for each node. You've also mentioned an NFT marketplace to sell nodes in the future. I imagine this complicates a marketplace to sell nodes if each node has a different deflation system based on age. Thoughts? – Coffeee
It wouldn’t be that complicated. It’s like any other marketplace, where value is based on a number of factors. Here, it would be rewards, decay model, value to the chain, etc.
Last question – there were a LOT of great questions today:
Q: Do NFTs protect the underlying asset from reward decay in addition to boost a fixed reward on top? – coffee
The Metal NFT’s essentially have their own rewards mechanism that boosts the underlying asset, but does not protect it from decaying.
Okay, you have one minute to ask some additional questions. Please be brief.
Z bhaijaan, [13 Nov 2021 at 15:53:21]: Are you guys Using MATIC ( plasma bridge ) for asset flow and nft ( ERC721) .. from eth to polygon chain ? .. Will thr monthly fees will be 15 doller matic ? Or 15 matic or something else ( for polygon mode )
We may use MATIC bridge, or one that we have developed for ERC-1155 and ERC-721. Monthly fees will still be in ETH, at least for now.
<<Fair Play Node>>, [13 Nov 2021 at 15:53:23]: Will our nodes have any expire date?
No, but they may have a shelf life.
JediMindTrick ., [13 Nov 2021 at 15:53:23]: When website revamp ?
It’s always being updated. One of the new projects launching soon is for better mobile compatibility.
Kay, [13 Nov 2021 at 15:53:24 (13 Nov 2021 at 15:54:10)]:Have you looked into or heard of the Chronos chain (crypto.com just released it and seems to be fairly successful so far) will you guys be looking into supporting this chain? Also have you looked into Elrond as well? PS. Thanks for the time David
Yes
HODLingNews 🇲🇼🇬🇧, [13 Nov 2021 at 15:53:24]:Hi David, hope you and the family are well..Quick one, some of us are early in our node journey and creating more nodes long term is the main ambition. Would you recommend sacrificing strong rewards to purchase nfts for future purposes or continue to focus on nodes? – HODLingNews
I think it’s always a good idea to have a mix of different things you’re working on.
Wiliam, [13 Nov 2021 at 15:53:24]:when will we be able to tie a knot claiming the rewards without having to cash out?
Yes, in Service 2
Steve Carter, [13 Nov 2021 at 15:53:25]:@DavidMoss This week StackOS were announced as Polygon's “preferred decentralised cloud provider” and will provide single click launch of Polygon nodes as a service. How does their offering differ from what StrongBlock plan to provide for Polygon?
Not sure. Sounds similar to what we’re doing, but can they actually launch nodes yet?
Teo, [13 Nov 2021 at 15:53:26]:Hi David, What will be the maximum decay it can get to, will it get to a 50% drop? Or is this still under discussion?
Not certain. It will decay over time, but never reach zero.
Z bhaijaan, [13 Nov 2021 at 15:53:32]:Are you open to work with elrond. ( EGLD ) and run their validator node .. that is the only chain which is carbon negative and strong can be associated with a green community chain
Yes
JG Wentworth, [13 Nov 2021 at 15:53:42]:Any updates on Matic progress?
Testing now. Will go live with Service 2 in a few weeks. Service 2 goes out for audit next week.
Alex M, [13 Nov 2021 at 15:53:59]:Can you explain how strongblock nodes can be used outside of crypto?
Nodes are for the support of a blockchain.
R, [13 Nov 2021 at 15:54:00]:When bitcoin nodes
David Moss, [13 Nov 2021 at 16:05:20]:Not sure of the usefulness of a bitcoin node vs a miner. But it’s something we’re looking at.
Makesomemoney, [13 Nov 2021 at 15:54:06]:Will there be a floor in the decay model?
David Moss, [13 Nov 2021 at 16:05:49]:It will never reach zero, just decay over time, so will always be viable.
Timo Jenzer, [13 Nov 2021 at 15:54:08]:What happens to $STRONG in a let's say very drastic bear market?
David Moss, [13 Nov 2021 at 16:06:27]:I cannot and will not speculate. What happens to any token in a bear market?
Strongblock Groot, [13 Nov 2021 at 15:54:20]:@DavidMoss Is there a plan to put a cap on the ETH nodes or will they be forever available?
David Moss, [13 Nov 2021 at 16:06:46]:No cap planned yet.
Nelly, [13 Nov 2021 at 15:54:22 (13 Nov 2021 at 15:54:50)]:@dvid Moss Will Strongchainsee a new token , maybe $MOZz 😁
David Moss, [13 Nov 2021 at 16:07:03]:Most likely, yes.
Scooby, [13 Nov 2021 at 15:54:29]:Timeframe for decay. How much and how often they will decay
David Moss, [13 Nov 2021 at 16:07:43]:Will be explained well in advance, and will vary based on a number of factors and protocols.
M F, [13 Nov 2021 at 15:54:29]:Hi david, what do you mean we would be compelled to migrate to contract 2.0? What will happen if we do not?
David Moss, [13 Nov 2021 at 16:08:31]:Hmm. Did I say compelled? Sorry about that. There will be a choice, with plenty of information to make that choice.
Coffee Block, [13 Nov 2021 at 15:54:34]:Have you looked into bonding nodes to lock them in longer to keep TVL in a war chest?
David Moss, [13 Nov 2021 at 16:09:19]:Bonding? Not sure what you mean, but something to think about. Yes, TVL is an important factor.
Travis Lazzaro, [13 Nov 2021 at 15:54:43]:Would it be possible to work with Helium? @DavidMoss
David Moss, [13 Nov 2021 at 16:09:31]:Yes
Dickie Emerson, [13 Nov 2021 at 15:54:48]:Hello David, fellow brother & friend here. Where do you see the majority of revenues coming from ? Is it fair to compare STRONG – $AMZN ? Amazon started with books and you are starting with NODES. Could we see expansion in many areas that bring in great revenues ?
David Moss, [13 Nov 2021 at 16:10:33]:There will be MANY different revenue streams to support the community. That’s a question we can get deeper into over the next few weeks. We’re thinking BIG!!!!!
QueenOfCats01 Any updates on the audit for the ETH 2.0 pool service contract? Or anything you can say about the requirements to join the pool? Have an amazing weekend
David Moss, [13 Nov 2021 at 16:12:32]:ETH 2.0 pool audit from Hacken has been received. Several remediations are in process and will be submitted back to Hacken on Monday. The Certik ETH 2.0 pool audit is due on Tuesday, and we’ll also respond with any remediations. After that, we’re just about ready to launch. There will be a Medium post as well as information in the APP to explain how it will work.
