Which Masternode Project Is Truly The Master Of Nodes

By Contrast Crypto on Altcoin Academy

We’re all familiar with the function of a node in the context of cryptocurrency. A node stores a full copy, in real-time, of the blockchain your node is synced to.

Rather than nodes being permissioned and centralized, blockchain technology allows anyone to spring up a node anywhere, as long as they have an internet connection. The higher the node count and the more spread out the nodes are, the more decentralized the network is.

Masternodes are different though, they are incentivized to perform a number of other functions in addition to storing and maintaining the full blockchain. Some additional functions performed by masternodes include but are not limited to:

— Increasing transaction privacy and speed

— Confirming transactions

— Participating in governance and voting

— Budgeting and managing treasury systems

Due to these additional functionalities, barriers to entry must be in place to ensure masternode operators do not and can not act maliciously on the network. To do this, operators must have collateral, also known as a Staking Requirement, in order to run a masternode — the staking requirement will be an amount of that particular cryptocurrency.

Top 10 Masternodes According To Masternodes.Pro

Masternodes Pro takes great pride in thoroughly researching the projects that apply to their platform to make sure the teams behind them are faithful and dedicated to their users — and not just there for a money grab. The Masternodes Pro ranking is calculated by assigning a number of points to certain criteria, with the point quantities added together for each requirement the project meets.

Some of the requirements include, but are not limited to:

— Active GitHub repository with commits in the last 30, 60 and 90 days.

— Active Social Media, including Twitter, Facebook, Telegram, Reddit, Website, Block Explorer, Discord and Announcements.

— Annual Return On Investment of < 100% & < 300%.

— 25%, 50%, and 75% of coins locked up in masternodes.

— Masternode price > $1000; $2500; or $10,000.

— Market Cap > $10,000; $100,000; or $1,000,000.

— Token price > $0.01; $1; or $10.

— 24 hour exchange volume > $1,000; $10,000; $100,000.

Please note: Prices and statistics were accurate at the time of writing and may not reflect exact prices and statistics at the time of your reading.

— Market Cap: $841,830,849

— Daily Volume: $199,557,856

— MarketCap:Volume Ratio: 4.22:1

— DASH Price: $96.26

— Staking Requirement: 1000 DASH

— DASH Masternode Cost: $96260

— Return On Investment: 6.3%

— Active Masternodes: 4877

— Monthly Reward: 5.25 DASH / $505

— Yearly Reward: 63.05 DASH / $6064

— Lock-Up Percentage: 54%

Dash is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency and a fork of Bitcoin with a focus on fast transactions, privacy, and decentralized governance via their masternode network. Dash was the first cryptocurrency project to implement a masternode protocol.

The primary functions of Dash’s masternode network is to facilitate transaction locking to reduce double-spending, to coordinate coin mixing for anonymous transactions, and to provide governance for the Dash blockchain network.

Thoughts: Dash is by far the largest of the masternode networks, with almost 5000 masternodes in operation — though it feels like the barrier to entry is a little high with a setup cost of almost $100k (at one stage costing upwards of $1million).

— Market Cap: $6,321,552

— Daily Volume: $1,144,399

— MarketCap:Volume Ratio: 5.52:1

— IMG Price: $0.54

— Staking Requirement: 10000 IMG

— IMG Masternode Cost: $5400

— Return On Investment: 19.20%

— Active Masternodes: 537

— Monthly Reward: 160.2 IMG / $86

— Yearly Reward: 1921.39 IMG / $1037

— Lock-Up Percentage: 65%

ImageCoin is a fork of Dash with the additional implementation of the Zerocoin Protocol — a technology developed by MIT researchers to provide its user base with a higher degree of privacy.

Masternodes on the ImageCoin network function as both a source of passive income and a means of contributing to the maintenance of the ImageCoin blockchain.

As a hybrid of both Proof of Work/Proof of Stake, the block reward is split between the two consensus mechanisms, with 25% of the block reward going to Masternodes.

Thoughts: ImageCoin is a relatively unknown project focusing on digitizing images and storing them on the blockchain. Masternode cost recently went up 50%, so a correction may be on the horizon.

— Market Cap: $5,637,222

— Daily Volume: $106,197

— MarketCap:Volume Ratio: 53.08:1

— NIX Price: $0.12

— Staking Requirement: 40000 NIX

— NIX Masternode Cost: $4800

— Return On Investment: 15.03%

— Active Masternodes: 341

— Monthly Reward: 501.16 NIX / $60

— Yearly Reward: 6017.43 NIX / $722

— Lock-Up Percentage: 31%

NIX Platform is a peer-to-peer privacy oriented cryptocurrency and multi-layered interoperability platform which fuels anonymity-focused decentralized applications and smart contracts.

NIX Platform adopts multiple privacy mechanisms including the Zerocoin Protocol and Zero-Knowledge Proofs, giving users the ability to opt-in for private transactions. Nix utilizes a Proof of Stake consensus model to secure the network, validate the blockchain and allow the emission of new blocks. Voting power on the network validation process is proportional to the amount of NIX coins users have staked.

Thoughts: Nix has doubled up on privacy protocols which means there’s a good chance your transaction information isn’t getting leaked. Return on investment is okay, but not huge.

— Market Cap: $115,223,617

— Daily Volume: $787,503

— MarketCap:Volume Ratio: 146.32:1

— NRG Price: $6.46

— Staking Requirement: 10000 NRG

— NRG Masternode Cost: $64600

— Return On Investment: 72.59%

— Active Masternodes: 762

— Monthly Reward: 604.97 NRG / $3901

— Yearly Reward: 7263.84 NRG / $46918

— Lock-Up Percentage: 39%

Energi was born from a vision of a powerful economically-optimized self-funding cryptocurrency with smart contract capabilities and decentralized governance.

Energi has evolved from Proof of Work to a Proof of Stake consensus mechanism and offers high staking rewards to encourage security and growth. The bulk of the block reward goes to their treasury and masternodes. Masternodes administer governance, security, instant transactions and private transactions over the network, while the treasury provides essential funding for all Energi services.

Thoughts: Energi has by far the highest ROI of the coins mentioned in this list in both return percentage and value of returns, with a +70% return on investment generating a monthly reward of almost $4000 at current prices.

— Market Cap: $1,271,567

— Daily Volume: $2,309

— MarketCap:Volume Ratio: 550.7:1

— LUX Price: $0.25

— Staking Requirement: 16120 LUX

— LUX Masternode Cost: $4030

— Return On Investment: 26.48%

— Active Masternodes: 149

— Monthly Reward: 328.87 LUX / $64.91

— Yearly Reward: 3946.42 LUX / $778.92

— Lock-Up Percentage: 38.56%

A Lux Masternode is a 24/7 dedicated server connected to their blockchain network which adds an additional layer of stability and two additional levels of functionality. The additional functions are: increased transactions speeds and transaction privacy with LuxSend.

Lux masternode owners earn rewards for supporting the network and providing these additional services. Masternode rewards are 20% and are randomly paid to the masternode owners who support the network.

Thoughts: Smart contract and SegWit implementation coming soon. Return on investment is VERY low, and the only coin on this list with an ROI below 1%. Not entirely sure how it ranked so high, must have met the criteria for everything but ROI.

— Market Cap: $5,667,945

— Daily Volume: $34,998

— MarketCap:Volume Ratio: 161.95:1

— LOKI Price: $0.14

— Staking Requirement: 22117 LOKI

— LOKI Masternode Cost: $3096

— Return On Investment: 29.35%

— Active Masternodes: 617

— Monthly Reward: 541.15 LOKI / $75

— Yearly Reward: 6497.53 LOKI / $909

— Lock-Up Percentage: 32%

The Loki Project is chasing the ambitious goal of developing a suite of privacy tools utilizing blockchain technology. A fork of Monero, Loki has implemented Service Nodes — Loki’s masternodes — to help support additional functionalities on the Loki Network, including instant and private transactions with Blink, a decentralized end-to-end encrypted messaging application, and an anonymous internet designed to compete with TOR.

Loki is Australia’s first privacy technology not-for-profit organization with registered charity status, indicating the Australian Government recognizes the legitimacy of the project.

Thoughts: Loki has a very active and young team. Always building. Good documentation makes their masternode an easy one to set up. A decent return on investment and not a huge cost of entry. Anonymous and encrypted messaging application and an anonymous internet are upcoming releases that will utilize the masternode network.

— Market Cap: $1,194,456

— Daily Volume: $693

— MarketCap:Volume Ratio: 1723.6:1

— BBP Price: $0.0007

— Staking Requirement: 4500001 BBP

— BBP Masternode Cost: $3150

— Return On Investment: 18.87%

— Active Masternodes: 129

— Monthly Reward: 70756.47 BBP / $49

— Yearly Reward: 849566.11 BBP / $594

— Lock-Up Percentage: 1%

The BiblePay network is self-regulated by a series of masternodes — known as Sanctuaries. These masternodes enable PrivateSend and InstantSend capabilities, as well as serve as a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO). They vote on proposals and distribution requests and help to ensure the security of the overall network with their high staking requirement.

The treasury, the portion of funds which are spent according to the budgets voted on by the sanctuaries, completes the DAO. Treasury distributions require a minimum of 10% of Sanctuaries to participate in voting. All IT, PR, and peer-to-peer budgets are funded out of the treasury block rewards.

Thoughts: BiblePay, wow. This is a masternode for anyone who likes seeing large numbers. Who wouldn’t want to receive 70000 of something every month? 10% of the BBP block reward goes to charity organizations voted for by the masternode network, so that’s pretty neat.

— Market Cap: $6,459,794

— Daily Volume: $366,145

— MarketCap:Volume Ratio: 17.64:1

— XSN Price: $0.08

— Staking Requirement: 15000 XSN

— XSN Masternode Cost: $1200

— Return On Investment: 17.23%

— Active Masternodes: 1798

— Monthly Reward: 215.46 XSN / $17

— Yearly Reward: 2587.02 XSN / $206

— Lock-Up Percentage: 31%

XSN is able to interact with other blockchains, opening up an infinite range of opportunity, while still adhering to the existing Bitcoin/Lightning Network protocol. With XSN you can make payments in any currency over LN; even if a merchant only accepts BTC, you can pay seamlessly using your XSN.

Trustless Proof of Stake provides XSN with the highest level of blockchain security by using decentralized and trustless cold staking. Staking XSN provides network security, powers decentralized applications, and network services.

Thoughts: Another project with a reasonable cost of entry, though the return on investment isn’t quite as high as some of the other projects in this list. Stakenet is an interesting project — Lightning Network enabled with cross-chain capabilities.

— Market Cap: $246,870

— Daily Volume: $511

— MarketCap:Volume Ratio: 483.11:1

— EUNO Price: $0.01

— Staking Requirement: 50000 EUNO

— EUNO Masternode Cost: $500

— Return On Investment: 67.29%

— Active Masternodes: 221

— Monthly Reward: 2803.87 EUNO / $28

— Yearly Reward: 33665.81 EUNO / $336

— Lock-Up Percentage: 37%

Euno was developed with the aim of tapping into core elements that have so far hindered public use, while not compromising the key qualities that make cryptocurrencies a revolutionary technology: decentralized, trust-less, immutable, and incorruptible.

Euno masternodes support network integrity and play a key role in the currency’s ecosystem, enabling Darksend transactions and permitting operators to vote as part of Euno’s community-driven governance structure. In return for supporting the network, masternode operators receive rewards in a decentralized manner based on the number of operational masternodes at the time.

Thoughts: Very low cost of entry and a decent return on investment. Unlike other masternode projects where the cost of entry is well over $50000, Euno masternodes only cost a mere $500 — but you’ll only get a $28 return, so if you’re looking for larger numbers, you may need to get a few of these.

— Market Cap: $17,004,753

— Daily Volume: $27,341

— MarketCap:Volume Ratio: 619.91:1

— VITAE Price: $1.03

— Staking Requirement: 20000 VITAE

— VITAE Masternode Cost: $20600

— Return On Investment: 27.10%

— Active Masternodes: 376

— Monthly Reward: 451.69 VITAE / $465

— Yearly Reward: 5423.43 VITAE / $5586

— Lock-Up Percentage: 42%

Vitae, Latin for life, is a cryptocurrency project focused on implementing fast transaction confirmations to give you more time to live life. Vitae’s masternodes help secure the Vitae network, without the energy expenditure of traditional Proof of Work blockchains.

The purpose of the Vitae Token is to be used on Vitae’s own social media platform. Vitae aims to help pave a way for individuals to create income via their social media application.

Thoughts: Little information can be found online about Vitae. The most interesting aspect of the project appears to be the Super Node burns to reduce the supply of Vitae Tokens. Cost of entry seems a bit high for the stage the project is currently at.

Summary Of Results

Highest ROI — Energi @ 72.59%

Lowest ROI — Luxcore @ 0.6%

Highest Monthly Reward — Energy @ $3901

Lowest Monthly Reward — Luxcore @ $2

Highest Setup Cost — $96260

Lowest Setup Cost — Euno @ $500

Most Masternodes — Dash @ 4877

Least Masternodes —Luxcore @ 6

Most Expensive Coin — Dash @ $96.26

Least Expensive Coin — BiblePay @ $0.0007

Highest Lock-Up — ImageCoin @ 65%

Lowest Lock-Up — BiblePay @ 1%

Highest MarketCap:Volume Ratio — BiblePay @ 1723.6:1

Lowest MarketCap:Volume Ratio — Dash @ 4.22:1

LOKI and NIX holding it all together as the two most well-balanced projects in the list. Both projects are reasonably accessible with the sub $5000 set up costs and offer above-average returns compared to the other projects listed. Neither LOKI or NIX featured as the highest or lowest in any of the categories.

I hope you found this content helpful. If you have any suggestions for future content, please comment below. Alternatively, you can find us on Twitter at @ContrastCrypto.