An Interview with Rebecca — Marketing Manager

Good day Rebecca, everyone has their own story on how they got into blockchain technology. What’s yours?

I got into cryptocurrency a couple of years ago after being introduced to the industry by my partner, he began looking into Bitcoin. I bought some Bitcoin and left it to sit for a couple of months before I started looking into altcoins and diversifying my portfolio. He came across Stakenet near the start of 2018 and I joined the Discord as I was impressed by their vision and developments. I now work full time in the crypto industry.

What is your role at the Stakenet?

Marketing Manager. My role involves all aspects of marketing for the project including social media marketing, public relations, partnership development, content writing, and community management.

Who is behind Stakenet? What are the Backgrounds of the team member?

The core development team behind Stakenet are X9 Developers, a team of blockchain specialists with experience in various sectors. X9 Developers work exclusively on the project. A number of our core developers have previously held positions with well-known technology companies or have extensive experience working in the blockchain industry.

The team also includes community specialists and moderators, platform managers and technical support. These team members have all been in crypto for a number of years and have various skills, knowledge, and experience.

Finally, we are working with Frank Amato, former Executive Director for JPMorgan and Managing Director at Bear Sterns, as an advisor to Stakenet in the development of our DEX to create an optimal trading experience for pro-traders.

How did the idea to develop Stakenet come about?

The idea came about from more of an industry need than anything else. The current crypto industry is far too complicated for the average user in reality to gain mass adoption. We like to joke there are two versions of “simple” — there is the developer's version of simple and then there is everyone else's and the two are very far apart so as an industry we need to bring those closer together.

What is Stakenet and how would you explain it to non-crypto speakers?

It sounds cliche but we want Stakenet to be the only place you ever need to go for Crypto. You can still use your favorite crypto’s and their features and our job is to make that as seamless as possible through our services. There are all these different blockchain projects and everyone is doing their own incredible things but it’s like they are on their own little islands, at Stakenet we are building bridges to bring all these islands together through technology.

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How do you plan to accomplish this?

There are a lot of pieces that all need to come together to bring this vision to reality and it has taken a long time to lay the foundations that were needed to build all this upon, but now we are entering the part of putting it all together. The key pillars are it needs to be fast, secure and simple, we have had to build from the ground up a lot of the core technologies and do things that have never been done before in the industry. Things like Trustless Proof of Stake (TPoS) and Lightning Swaps are examples of this and are key to its success.

The first barrier to entry for us is a robust Masternode network in order to handle all the blockchains, services and traffic. We recently launched Masternodes as a Service (MNaaS) to deal with that, with this we make Masternodes easy. Even in this first version which we are continuing to fine tune to ensure the experience for the end user is as simple as possible. With MNaaS we will handle all the setup, maintaining and updating of your Masternode so you don’t have to worry about anything. It is a trustless service and by that we mean you keep your funds/collateral for your Masternode in the safety of your own wallet that you always control the private keys for. We will be adding other Masternode projects to this platform in the near future.

One of our upcoming releases will be our multi-currency Light Wallet which we can’t wait to show off as we are really proud of it. It’s a big step away from what people are used to with crypto wallets both in UI design and functionality. Traditionally with multi-currency wallets, you had to download entire blockchains for coins you wanted to hold, this takes up a lot of space and time. We solved this issue by instead holding the different blockchains on our Masternodes and the Light Wallet will interact with those blockchains by signing Lightning Invoices, this keeps the client super lightweight, and means we can put it on any device.

What are the main use cases you are looking to cover?

The main use case for the XSN coin is it is used as fuel for the entire network. Every single service on the network will collect fees and these will be paid in XSN in one way or another. So if you are using the Decentralised Exchange (DEX), Privacy Features, DApps or anything else small fee’s will be collected, they can be collected in any currency too as they will then be automatically converted to XSN via a Lightning Swap and distributed to Masternode holders. Many times this will happen in the background without the end user even realizing so people can use our services and never even have to hold XSN themselves.

As an example, a retailer accepts Bitcoin but the customer has Litecoin, the customer can still pay in Litecoin and a Lightning Swap will convert the Litecoin to Bitcoin automatically for the retailer. A small fee will be collected from the swap in Litecoin and then that will be converted to XSN and distributed to the Masternode holders for providing the service.

With Lightning Swaps, we make it easy for everyone to get what they want, with so many different coins and tokens about these days things become confusing. People don’t want to have to hold 20 different coins and tokens to use in everyday life so with this tech everyone can hold what they want and the other party can receive what they want easily keeping everyone happy.

What is the difference between a Lightning Swap and an Atomic Swap?