Okay folks. Thanks for the amazing questions! I hope my answers provided you with more information and clarity.
I hope everyone has an amazing weekend. We’re getting really excited here about the upcoming releases and announcements. Things are going to heat up.
Get ready!
Meanwhile, have a great weekend. Take care of yourself. Be kind to others. Be mindful and helpful. Don’t drive angry. Hug your family. Pet a dog or cat.
Take care. And thank you so much for your support. It makes my day. Every day.
Be seeing you!
Strong AMA 13th November 2021 link: https://t.me/strongblock_io/461808
6th November 2021
Q: In the Service 2 contract you said it will have rerouting without claiming, but will there be a function to auto make nodes at every 10 strong earned?” – Phonz
This a great question to start off the AMA, as it talks about new work we’re doing, and answers a need in the community.
So, thanks for asking about Service 2, Phonz. The claim routing feature will work just like the current “claim to StrongPool or your wallet” feature. It will allow you to simply stake into other pools (like the ETH 2.0 pool), but there will be more pools to choose from.
The big addition here is, if you have enough STRONG when you claim to create a particular kind of node (10 STRONG for Ethereum 1.0 and DVPN,less for others), then you will be able to create a new node, instead of claiming your rewards into your wallet.
Q: What is the exact amount of FTM and MATIC one time grant?- meta
Thanks for the question, Meta. Polygon has so far committed $15k of Matic in their one time grant. Fantom has discussed a higher amount, but we don’t have the exact amount. Polygon will launch first.
That brings up the question of “why don’t blockchains support their full nodes?” (Ah, a question within a question within an answer.)
The reason StrongBlock exists – indeed, our mission – is because blockchains as a whole tend to only reward Validators / Block Producers. And for most chains, becoming a Validator is not only expensive (often millions of dollars in their native token), it’s also often a “who you know” issue.
With full nodes – which provide access to the mainnet transactions and relieve congestion for queries, among other things – most chains don’t provide native rewards. Instead, they want the nodes to work for free. If that sounds like an oligarchy, it’s because it is.
So, long story short: most chains we’re talking with don’t have native support for full nodes. So, we offer rewards, which means we need to generate them from deploying the treasury and supplementing that with grants. But that’s something we’ve invested heavily in with time, and soon with capital.
Wow, that’s going to make a LONG tweet.
On to the next question.
Q: Can we add option to pay, 30, 60 or 90 days so we save on these crazy gas fees?
Ah, Ethereum gas fees. They seem to have gone up above 100 gwei and not come back down ever since the Ethereum Altair update a few weeks ago, which mainly affected Ethereum 1.0 validators). And with Shiba Inu activity, there is also often more ETH being burned than created on any given day.
And with increased NFT activity, there are now many more times of high congestion. It’s starting to feel like driving in LA traffic, which Elon Musk called “soul-crushing”.
The protocol gets crushed by high gas fees as well.
But I digress. The simple answer is: In the Service 1 contract, there’s no way to consolidate paying for fees. This is something that, while not yet in Service 2, is now a possibility.
Q: Are the ideas you've been brainstorming with the swiss economist still up to date or have you moved on from that?” And if you have moved on from them, why? Thanks!- rando
We have several amazing advisors. Our swiss-based advisor typically focuses on economics. He also tends toward being an ETH maximalist. That does NOT mean the main Ethereum 1.0 or 2.0 chain is the only solution.
His idea of a gradual decay in a rewards contract – which still gives a great return – is incorporated into the Service 2 contract. We’ve implemented and tested it, and added a number of parameters to tweak; the result will be that we shouldn’t ever have to introduce any quick declines in rewards. Fair and lucrative for everyone.
FYI, I answer the questions in the order that @baconesq provides them to me, so sometimes the transitions can be a bit jarring. Makes it much more organic though…
Q: believe david answered the ama last time and followed up with a question about the api. My question to his follow up question would be Is there any plans to have a rest api to retrieve node data so devs can build a native app instead of using the browsers dapp to track their nodes and possibly even claim things in the future and any other relevant features. – kay
Thanks for the question Kay. With the introduction of the Service 2 contract, we will be able to isolate and secure access to node data; that’s the reason all of our API’s are protected behind multiple layers of security. We’re looking forward to providing the ability for people to create their own native apps. And of course that leads into the discussion of why it’s highly likely that there will be a StrongChain in 2022.
That would allow for an ecosystem to support “decentralied democracy” to strengthen both a StrongChain and other blockchains, and allowing the ability for everyone to participate in Validation and Block Production, and build a thriving 3rd party open source set of applications around it.
Q: when will compounding within the platform be activated? And if so will fees charged be going into the reward pool? – rob
Thanks for the question Rob. If I understand the question, compounding in a pool would be the ability to take rewards from a pool and put them back into the same pool. That will be possible with some of the new pools, but not with ETH 2.0, where staking and holding will be the major play.
Q: You mentioned in a previous AMA about a decay model to be tested with the polygon nodes. Can you give us an indication what the floor reward rate will be for the oldest nodes. Will it be more than half? Or infinitely go down in percentage decrease. – shane
Thanks for the question Shane. This follows on to the Earlier question about our Swiss (and other) advisors.
The decay rate would have a delay for older nodes before it goes into effect. For newer nodes, they would even likely start off slightly higher than the current reward model, then decay gradually over the typical payback time, with the same basic effect. It’s after that the rewards will start to decay. Will have more details about it when we launch in a few weeks. And again, this is tweakable for each new node protocol that will be launched. It will start with Polygon.
Q: is there any discussion around approaching the XRPL Foundation to make a deal to launch additional validators for the XRPL? The XRP community is quite large, would bring a lot of new interest to Strong and they have an immediate need for more validators – bezzaG
They do have a large and loyal community! We are blockchain neutral. We simply want to launch nodes and validators for any blockchain we can support. Ideally, they would provide some sort of support for nodes, but we are finding that it won’t be necessary, especially if we can launch validators – full or fractional on our side – and use the rewards to supplement other rewards.
So, it’s time for us to reach out!
Q: Hydra is releasing eth bridge in near future. Full EVM compatibility. Bridge will be one click ERC20 -> HRC20. EVM dApps can run on hydra. Requires their browser extension, no MetaMask. Ledger compatibility in process. Is this something that Strong could be migrated over to for avoiding the high gas fees? Looks pretty promising. -superman
We have looked at migrating to other chains to reduce gas. We’re coming to the conculsion that there are too many liquidity, adoption, community, migration, compatibility and other challenges to forklift our rewards model. That’s why we’re actively modeling a new chain.
Q: Hi David, just wondering if you'd be interested in reaching out to VAIOT (https://vaiot.ai/en) in attempts of reaching an agreement to provide validators for their AI Intelligence Service. They are interested in validators, but are looking specifically only for ones they can trust. They have partnership with IBM and I believe they'll become one of the biggest projects in this space, so if an agreement could be conceived between both parties I think it'd be mutually beneficial. – ross
First, thanks for the question Ross. I will add VAIOT to the list. I am not familiar with them. So many chains! This sounds quite intriguing though for launching trusted validators. That’s one of our biggest gripes about blockchain validators: keeping them locked down and secure.
Q: any updates on sustainability model? – superman
See above and over the more recent AMA’s regarding the decay arc rewards model, deploying capital and using the rewards to supplement, and a StrongChain. And also maybe another token. BIG discussions with a top exchange and other partners going on about that starting next week.
Q: Can we get any sort of alpha on what the plans are to prevent a walled garden with a strong block specific chain. How do we keep inflows from elsewhere going and healthy if we exit ETH for a Strong specific chain – marcus
We’ll be meeting on this over the next few weeks. It will likely be EVM compatibile and have bridges and liquidity pools to keep everything moving.
Q: Is there a plan to monitize our Eth nodes in the near future? We have a ton of them at this point, I would assume we could start putting them to good use!- biggie smalls
Yes. We are talking with different enterprise and consulting groups about this.
Q: What enterprise partnerships can we expect? Any news to fire up the troops?- papa
See above. Not sure how enterprise partnerships will fire up the troops though. I spent years on the Enterprise side, starting with Oracle, and things move glacially slow there. Much more movement and promise within the blockchain side itself.
Q: can you speak to your team's research process for what new chains to target for outreach. With the rapid pace of change it we would be interested to learn more about what your business development efforts look like… If there is anything the community can do to further these efforts we would also love to hear from you how best we could focus our attentions.- marcus
Simple answer for this one Marcus: What the community can do is bring attention to chains you think look promising, and see if someone in the community already has a connection there. We work through our advisors and partners, but there are SO many opportunities out there!
Q: If you could have this community focus on 2 thing that would further the mission you have for StrongBlock what would they be? – marcus
1. Look for new ways for StrongBlock to grow and thrive.
2. Don’t pay attention to FUD.
Q: Will/Has Strongblock looked into bring NaaS to blockchains that are ISO20022 compliant? – matrix
Yes.
Q: What currently is your largest single bottleneck impacting the pace of development for Strong Block.
The Mythical Man Month: bringing on new people means they need to learn from the current people. That has happened in project development since the dawn of software. But we are very carefully growing our team and contractors. Big addition next week.
Q: Can you publish an updated roadmap?
Things change as the market and technology change. What I can tell you for now – as we’ve been discussing – is:
Through the end of 2021:
1. ETH 2.0 Smart Contract audit with Hacken starts Monday. Expected to go live during the week of November 15th.
2. Service2 Smart Contract audit starts next week, and will take longer (it’s much bigger and more complex) and will go live after ETH 2.0 It will include Polygon
3. Fantom will go live after that
4. More pools and node partnerships will be announced
Oh, and the StrongBlock merch store will go live next week while we’re waiting for the results of the ETH 2.0 and Service 2 Smart Contract audits.
We have 3 auditors we’re working with. We can only announce Hacken at this time. We’ll announce the others after we’ve signed contracts next week.
Q: David, if we set up a Strong Meet and Greet in Crete next summer, will you attend? If so, what dates work best for you? We'd like to start planning so people can commit and make airline and hotel reservations.-pluto
Sounds fun. I can travel. I cannot commit yet, but let’s keep discussing.
========================================
Okay, wow, so many questions! Thanks for your patience. I’m going to open questions up for 1 minute. Please, be kind and respectful. I will also not be answering any “David, please dispel all the FUD now!!!! questions.”
David Moss, [6 Nov 2021 at 14:59:16]:
Good morning David, – Security for Compromised accounts with Authenticator system and lock account by support to secure nodes , will something like this be possible in the future?
Yes. We are looking at that and node migration from Service 1 to Service 2.
Jack, [Nov 6, 2021 at 7:56:04 AM]:
You said that $15K of Matic was provided as a one time grant – I'm conscious this amount is really low. How will this help anything?
Most of the questions today are about the MATIC grant. We published the information in August. It hasn’t changed. That’s exactly what we’ve been talking about today in the AMA: most chains DO NOT support their nodes. We have therefore worked out a way to supplement them via treasury deployments. It looks even better than depending on grants from other chains.
king mash, [Nov 6, 2021 at 7:56:05 AM]:
any news about strong tokens to be on binance and others
We are in discussions, but cannot make announcements. We’re already on Kucoin, which is now the #3 exchange. They are very happy with us, and we have other things planned within their ecosystem.
Hi David, can you confirm that if you fractionalise nodes they will be on other blockchains or even our own blockchain? The idea sounds awesome and helps with inclusion and growth but I am worried about for example paying 1 strong per node and buying maybe 7 (fractionalised nodes) so 7/10 of a full nodes but needing to claim 7 times and pay fees 7 times compared to once with a full node.
What you described sounds complicated! With nodes, it will likely be a “light” version, where you have more nodes with lower contribution cost. With Validators, the fractionalization will be as if you had – more nodes. Same with the approach for ETH 2.0 pool – each contribution is treated as a separate transaction, and will have claim all.
Q: As ETH is the “cash” in our wallet its the one to always depreciate, would it be possible for people to claim node rewards in other tokens such as Eth instead of Strong this way more Strong is left in the protocol? Would this help with the scarcity issue for the strong?
Yes. At first, they will only be ERC-20 compatible (for the first release of Service 2). Over time, we’ll be adding non-ERC-20 tokens for rewards as well. The wallets are much better at allowing you to switch between chains now; it’s still a bit complex for users, but we have a team member working on that as well.
Will the strongblock merch store contribute to node rewards in any way?
All profits from the merch store will go to charity, not rewards.
Does the decaying model drop rewards to 0 over time?
No. It just keeps decaying asymptotically.
You mentioned above that audit for Service 2 starts soon, and it will take long. So we can expect this even after eth 2.0 releases?
The Service 2 audit will start next week, and will perhaps take 3-5 business days longer than the ETH 2.0 contract. So, week of 11/15 for ETH 2.0 launch, likely two weeks after for Service 2 and polygon launch (US Thanksgiving holiday in between).
How many polygon nodes will be available at early access launch?
Will we be able to compound polygon nodes?
For the pilot of Polygon and Service 2, everyone with a Metal NFT will have access.
Regarding compounding, this is part of routing – claiming to create another node without sending it to your wallet.
What happens when grant tokens run out on new protocols like Matic while the nodes remain online?
Do grant tokens have any relationship to the projects you are pursuing? Since nodes in theory will work with or without grant tokens
As I said earlier in the AMA today, grants are a small part of how we will be funding rewards.
===================================
Okay, that’s it for this Saturday. Thanks again to @baconesq for compiling the questions, for everyone who asked questions, and for hanging around in a Telegram group when you could be out enjoying your weekend!
See you next week. Take care, stay safe, be mindful, be kind, don’t FUD, protect your seed phrase as if your life depended, and hug someone today.
Strong AMA 6th November 2021 link: https://t.me/strongblock_io/448870
30th October 2021
Q: David, go into the Telegram group RIGHT NOW and dispel all the FUD!
There always has been – and always will be – FUD on EVERY PROTOCOL.
“Bitcoin is unsustainable and the price will crash.”
“STRONG is unsustainable.”
“ETH gas prices are too high and everyone will leave Ethereum and go to Layer 2’s and the price will crash.”
I’ve been in crypto full time for 4.5 years, and for many years part time before that. I’ve worked with many protocols. I remember when everyone thought that Ethereum at $10 – and $250 and $500 and $1000 and $2000 and… – was overpriced.
I owned Bitcoin at $100 when $1000 seemed like crazy talk.
And it’s easy to look at CG or CMC and see that STRONG was at $13.90 on January 11th of THIS YEAR.
Most FUD comes from people who got in late or just like to hate (I see what you did there, Moss). Don’t waste your precious time on FUD. I don’t.
Trolls who make stuff up and bait you (or me) to ANSWER THEM NOW OR YOU’RE A FRAUD: Ignore them – don’t engage. They just want attention.
XRP rivalry: There is no “rivalry”. Someone made that up. To get attention. Ignore it. Don’t engage.
Moving on…
Q: What happens when the grant from the polygon and fantom nodes runs out ?-jedimindtrick
One of the challenges in creating nodes in any protocol is the core reason we created StrongBlock: most protocols simply don’t have the native ability to reward nodes. Instead, they reward miners/block producers, where the barrier to entry is very high. It’s only for whales.
Most of the protocols we’ve spoken with aren’t interested in remedying this, as it would require changes to their blockchains. Instead, they offer grants. But grants aren’t sustainable. So it’s often up to StrongBlock to bridge that gap.
When we need to bridge that gap, the approach we will be taking is to use treasury funds – perhaps combined with the grants from the protocol – to invest in or create pools that provide a perpetual source of native tokens and rewards for the protocol we’re supporting. The second source of rewards can come from people and organizations paying for node and bandwidth utilization, i.e., revenue. That’s always going to be an option.
Here’s a quick one (some long answers already!)😉
Q: Hi David, have you heard of Boson Protocol? If so, have you been in contact with them about a potential partnership to support their dcommerce infrastructure?- ross
We haven’t talked with Boson. Do they need nodes and validators? Olympus and Ohm do not, but we are still interested in seeing how we can work together, or perhaps just be inspired by what they’re doing. Like many suggestions made by the community, we’re happy to follow up. If you have a connection there, please make an introduction.
Q: Could Strongblock team look into sponsoring a pool on Sushiswap, maybe to replace the current Uniswap LINK/STRONG pool that hardly has any volume? Maybe a STRONG/DAI pool? – Daren
Do you mean providing liquidity? Yes, the LINK/STRONG pool was from our original partnership with Chainlink. Most of that liquidity is not provided by us, and LP’s stake on our platform
We’re fans of SushiSwap. We’re been approached by many DEXes to create liquidity pools. We’re working on integrating into other DEXes in 2022. That may also involve a bigger initiative with cross-chain bridges.
(nice seque)
Q: Is there an eta on the cross chain bridge being tested? – Superman
The cross-chain bridge for NFT’s (info on that got leaked) has already completed its testing. The smart contract will now go out for auditing. We have some new projects in the works that will utilize it, but it may not be released this year.
Q: What impact does Eth 2.0 have on our investment in STRONG? Will the STRONG nodes we have invested in remain valid and continue to provide a reward for our investment? – Luke
Ethereum 1.0 and 2.0 both use geth. Our understanding is that the RPC endpoints should be the same. Ethereum 2.0 uses POS instead of POW. There may be some changes in how the nodes will access the mainnet. We’ll make the necessary changes to Ethereum 1.0 nodes launched from the StrongBlock platform when there is guidance from the Ethereum core team and Ethereum 2.0 nears launch. That may be up to a year from now. (FYI, I’ve answered this question many times. WIth all of the Ethereum 1.0 nodes the Node Army has created, it’s always relevant.)
Q: With STRONG nodes supporting MATIC and FANTOM networks, will the original STRONG node holders benefit from these new associations or do node holders need to re-invest in new nodes for a reward from the MATIC and FANTOM networks. If so, do investors need to invest MATIC, FANTOM OR STRONG for the new nodes? – Luke
Again, a question I’ve answered many times. A node on an EVM-compatible chain like Polygon or Fantom is NOT the same as a node on Ethereum 1.0 or 2.0. There are differences in how the nodes interact with their respective mainnets. Our goal is to allow anyone to have one or more nodes on multiple chains. Having a node on one chain does not negate having a node on another chain. But each is unique, and they are not cross-chain compatible.
Q: Many STRONG holders are reinvesting their rewards in new nodes while some are cashing out. At the current uptake rate, how long do you anticipate this project can be sustained without affecting rewards rate? I understand the STRONG supply is limited with this regard. How is the STRONG team looking at making the project more sustainable for original investors? – luke
Luke, are you new here? If so, welcome! You won the trifecta for questions today! You’re describing the natural progression of how people participate in any protocol. For sustainability, we’ll be adding new protocols, creating fractional Validators, deploying treasury funds whose yields will support rewards, creating new pools based on rewards from Validators where locking STRONG yields higher rewards (ETH 2.0 for example).
