Sonm has proceeded to the development of masternodes, the time has come.

We are currently testing the solution of Loom Network as a technology base to run our new sidechain. It features DPoS, validators, witness and all the familiar words you know. The research is going on and soon we will be able to tell how the solution will look like, but not today.

We also look closely for Ethereum ecosystem development, Eth 2.0, Plasma testbeds, Parity, Substrate, and Polkadot – those options all look promising as well. Today we have selected Loom because it looks (for us) as a production-ready solution today – a statement, that we will check in the upcoming weeks.

Why now?

Render service has been launched, so the source of business tasks should start growing, spinning the Sonm marketplace gears.

Stable supplier pool has been organized.

What for?

Masternodes are being prepared for several reasons, explained in the previous post regarding them.

The survey is required to understand and confirm the real demand and support for this activity.

The idea behind holding a survey

We wish to learn the opinion of people, who seek to run a masternode:

To find out how many people are ready and how many SNM they have. We have been talking about this for a long time, but how is this idea really popular in terms of SNM mass? We’ve heard kilobytes of messages supporting this but how many millions of SNM represent them?

To check if they are ready to support this decision with SNM stakes from Ethereum wallets. Discussion is one thing, taking action is another – if the next day the masternodes are activated, how many are brave to hold the mouse and keyboard tight to support this with a cryptographic signature?

Please, kindly do not answer if you are not interested or if you are not ready to support your decision with a cryptographic signature.

Survey description

Link to the survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe9n9shDD9Zq-XwJda-0WiKEBeJ-1dzff8TwzUnoyCoMRbtig/viewform?usp=sf_link

Survey qualification

You need to qualify for the survey by signing a text message with an Ethereum key, that holds your SNM bank on Ethereum or Sonm sidechain. This can be easily done with myetherwallet “Sign Message” feature and you key storing method of choice (we recommend using a Hardware wallet or MetaMask) using our guide below.

Your account must have SNM both at the time you fill the survey and at the time the survey will be closing, so we recommend keeping SNM during the whole duration of the survey.

Collected data

We will ask you for these personal details:

E-mail – mandatory (so we can reach you with a message, this may be required to organize work once we get ready for MN activation).

Telegram nickname – optional (so we can chat with you or recognize you if you chat with us).

Ethereum address.

Your signature.

Questions

We will ask your opinion regarding the possible masternodes configuration and your commitment thoughts.

Survey guide

The survey is built using Google Forms and passing it should be self-explanatory as we believe. Open the survey link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe9n9shDD9Zq-XwJda-0WiKEBeJ-1dzff8TwzUnoyCoMRbtig/viewform?usp=sf_link Start answering the questions. To qualify for the survey follow the signature guide below. Submit your results. We will be collecting responses at least for 1 week (until 2 September 2019)

or until we get a representative amount of SNM – we hope to hear the voice of at least 5% of SNM.

Signature guide

We hope you know how to use Ethereum and are aware of general security precautions when working with money on the internet.

Do not upload your private keys, even to MyEtherWallet! Use MetaMask – at least it stores your keys locally!

We are not asking you to send your coins, Ether or SNM! Keep this in mind. So check that you are signing a message, not sending your coins.

Always check the links and the authority of websites – don’t let a phishing site to steal your bank!

Sign a message containing your email with you Ethereum key using MEW:

Open MEW: https://www.myetherwallet.com/interface/sign-message Choose your method of accessing the wallet. We recommend using “Hardware” or “MetaMask”. In this guide, we will use MetaMask (https://metamask.io/). Click MetaMask browser plugin bar to login into MetaMask. Enter your password to unlock. Click “MetaMask” method of accessing the wallet on MEW page. Tick checkbox to accept EULA. Click the “Access My Wallet” button. You should get logged to MEW interface. Using the left menu select “Sign Message” option under “Message” header. Compose a message screen will show up. Type your message – “Sonm survey N1 for %you_email%” (replace %you_email% with your actual email), see example below. Click the “Sign” button. MetaMask popup window will show up requesting your acceptance to sign a message. It will say “Signature Request”. Click the “Sign” button again (in MetaMask popup). Click “Confirm Signing” button. An overlay window must show up with your signature saying “Signed Message:”. Your signature must look like text in JSON format (fancy program-looking formatting starting with “{” bracer), see example below. This is it – your signature – click the “Copy” button to copy your signature to your copy buffer. Paste the resulted JSON text it into “Signature” input in our Survey Form.

Example of a message (step 11):

Sonm survey N1 for [email protected]

Example of a signature (step 16):

{ "address": "0x...", "msg": "Sonm survey N1 for [email protected]", "sig": "0x...", "version": "3", "signer": "MEW" }

More precautions

Below is a list of additional precautions. Please be advised, this is not a full list of things to keep in mind:

The mission is simple – to sign a message.

Do not upload your private keys, even to MyEtherWallet! Use MetaMask – at least it stores your keys locally!

We are not asking you to send your coins, Ether or SNM! Keep this in mind. So check that you are signing a message, not sending your coins.

Check your progress at each step.

Carefully check all website URLs, bookmark them, put bookmarks on fast access bar.

If you search for a MEW website in a search engine, there will be phishing websites, triple check the URL with authoritative sources.

Check the SSL/TLS certificate issuer and other details.

This list will be endless, let’s sum it up – take care.

Links: