Start of AMA: 7:30 p.m. Pacific time.

Dustin K

Welcome everyone to the Nebulas Node AMA!

This is a special event with some of the top node operators that have been participating in the testnet program and will be joining the mainnet launch next month.

During the AMA, if anyone has some questions for our participants, please be sure to ask!

Let’s take a moment to hear from our AMA participants who are located around the world & learn more about their services!

Hello @vit_park from Everstake.one. Thanks for being here.

Vit | Everstake

Hi guys, excited to be here and thank you for doing this AMA!

My name is Vit, I’m a project manager at Everstake. Everstake is a staking platform that currently operates in 15 different blockchains and exploring about 10 more. Our main goal is to make staking a household name. Currently, the amount of assets staked with us is about 1 billion dollars.

Dustin K

Excellent. Quite a big operation you have!

Hello @FutureStaker from stackofstake.com

Dustin K

Would you like to share a little about your platform?

Future Staker

Hello everyone

Thanks for inviting StackOfStake to this AMA.

We are excited to be here and be Nebulas node operator.

We are also operating the nodes at 50+ other blockchains and providing staking services.

Dustin K

We’re honored to be one of your node partners!

Oliver Shi

Thanks @Satoshibytes and everyone here!

I’m Oliver and I am BD manager at Allnodes. We are a masternode and staking service provider. Allnodes currently support 16 protocols (more coming soon), and more staking service coming in Q1 2020. Right now there are over 5500 masternodes managed by our solution.

Dustin K

That’s quite an impressive amount of nodes. Thanks for being here.

Hello @silizhao55 from infinitystones.io

Sili Zhao | InfStones

Hey friends, excited to join the AMA today!

My name is Sili and I am from InfStones, a group of professional blockchain enthusiast located in sunny California.

InfStones is a Silicon Valley based Blockchain Infrastructure and Platform as a Service provider, staking is one of the most important applications running on our infrastructure.

Dustin K

We’re excited to have you here and your insight in the blockchain ecosystem!

Sili Zhao | InfStones

We have been actively participating in the staking ecosystem and providing reliable services since 2018; currently elected super nodes on EOS, TRON and almost 30 DPoS and PoS chains.

Oliver Shi

Thanks @Satoshibytes, we are also very proud of our automated hosting/setup process, state of art UI, and aiming to provide the best UX.

Dustin K

Awesome! Thanks for sharing.

And finally, hello Elaina from BTCU — btcu.pro which stands for the “Blockchain Technology Community of Universities.”

Future Staker

Some many strong players are here

Sili Zhao | InfStones

Thanks Dustin!! We are thrilled to get to know the community!

Shengnan Zhang

The BTCU (Blockchain Technology Community of Universities) was sponsored by the leaders of blockchain associations from more than 30 top universities in China, including Tsinghua University, Peking University, Zhejiang University, and Fudan University. At present, there are more than 2,500 students in the community, and the student group is covered by the official associations of various universities up to 4000+. It is the largest and most influential university blockchain community in China. We hope that we can participate in the development of Nebulas through being Nebulas node operator.

Dustin K

We’re excited to learn more about yours and our other participants services!

Perfect, thank you. Quite the list of participants you have there!

Everyone ready to answer some questions?

Future Staker

Yep, let’s go.

Vit | Everstake

Bring them on ;)

Oliver Shi

That’s why we are here right?

Dustin K

Here’s the first one.

Question: What are your main considerations when choosing to participate in the Nebulas node decentralization project and what do you consider the long-term process in the blockchain industry?

Dustin K

@olivershi Would you like to take this one first?

How about @vit_park What do you think?

Vit | Everstake

Before we join a project, we do our research and analyze several vital criteria to make sure that it can perform well and will continue to develop. We see this in Nebulas and will be happy to contribute as many of our resources as possible to help the network grow.

Dustin K

That’s great to hear!

Dustin K

We look forward to further integrating the node operators into the governance system!

Nebulas in general or users platform base?

Instagram@Kevzerian

What niches y‘all aiming for?

Vit | Everstake

What do you mean by niches?

Instagram@Kevzerian

I mean your devs on what they work actually on the nebula blockchain

Dustin K

Good question. Anyone would like to answer this?

Vit | Everstake

True, a node operator is not just someone who can run a node, there’s so much more to it.

Oliver Shi

For Allnodes we look at the team, project’s uniqueness, innovation, user participation, and the long term potential of the project and direction it’s going in.

For us, we want to focus on providing great masternode, staking, and other related services to networks and users, and grow with the industry.

Future Staker

Node organizations are mainly working in providing a staking services and solutions. As miners are essential for Bitcoin networks — in the same way professional node operators are important for the strength of POS blockchains.

Vit | Everstake

So far, we’re exploring a few ideas we have for Nebulas and the best way to implement them. Stay tuned for updates!

Dustin K

That’s very true. People forget that there is still a technical hurdle to overcome even with staking.

Vit | Everstake

We have experience building wallets, explorers, dev tools and many other things. So, we hope to share our expertise with the Nebulas community.

Dustin K

Elaina from BTCU would like to add anything to this question?

Shengnan Zhang

BTCU will continue to promote blockchain education among university student groups this year, and will continuously launch multiple hardcore courses, with the primary goal of enabling students to get started on the blockchain. I hope that in this process, we can cooperate and develop together with Nebula Chain.

Dustin K

Your project often conducts technical reviews and such, correct?

This is what the next level of adoption needs! People still in the education system learning more about DLT and blockchain. Thank you for your comment.

Vit | Everstake

Always actually ;)

Dustin K

Nice! Interested parties can find that on your site everstake.one, correct?

Let’s move on to the next question

Question: What do you think is the difference between the Nebulas PoD Node Program and the other node and staking projects you’re involved in?

Instagram@Kevzerian

I have More Questions about Marketing but this isn‘t the place for, Right ?

Dustin K

No, not for this AMA. We can talk later about this.

Vit | Everstake

Sure

Dustin K

Who would like to go first? @silizhao55

Sili Zhao | InfStones

Sure

Sili Zhao | InfStones

Proof of Devotion is a consensus algorithm that has made innovative improvements on PoS. The number of votes is no longer the sole criterion for node selection, but considerations for node performance, stability, and time it has been participating in the ecosystem have been added to the mix.

Sili Zhao | InfStones

InfStones has developed an automated node management system covering anything from monitoring to maintenance and automated upgrade to ensure high availability and reliability. Nebulas’s PoD incentivizes nodes to ensure that their tech and setup are up to par of what the network demands, help the community to choose nodes that are contributing to a stable ecosystem. A stable ecosystem means stable return for the delegators.

Dustin K

That’s a great point. Reliability is mandatory for the return of the delegators.

Elaina, what do you think?

Shengnan Zhang

The three points that impressed me most about the Nebula PoD node plan are the following parts :

1. It adds a weight coefficient such as contribution, and it is no longer only based on the voting volume;

2. It contains the rewards for governance, urging nodes to participate in the governance ecosystem of Nebula;

3. Nebula has a good collaboration platform GoNebulas, which can be well integrated with the PoD node plan.

Dustin K

Great, thank you. Nebulas is working very hard at the moment to further integrate the governance service with go.nebulas.io.

@olivershi I see you typing. Any thoughts you would like to add about this question?

Oliver Shi

I believe Nebulas PoD is going in an interesting direction on top of PoS. I believe it’s structure recognize the value of individual users and node operators more than simple PoS

Dustin K

Yes, that’s what we are going for. Add additional dimensions to common PoS.

Thank you for your comment.

Alright, let’s move on.

Question: We know that the PoD node program and the governance part will vote on GoNebulas. Have you ever heard of the GoNebulas platform?

Who would like to go first? Elaina?

Shengnan Zhang

We are very concerned about the GoNebulas platform. As I said before, BTCU itself is a distributed collaboration organization of various universities. We believe that the GoNebulas platform launched by Nebulas is a very useful collaboration template. BTCU is also developing its own collaboration platform. We believe that such efforts made by Nebula Chain and BTCU will have extremely wide application value in the future. It will greatly reduce the cost of collaboration between people who do not trust each other.

Dustin K

Yes, good point about reduction of cost.

Future Staker

GoNebulas platform is one of the core elements of Nebulas project. StackOfStake team is actively participating in discussions and creating their own proposals. We have noticed that with the launch of the PoD Node Program the number of decent proposals significantly increased. And this is obviously a good trend 😎

Dustin K

Yes, I have read the proposals from StackOfStake. They are logical and thought out. Thank you for participating.

Vit | Everstake

The idea is not unique but still very new. So, it’s interesting to see how GoNebulas can learn from others and do things in its own way.

Oliver Shi

GoNebulas is a good way to fuel creativity and growth within the Nebulas ecosystem, and great thing for long term, sustainable growth. Hope to see even more action on GoNebulas with the PoD.

Dustin K

Yes, so do we once it’s part of the governance process.

Future Staker

Many projects are researching and innovating in this field. I’m confident that we will see a lot of great solutions and improvements in the future.

Dustin K

Thank you for sharing your opinion.

Vit | Everstake

Sure thing

Oliver Shi

We at Allnodes are aiming at creating the most user friendly masternode and staking experience ever, at the end if something requires a length setup time and great technical knowledge that would be a major barrier from mass adoption by average users like you said.

Dustin K

Absolutely. Simplicity to begin is key for newbies.