Or should I say hat trick?
Q: As we know, explosive growth can be a double-edged sword. STRONG has undoubtedly experienced another explosive growth spurt in node creation in recent weeks. The current rewards come largely from the reward pool and NFTs sales. Do you think that the team and you are fast enough to develop other revenue streams (through partnerships, more pools, etc.) to continue to be sustainable. – domi
Fast enough can be tricky. We want to make sure that we are moving fast, not being reckless. There is a saying in software development: Fast, Cheap, Reliable: Pick Two.
We have just partnered with another highly respected development shop (people we’ve known and worked with for years, who have worked on major projects and protocols); there will be an announcement soon.
And many of the items you mentioned (pools, etc.) have been in parallel development for months. We anticipated the growth and have been preparing for it. Sustainability is – and always has been – our primary focus. But, yeah, lots of passion here to move fast while not breaking things!
Q: Not sure if there’s already a better solution for this but are you planning to have an API where we can fetch the data you already have for the nodes? Like how many are created in total, creation date, etc the use case will be to create nice stats for analysis – Black Mamba
Hey Black Mamba – love all that you do to support StrongBlock! (Remember to respect all our great admins!)
We’re not sure about an API, but a Stats page is in development. What specifically would you like to see in API, and what do you see as the primary use cases? We already have a number of whitelisted API’s, some of which we can adapt and open up.
Q: Would not it be beneficial for SB to have more resources available (updated FAQs or additional Medium articles) to help diffuse the FUD ? – avadefi
Please see my earlier answer about FUD. While we will of course keep publishing, there will always be FUD, no matter what we (or any other protocol) do or say. Please refer to the “MORE” menu item on the website with these new pages:
https://strongblock.com/faq.html
https://strongblock.com/announcements.html
https://strongblock.com/simple-tips.html
And I am working on a new Medium post that will discuss how we’ll be leveraging the treasury with ETH 2.0 and other pools.
Q: Any word yet on the reward split/purchase split of polygon and fantom nodes? – Jay horton
See my earlier answer on this. Polygon and Fantom have only committed to one-time grants. We’re working on ways to make their rewards sustainable. And of course we’d like them to continue contributing, but that may not be in the cards. Those factors will help determine the split.
Q: You mentioned that scarcity of the circulating supply was the main obstacle re sustainability. Would you be able to share some of the ideas to address scarcity of supply? Are any ideas not related to rewards reduction being explored such as creating a second token? – avadefi
We of course can’t increase STRONG supply. The token Smart Contract for STRONG does not allow for burning or additional minting. When we burned 96% of the original supply, it was sent to the “dead” wallet.
Our vision for sustainability is to have a “basket” of different kinds of rewards, using the treasury to supplement them alongside STRONG. We are not ruling out creating our own chain and a second token as well; that would allow $STRONG to move toward its stated purpose as a governance token. We’re actively exploring that right now, actually.
Q: Will we be able to use existing nodes for fantom or polygon rewards or just eth 2.0. If yes will be able to toggle between rewards at our leisure or for a locked period of time?
This was answered earlier, but to reiterate, a node for one protocol is different from a node for another protocol. You are welcome to participate in as many node protocols and pools as you like, but each of them are different.
Q: On the audit report on the website – said there were 2 issues – were those fixed? any plans for another audit in future?
Those issues were in regards to known issues in Ethereum, not in the smart contracts themselves, and were addressed over 1 year ago, when the audit was completed.
We have a number of new smart contracts coming out, including Service 2 and ETH 2.0 pool. They will be audited by one or more smart contract companies before they are released. They are scheduled to be submitted to auditors next week.
Q: Why are our ETH nodes private?
Ethereum 1.0 nodes launched by StrongBlock are private for security purposes to avoid exposing our node infrastructure to DDOS attacks. Infura has the same approach and policy.
All full node functionality is available, and many node owners use their node RPC endpoints for their wallets and for accessing the Ethereum 1.0 mainnet. We’re working to expand that usage.
Q: When will the Ethereum 2.0 pool be available?
ETH 2.0 nodes being prepared. Large amounts of ETH from the treasure are already committed (keep in mind it takes 32 ETH per ETH 2.0 node), and the ETH 2.0 pool smart contract will go out for auditing next week. We did the internal demo of the pool yesterday.
Q: Will I need an NFT to create a Polygon node?
Polygon nodes are now being tested. All NFT holders will be eligible for the pilot. After the pilot is successfully, everyone can create a Polygon node. (Insert Oprah giveaway meme here.)
Q: When Merch store?
The merch store is being prepared with socks, hoodies, pullovers, bags, backpacks, mugs, sticker pages and more. I saw a preview of it last night. The compay we’re partnering with has fulfillment centers in multiple countries. Anything else you’d like to see in the store?
Well, that wraps up all the questions I received for this week. Hope the answers were helpful!
Now I’ll open up the chat for one minute for some more questions. Please don’t FUD, don’t repeat what’s already been asked, and be respectful.
…
…
Victor Mikah, [Oct 30, 2021 at 7:46:08 AM]: What is the value proposition of STRONG as a token when it gets scarcer and scarcer. We are afraid you may want to replace it with some other token and discount the value if STRONG.. People looking for sustainability in value of STRONG token far into future irrespective of whatever new protocols or network support you may build in future. This whole company was built on STRONG and the loyal army who have put back all their rewards in perpetually because of their faith.
What is your question? The value proposition of STRONG? It gets more valuable as it gets more scarce. It will never be replaced. It may be supplemented.
Michel, [Oct 30, 2021 at 7:46:08 AM]: Hi, thanks for all your great answers, I was the person who originally asked for the API endpoints, I can’t find any reference to them. As a developer I would like to create a nice dashboard where people can go and see what’s going on with the nodes, how much money is on the table, at what rate we are growing, etc. Just nice things that I think it might help. Where should I find this whitelisted APIs you mentioned?
We do not have any published API endpoints for security and throttling reasons. We haven’t had the need to. Whitelisted API means that only the protocol has access to them right now, behind a firewall. We’re considering adding some to open it up, but at a later date.
Michael Will, [Oct 30, 2021 at 7:46:10 AM]: David, if 528,000 is our max supply of strong. What happens once we hit that number?
Do you mean when all of the 528k are circulating? STRONG simply gets more scarce. It doesn’t disappear.
Cryptoslick, [Oct 30, 2021 at 7:46:13 AM]: Hi David, are you any closer to being able to create nodes with rewards without having to claim? Thanks
Do you mean routing to another place? Yes, that’s built into Service 2.
<<Fair Play Node>>, [Oct 30, 2021 at 7:46:13 AM]: when do you think we will be able to resell nodes or separate/move to another wallet?
That may be a part of Service 2. The big issue is that compromised wallets are subject to the same transfer issues. We are working on opening up a marketplace for nodes. There are some other big priorities (sustainability initiatives) that will need to come first.
EC, [Oct 30, 2021 at 7:46:14 AM]: Hello Mr. Moss Many many thanks. You saved my financial situation. Can you tell us a little about the future of the project? Have you made a plan until when it will certainly work. Many are worried and would like to have security. Thanks very much 🙂
Nearly all of my time is spent on strategizing and designing new features that will increase sustainability. I’ve mentioned some of them today. I’m in this for the long haul.
Benjamin, [Oct 30, 2021 at 7:46:19 AM]: My MetaMask got hacked, although Strongblock can verify the original node buyer, SB support reply is that you cannot move nodes to a new account. This policy ruining peoples lifes and ultimately support these hackers. Do we, the victims, have any hope this can be resolved for us?
I’m always sad to hear that this happened, but the interaction is between your wallet and the protocol. We never have control of your wallet or keys. If your wallet is compromised, there’s literally nothing we can do. Metamask now has a warning about this every time you sign in.
Arturo, [Oct 30, 2021 at 7:46:19 AM]: In some near future, as a requirement, will we have any NTFs, for the creation of storng nodes?
Primarily for pilots, like the Polygon pilot.
Martin, [Oct 30, 2021 at 7:46:20 AM]: The APY on STRONG currently is around 300%, which is quite amazing. However, I would like to know what percentage of the revenue that is distributed to node owners you expect external sources of revenue to cover, given that validator nodes for example yield only around 5-10% APY. I do understand that some rewards reduction is inevitable at some point in order to achieve sustainability, though from my point of view, I fail to see how even fairly significant sources of external revenue could sustain such high APY (100-300%). Could you shed some light on this for us, please? Thank you.
Not sure exacty what your question is here, but the path toward sustainability is through a combination of revenue, staking, treasury staking, and more.
Z bhaijaan, [Oct 30, 2021 at 7:46:20 AM]: @DavidMoss Sir last week a guy posted Strongblock cross chain bridge pics and it circulated on twitter . Will there be bounty / reward for it ?
It was not a bug.
Alberto, [Oct 30, 2021 at 7:46:27 AM]: Would you consider Kadena and it’s Pact smart contract language to achieve faster and more secure deployment of smart contracts?
Never heard of them. Are they on Ethereum 1/2? Are they Solidity compatible?
Coffee Block, [Oct 30, 2021 at 7:46:28 AM]: How many employees currently, can you give examples of some future positions you are looking into as well?
We have a core team that’s recently expanded. We’re very cautious about who and how fast we add to that team. We have two contractor partners. We typically look for automation experts, solidity experts, UI, etc.
Chris Martin, [Oct 30, 2021 at 7:46:30 AM]: Hey David, you mentioned rewards for FTM and MATIC are from the original grant and possibly not sustainable, which is new news to a lot. how was this not addressed during initial discussions with them and how does this not effect all similar protocols joining SB?
Incorrect. The original press release from Polygon stated that there would be a one time grant. Most protocols are interested in grants; they don’t have any native rewards for nodes. That’s exactly why we’re doing what we’re doing. And why we are considering our own chain so we can democratize participation in Validation/Block production.
[Oct 30, 2021 at 7:46:37 AM]: Bit of a personal question but think its be interesting t know what coins your portfolio consists of
STRONG and ETH
Teo, [Oct 30, 2021 at 7:46:45 AM]: Respect. When can we expect the polygon node test to be completed?
It’s just about ready, but the smart contract needs to be audited (it’s in Service 2).
Oran, [Oct 30, 2021 at 7:46:50 AM]: Hey David! When nodes fractionalization? Many people are sitting on the sidelines waiting to invest in Strong nodes but they can’t afford a full node.
We’re considering having Polygon nodes cost a fraction – say 1 STRONG – instead of the full amount, with proportional rewards. That will open it up to a lot more people. Fractionalization will be more important for validators. We’re building that for another chain, but are making it so we can utilize it for our own chain.
Btw would love to see SB rings, necklaces and bracelets in the merch store.
We’ll add those to the list. Needs to be nice stuff though, huh?
MrFirstClass 🍓Council / SkyBridge Ventures, [Oct 30, 2021 at 7:47:32 AM (Oct 30, 2021 at 7:47:46 AM)]: david if ETH 1 nodes turn out to not be compatible with eth 2 nodes will strongblock do a 1:1 swap for all current eth 1 nodes to eth 2 nodes since so much money has been invested into eth 1 nodes? some people have yet to take any income but rather compound for more nodes
This is so speculative at this point. The guidance we have is that the RPC endpoints will be the same, as there will only be one chain. We’ll all have to wait and see, but we will adapt the nodes as necessary.
Okay everyone, thanks SO MUCH for being here.
Remember as you go out in the world this Halloween weekend to be kind, be mindful, and for gosh sakes, have some fun!
Be seeing you.
Strong AMA 30th October 2021 link: https://t.me/strongblock_io/433523
23rd October 2021
Q: Can you give us an idea on where the data centers are located?
Currently we have multiple data centers in multiple countries. The primary data centers are in Singapore. We are in the process of expanding that, for running nodes and validators. We use a combination of 3 different major cloud providers, as well as bare metal. As we move towards more decentralization and automation. We chose Singapore as our primary due to its not participating in 5/9/14 eyes (although there are rumors that they do).
Q: Will fractional nodes be a one time occurrence in the sense it will happen once and never again or for eg. if STRONG goes to 10k per coin after the first implementation of fractional nodes, will you make another node fraction of just 0.1 (1k worth at the time) so the barrier entry isn’t so high?
WIth or without the surge in STRONG price, we have been working toward fractionalization and lower barriers to entry.
We always want to make sure that there are many ways to participate, specifically by continually lowering the barrier for entry. Fractionalization is one way to get there; so are pools. Let’s focus on fractionalization for this answer…
The concept of fractionalization is for many wallets to each have a stake in the same node or validator. I’ve compared it to a theme park ride (Disneyland, 6 flags, Knotts, you choose), where a train pulls up with 8 cars, each with 6 seats. Once all seats are filled, the ride takes off.