Vit | Everstake

It might come out a bit confusing but what I meant was that it’s great not to be the first in some respect. We can learn from the mistakes of others while also implementing our own thing.

Instagram@Kevzerian

The More Important thing is to Build a real user friendly interface/use case to get faster adopted from the Mass — it would be great to catch the younger Generation for Example the gamers

Dustin K

I too believe gaming will be huge on blockchain — eventually! What do our node participants think about gaming on the chain?

Instagram@Kevzerian

Gamers are the only ones who can make this chain great, or try to show someone with age 30+ what is a node, what is a blockchain how to stack, and and and they will give up After 10mins going to traditional markets

Dustin K

Very true. We’re still in a revolutionary phase pertaining to blockchain. Every success and failure contributes to the whole.

I believe the key to blockchain gaming is to make the blockchain part invisible to the end-user — unless they have a specific task to perform.

Vit | Everstake

I think it’s not about the age, it’s about the process and how seamless it is. To the point that my mom can stake by herself without requiring my help, that’s my definition of simple and seamless.

Future Staker

The generations are changing each others. What was weird and hard yesterday — is very natural today.

Sili Zhao | InfStones

Usability has always been at the center of the blockchain research and we have seen great improvements compared to just a year ago. Most of us have a goal of never have to explain anything and just smooth user experience.

Oliver Shi

Personally I think this is a problem that blockchain is facing. Lots of focus on technology but not enough on solutions. In the end it’s about creating value to the users, while providing great UX

Sili Zhao | InfStones

Agreed, tech always starts small and grows from there

Dustin K

Great answers everyone! Thank you @kevzerian for posting the question.

On to the next question!

Question: Do you have any plan to distribute the PoD rewards to community members who support your node with NAX?

@FutureStaker would you like to take this one first?

Future Staker

We definitely do! After the testnet phase will be finished (March 2020), we are going to distribute some amount of NAS earned by StackOfStake node to the individuals who are supporting our node with their NAX. We will choose the most active and valuable Nebulas community members to work with us and earn from StackOfStake node. The individuals who are interested in voting with NAX for StackOfStake node can already me.

Also, during 2020, we are planning to start to offer NAS staking services at our platform https://stackofstake.com/

It will be very exciting 🤘

Dustin K

That’s truly great to hear. Support the community and they will support you.

Elaina What is your plan and perspective?

Shengnan Zhang

What we hope is to work with NAS believers in the community to build a nebula ecology in a long-term and continuous way, and plan to return 80% to 85% of the node’s receipts to NAX’s voting supporters. The revenue part is used to bear the cost of nodes and later used in the promotion of the nebula chain university circle. We will take a snapshot of the results of votes randomly at 9–12 o’clock daily , publish and distribute the revenue at the end of each month. After building trust with voters, we will maintain the frequency of monthly dividends to reduce costs.

Dustin K

Wow, that’s an impressive goal.

@olivershi what is the plan for Allnodes?

Oliver Shi

Allnodes is planning on distributing 90% of all rewards to users that support our nodes with their votes.

We will have special intros at the beginning with 100% going to our supporters! More details will come later. Make sure you mark www.allnodes.com haha

Dustin K

That’s great. The community should be excited about the offerings from the node partners.

Next question — it’s a bit of a challenging one.

Question: What distinguishes Nebulas from other similar projects that are developed by competitors?

@FutureStaker what do you think?

Future Staker

In my opinion, most of the new strong projects are heading in a very similar direction: building the community and improving governance tools, exploring the new economy models for the fair coin distribution, etc.

But we also see a number of unique things that strongly distinguishes Nebulas from other projects. One of them is Nebulas Rank. We feel that this feature can open huge opportunities for the project in DeFi, especially if Nebulas will succeed in cross-chain interoperability.

Dustin K

We too see Nebulas Rank playing a big factor in the future of Nebulas and even DeFi — possibly giving a new level of trust to users.

Instagram@Kevzerian

What makes your service better than own a node by myself ?

Dustin K

I think all our participants can answer this question and all a bit different.

Instagram@Kevzerian

Hosting a node means to me I have to stack my coins to a third party with a risk to get exit scammed

Vit | Everstake

You can always do that. It’s an option for most of the PoS blockchains out there. If you have the technical skills, then I’d say do it, better for the network.

Future Staker

StackOfStake could probably provide Nebulas node hosting services too, if there will be a demand.

Dustin K

That’s a very interesting perspective stating that those capable should manage their own node for better decentralization.

Sili Zhao | InfStones

I sense that you are a tech savvy participant in the community! But not all who wish to participate has the ability to do that. It is like cooking a perfect gordon ramsay beef wellington, If I try that, It might be not desirable lol

Oliver Shi

We are a non-custodial, masternode setup process just take a few clicks, we have a state of art UI and dashboard for you to manage your node or even multiple nodes at once in an easy and clear way.

We take care of all the backroom tech stuff, so you don’t have to do anything, we manage all the updates for you.

99.99%+ SLA, cost efficient, and already trusted by 5600+ nodes :)

Sorry forgot to @kevzerian

Vit | Everstake

Oh man, we’re all for it, this is a space by enthusiasts. The truth is not many people realize that once the networks takes off it becomes a full time job.

Future Staker

😝 Great comparison!

Sili Zhao | InfStones

Isn’t that a truth!! Full time job it is

Dustin K

Just like the early days. Love it!

Vit | Everstake

I think you’re confusing custody with staking. By staking you don’t give access to your coins to anyone. You’re in control all the time and node operators can’t do anything.

Dustin K

Very insightful answers from everyone about this topic. Thank you.

One last submitted question for the night.

Question: In 2019, staking was a major topic for many projects. Going into 2020 and beyond, do you think this will continue and will we see less development on PoW chains?

@vit_park what do you think?

Vit | Everstake

We’re talking cross purposes here. You asked: why trust you and not run you own validator. And that was the the answer to that.

Vit | Everstake

It’s not only what I think, the data shows. The people are getting more interested in it. Don’t get me wrong PoW has its own place and there are lots of people backing it up but PoS can offer many things that PoW will never be capable of. PoS with staking is currently the driver of the industry and more and more people want to be a part of it.

Dustin K

Very true, Do you think this has a lot to do with semi-passive income or is it deeper such as POW being a “waste of energy?”

Pradeep Kumar Nallan invited Pradeep Kumar Nallan

Dustin K

@olivershi and @silizhao55 what are your thoughts?

Sili Zhao | InfStones

Eth 2.0 is about to go live in 2020; a project ranked 2nd in market capitalization offering staking to the public will bring more attention and participation to the space. We will also witness a lot of high-quality projects like Nebulas open staking to the public.

Vit | Everstake

I guess it’s many-fold. For some it’s staking and passive income, for some it’s the governance and voting, others choose it because of environmental reasons.

Oliver Shi

Staking had a great year in 2019, and we believe it will grow even more in 2020. It is becoming an essential and stable part of many network, and it will be a very important element for the future of the industry. However I don’t think PoW is going away just because PoS and staking are getting popular, IMO they are attracting people with different mindset and visions.

Future Staker

Yes, I agree that the release of ETH 2.0 will give a good push for all POS networks, including Nebulas.

Sili Zhao | InfStones

Been in the PoS space for long, we have witness tremendous growth in projects utilizing PoS or its derivative consensus. As the blockchain industry keeps growing, there are a lot resources been injected to the industry. It is possible to see that both PoW and PoS getting more development at the same time; but there is no doubt that PoS is currently enjoying a much higher growth.

Dustin K

With ETH 2.0 becoming PoS, do you think miners will disappear or will they go to another chain such as ETC or DCR since they are similar algorithms?

Insightful. Thank you for the response.

Future Staker

With the release of ETH 2.0 we will definitely see the redivision of hashrate between all GPU-friendly networks. I will not even wonder if something like Ethereum Original fork will be released 😄

Oliver Shi

I agree on the ETH 2.0 being a major influence factor here, then it’s about how different visions and executions everyone have will shine and get accepted by users and the market.

Dustin K

Excellent answers and insight into this complex world. Thank you everyone for the responses!

Before we go, does anyone joining us have a question pertaining to nodes?

Or the services offered by our AMA participants?

If not, I will give you all one last question that has been talked about by some node operators.

Question: Recently, there has been talk about modifying the penalty mechanism. As node operators, what do you think about this?

Elaina, any thoughts you would like to share?

Future Staker

At StackOfStake, we think that this proposal definitely makes sense. Current penalties structure is too strict. By lowering the penalties node operation will become more desirable without major impact to network security.

Dustin K

Thank you for your answer. This topic will actually be the first voted item for the governance council which will occur by the end of the month. It will be interesting to see the results.

@silizhao55, @olivershi, @vit_park any opinion about this?

Future Staker

Looking forward to it 🙌

Vit | Everstake

At the beginning the penalties should be mild, let the network and the operators mature a bit. After that they can be changed to harsher ones.

Dustin K

Very interesting take. It does make sense.

Sili Zhao | InfStones

discussions on governance is always a good indication of a healthy network. But a lower penalty makes sense especially at the start. We should encourage more participant to try and find areas to improve in the network but not punish those who participate

Oliver Shi

I believe in striking a reasonable balance. It should encourage operators to be reliable and add value to the network but not to scare them away. A break-in period like @vit_park said is great

Dustin K

Good suggestions from all.