So, we’re working on fractionalization for nodes and validators. As we keep adding protocols, we will pilot different approaches.
For example, some nodes will have a lower contribution, with a lower proportional reward; no fractionalization would be required. For validators – for example, Avalanche, where a validator is 2000 AVAX – we’re building out the theme park approach: each time enough wallets contribute, another Avalanche validator will launch.
Imagine if we had our own chain and did that as well…😉
This approach is similar to what Lido is doing. We’re big fans of the models Lido is using, and are incorporating some of their concepts into new pools and fractionalization – although Lido is one of several very good examples of successful models that we are adapting – Olympus Pro with Ohm is another.
(Hope everyone is getting good information out of this. This AMA approach, which is exactly what most TG groups do, gives me more time for more thorough answers.)
Q: Will we be able to use existing nodes for fantom or polygon rewards or just eth 2.0. If yes, will we be able to toggle between rewards at our leisure or for a locked period of time?
Although Fantom and Polygon nodes are EVM compatible, they are separate chains, requiring different implementations to launch their nodes. You can’t use an Ethereum 1.0 full node RPC endpoint to connect to the Polygon or Fantom or other EVM-compabitle chains.
Instead, StrongBlock is building out automated launching mechanisms for each one. They share similar bases – again, they are EVM compatible – but don’t have to be completely reinvented for each chain.
In traditional software porting from one platform to the next, the rule of thumb is that 80% of the code will be the same and be reusable, the other 20% will be unique to the platform.
That’s holding true with the 3 EVM compatible protocol node launchers we’re building out now; that’s why we built an EVM launching core that they share.
So, to answer your question, toggling between the nodes is not possible. With Ethereum 1.0 and 2.0, they both use geth. Whether the Ethereum 1.0 nodes will be able to act as RPC endpoints to the Ethereum 2.0 chain is yet to be determined.
If changes need to be made to the Ethereum 1.0 node code or configurations, we’ll be making them for those nodes when we have more clarity.
FYI, we heard from one of our advisors who attended LisCon in Portugal this week that, while the ETH 2.0 merge is on a test platform, it’s unlikely to go live prior to May 2022, with rewards following about 3 months after that. This figures strongly (pardon the pun) into our ETH 2.0 pool plans.
(By the way, these are GREAT questions. Thanks again to @baconesq for collecting them.)
Q: Has there been any progress on the idea of protocol-owned liquidity? Using Olympus Pro, or just copying the model? When you compare our daily volume and daily reward payouts to our total liquidity, you see that it is extremely shallow liquidity. What will the team do to change this?
Liquidity and sustainability is the basis for everything we’re working on. That’s why I mentioned Olympus and Lido earlier.
We are very interested in both Olympus Pro and Lido. We are working on similar concepts that also dovetail with our mission to support nodes and validators across many chains. So, copying the models is the primary way to provide liquidity.
Happily, the Lido code is Open Source.
Although what we will be doing is deploying capital to those and other protocols, and using the majority of the yields to support the StrongBlock community (with the rest for overhead and deploying more capital).
To emphasize this again:
Mission: Sustainably provide access to technical and non-technical StrongBlock community members to support blockchain infrastructure and be rewarded for doing so. (That phrase is evolving, but you get the idea.)
(Hope everyone is getting a lot out of this. Always grateful to the community. And remember to be grateful to each other!)
Q: When you sit down with a prospective partner and sell your vision, the commercial competitors in the Service space (ie: Infura) must come up in conversation. How do you set yourself/StrongBlock apart in a meaningful way that really makes the light bulb illuminate on the other side of the table?
It depends on whether it’s an industry player who needs private node access, or a more general consulting or service group who wants to bundle that service for their clients.
Basically, what we are saying is:
Look: Infura is a great service. We use it ourselves, as well as StrongBlock generated nodes. Yet it is highly centralized, and there is no incentivization model to decentralize it.
By adding an incentivization model, StrongBlock makes decentralization easier to work towards. Plus, the StrongBlock community draws attention to the protocol and increases adoption. And that brings in technical and non-technical users.
If this only an Enterprise and whale game, then you won’t see mass adoption, like you’re seeing in the NFT space.
(Switching gears for some of the next questions.)
Q: We know that you can't disclose the rewards for Polygon nodes, but can you give us any ballpark on the ratio of native/non-native rewards? That is, are we looking closer to 50% MATIC, 50% STRONG, or like 5% MATIC, 95% STRONG?
Not sure yet. Polygon has already agreed to a one-time grant that they re-confirmed this week. We’re looking at ways to invest that and supplement it. Polygon also confirmed with us this week that they do not have any open Validator slots.
Barring any changes, what we are considering in cases like Polygon is to add MATIC to our treasury, using the Lido and Olympus pro approaches.
FYI, we will be doing that with Sentinel/DVPN as well. We have been accumulating DVPN rewards as a Sentinel Validator and will be making them available through an Olympus/Lido type pool.
Q: Why is it important that the nodes are run by the community? Wouldn't it be much cheaper for Strongblock to run the nodes themselves without needing to pay out rewards?
I’ll answer this question with some questions of my own: What would be the fun in that? How would you get non-technical people involved in building out the future?
Even simpler: Why would you have a party but not invite anyone? (Well, in the time of COVID, that happens all the time, but you still go on Zoom!)
Isn’t this more fun and rewarding?
Q: Are there still plans in place to release new NFTs? Possibly when MATIC arrives?
New NFT’s won’t be introduced until Q1 2022. We built a whole system for earning them, but there are too many higher priority items on the docket. Besides, there are still GOLD NFT’s for sale on the site, and the Silver lottery just got started – and the Gold lottery hasn’t even started yet!
When we release the next NFT system, where will also be components where some NFT’s will have an expiration date – a short-term boost of perhaps 30 days – and will be earned via staking instead of being purchased.
Q: What if Strongblock held OHM in its own treasury via Olympus Pro, staked that OHM and allowed STRONG node operators to put their STRONG into a node pool to get partially rewarded in OHM? With OHM APY and supply expansion, STRONG could easily cover the 60% of STRONG fees they take to pay back to nodes. That 60% could purchase OHM grow treasury, and pay out 50/50 OHM/STRONG.
This is a long question, with a short answer: This is exactly what we’ll be doing with different protocols – especially where we won’t launch nodes. We’re building the smart contracts for pools that will do as you described: you stake STRONG, you get rewarded in the native token.
The first one to launch will be ETH 2.0, where the rewards from a cluster (not sure if that’s the proper collective noun) of ETH 2.0 nodes will go to those who stake STRONG in the pool.
And then we take a small amount for overhead (running the nodes), and the rest gets plowed into creating more yield pools. A virtuous, sustainable cycle.
Q: Any update on the analytic webpage to show node stats, etc?
In process. Not as high a priority as sustainability (which will always be the highest priority.)
Q: Are there plans to move off chain such that owning Uni liquidity was be inconsequential?
We are strongly (again, pardon the pun) considering building our own community-run chain.
Last of the pre-submitted questions, then I will open it up for 1 minute for some more.
Q: Any comment on possible binance listing or running nodes for them?
As I’ve mentioned before, we’ve built a cross-chain bridge that will include support for ERC-1155 tokens between Ethereuem 1.0 and Fantom, Polygon and BSC. That’s in testing. It actually got unveiled briefly last week (thanks to an alert user, who pointed it out this week), but we re-whitelisted it as it is still in testing. We can’t comment further. 😉
In general, we always have a LOT of different features and projects in process for which we do prototypes and pilots. Many of them need to be released as a group; some of them are dependent on when we launch a new protocol to support its nodes and validators. Always BUIDLing.
Okay, I’m going to open up questions now for one minute. Please be brief, don’t ask the same questions I already answered today, and be respectful and kind.
[Additional questions below…]
Michel, [Oct 23, 2021 at 7:47:51 AM]: For people who’s starting to get their first node, the concern might be the limitation on creating new nodes let’s say in a year time, is that something they/we should be concern about or we don’t know yet?
We will continue to add new protocols – nodes and validators – for quite some time. A year isn’t that far away, and blockchains certainly aren’t going to diminish – they’ll need even more nodes and validators.
Z bhaijaan, [Oct 23, 2021 at 7:48:28 AM]: Hey david .. a guy name jags posted a pic of strong team making their own cross- bridge from ethereum to polygon .. is it true ? And also nft can be bridge too
That was real. He was nice enough to contact us and let us know that it had been exposed. It is Ethereum to Polygon, Fantom and BSC. Shhh….
Rudy Campos, [Oct 23, 2021 at 7:48:37 AM]: How long does a winner of the lottery have to claim that nft? Do they expire if they do not purchase the lotto’d nft?
There is currently no expiration in the smart contract. We know that some of the winners will take a while to accumulate 7.5 STRONG to get their Silver.
Heggy, [Oct 23, 2021 at 7:48:51 AM]: David, thanks for this format decision and your time! Is the claim routing tool still on-track for November per last week?
Claim routing is part of the Service 2 Smart Contract, and will be introduced with the Polygon pilot.
P51Hunter, [Oct 23, 2021 at 7:49:05 AM]: Is there any plannings or news regarding of moving nodes to other wallets?
We had a non-UI tool we were testing for that. Unfortunately, it can be used by ANYONE who has control of your wallet. So we disabled it, and it will be reintroduced in Service 2.
Kryto Dog, [Oct 23, 2021 at 7:49:18 AM]: If you were going to invest in 50 nodes right now, would you move forward with existing structure or wait for the new protocols? And why?
I/we do not give investment advice. Me personally? I like diversification. And I don’t like waiting. I always look at short, medium and long-term.
S, [Oct 23, 2021 at 7:49:29 AM]: Hey David will halving the rewards have any effect on making the project more sustainable in the long term ?
Who said anything about halving? We will be trying out a new “decay” model with the Polygon nodes. We’ll see how well that works.
(Just a few more. Kids birthday party to prepare for today.)
Nelly, [Oct 23, 2021 at 7:49:37 AM]: I'm sure we all recognise and appreciate that this is not a one man show, and that there is a team that shares your passion for Strongblock. But what about David the man? What is it that drives you to imagine everybody having the opportunity to get rewarded? Outside of the social and conservative stereotypes, what feeds the passion for inclusivity that you clearly envisage?
You and the team have transformed my family's lives in less than a year. We will never be able to thank you all personally for that, but it feels like we ought to be offering something in return. Telling you is a start.
Thanks Nelly. I have kids. Kids help you see that you need to be aware of more than yourself. Not that I was a selfish person, but the perspective of making sure that everyone can participate, no matter what their capabilities are, is VERY important to me. That’s extended into StrongBlock.
Mike, [Oct 23, 2021 at 7:49:45 AM]: Is it possible to adjust the settings in this telegram group that you need to join before you can read? I see it in some other channels so it's definitely possible. The scammers are out of control.
Also use a human verification bot for newcomers.
Two steps and it'll help a lot because now the scammers need to enter the room instead they can read without joining.
We’re working on that right now. Bots, etc. Should be added in the next few weeks.
Jagveer singh, [Oct 23, 2021 at 7:49:46 AM]: Sir , Binance website map shows strong is about to get listed , i hope you can clear on those humors .
I can neither confirm nor deny this
John Galt 🥦, [Oct 23, 2021 at 7:49:47 AM] Just want to say I think this format was much better than prior weeks.
Thanks @jon_galt
DakotaSamsara, [Oct 23, 2021 at 7:49:51 AM]: I see panther protocol release their token on the 23rd of November. Panther have stated they have no current news on their nodes. Will/have $strong thought about an approach @DavidMoss
We will be reaching out to them.
Ellesupermom, [Oct 23, 2021 at 7:49:59 AM]: What are your thoughts on Chainlinks NaaS?
They limit it to one node per person. We are talking with Chainlink about offering more nodes through StrongBlock.
Norbertron, [Oct 23, 2021 at 7:50:04 AM]: David I want to kiss your bald shiny head, thanks
Consider it virtually kissed.
cr_zilla 🧠✖️🌓, [Oct 23, 2021 at 7:50:15 AM]: Are you confirming AVAX as the next chain to go live?
I can neither confirm nor deny this.
The next chain to go live will be Polygon/Matic.
Okay everyone! Hope you got plenty of answers today. Please be kind, mindful and respectful. We are together a STRONG community. Have a great rest of your weekend!
Strong 23 Oct 2021 AMA link: https://t.me/strongblock_io/412589
Earlier AMAs
Prior to 23rd October, Strong AMAs were much less structured.
You can find a summary of these AMAs here: https://vanlifeincome.net/strong-nodes-passive-income#Strong_updates_weekly_AMA_notes_etc