A Lightning Swap is an Atomic Swap but done over Lightning Network as opposed to onchain. An Atomic Swap is completed on-chain and because of that, it has limitations like confirmation times, blocksize and fees for the respective blockchains. A Lightning Swap, however, is off-chain so does not have these limitations, this makes it instant, theoretically infinitely scalable and can be done for little to no fee. This is why we spent so long to make sure we got this technology right as it opens up a whole world of possibilities.

Can you explain what XSN Cloud and Stakenet dx is and what the differences are?

XSN Cloud is our Cloud site which provides services aimed at people new to the world of crypto and people with smaller holdings. We provide access to our cloud staking service, Masternode Monitoring, MNaaS, and other services from here.

Stakenet dx is our decentralized exchange (DEX), this will be hosted on our Masternode network. With Stakenet dx you will make trades direct from wallet to wallet, this adds a layer of security as you don’t need to trust an exchange to hold your coins for you and you can enjoy the benefits your coins may have right up until the moment they are sold and leave your wallet. Many exchanges also lack basic features that professional traders use so we are working with Frank Amato to provide a fully featured DEX that will have everything you need and expect from an exchange. As it is a service running on our Masternode network all trading fees generated from the DEX will be distributed to Masternode holders.

You previously mentioned Privacy features, what features will Stakenet have?

Stakenet will have the usual privacy features of TOR network and coinmixing/zksnarks but the Lightning Network also provides some unique features as well. We are also looking to implement things like random hop secrets and transforming the Lightning Network funding from identifiable 2:2 multisigns into untraceable 1:1 standard signature transactions. This combination of features should allow XSN to offer class-leading levels of privacy.

Thinking about the future, do you have any roadmap with relevant upgrades or partnerships?

We just released our roadmap for 2019, it is split into two phases we are calling Merlin and Viper. Merlin is our core blockchain and software division and Viper is our Hardware division. It is a very ambitious Roadmap but we feel with the strong foundations we put down in 2018 we are in a great position to tackle it. You can learn more about our 2019 vision here (hyperlinked to https://medium.com/stakenet/blockchain-2019-xsn-viper-dex-merlin-1a2b472ea795)

As for partnerships we are always open to forming new collaborations like the recent collaboration with the Litecoin Foundation to work on Lightning Network.

Can you tell us more about the Hardware you are planning to bring to market and what makes it different?

We are planning to release a few different hardware devices, our 2019 roadmap has a dedicated level titled ‘VIPER’ that focuses on the development of our hardware division. Our debut product from our hardware division will be a hardware lightning router that allows users to set up Lightning Network hubs for XSN, BTC, and LTC and collect fees while their private keys remain safely in cold storage.

This hardware Lightning Router will enable users’ to safely store their coins in cold storage by using a separate microcontroller that holds private keys and remains offline (only sends signatures). This will be available for all supported coins in the multi-currency wallet, enabling users to store, send, receive, run masternodes and exchange coins using our hardware device. As the product line expands we can incorporate new smart features and concepts like Exertive Proof of Stake (EPoS) which is something we have been researching. Smart features could be the likes of unlocking your car using your device using blockchain as proof of ownership.

What is Exertive Proof of Stake?

EPoS is a concept we are researching to use a track and record verifiable physical activity on blockchain using biometric data. One use case for this is the Health Insurance industry where you could get a reduced premium based your level of activity. A more fun use one of our team members was floating around is a DApp for a trading card style game called Digi-Doggos where your physical activity would help level up your Digital Dog as if you were taking it on a walk and things like that.

What makes Stakenet stand out when it comes to staking and masternode hosting, how did you achieve this and how is the competition doing it ?

We want to make staking and Masternodes as easy and as accessible as possible for everyone, they are crucial for our network so we want everyone to be earning passive income while contributing to the health of the network.

As previously mentioned we have launched MNaaS to make masternodes effortless, since it’s launch we have seen a dramatic jump in the amount of new XSN Masternodes started which has been great to see so many people who previously found Masternodes too complicated now running one themselves and is exactly what we wanted this service to do. We will be adding other projects to this service in the very near future too so won’t just be available to XSN.

On the staking side of things we have launched our Cloud staking platform allowing people to stake XSN, PIVX and Stratis all from one place, again more projects will be added to this platform over time.

As well as normal wallet staking we also have TPoS which is unique to Stakenet. This allows you to stake while keeping your coins safely offline. You can either run a TPoS contract yourself or hire a merchant, the service is trustless and you always have full control over your coins at all times. This will also allow you to stake from cold storage devices like Ledger Nano S, Xeeda Wallet, and our own hardware devices. Later in the year, we will also allow Masternodes to host TPoS contracts as an additional revenue stream.

We are also working on Cross Chain Proof of Stake (CCPoS), this will allow you to receive your staking rewards in any currency you want. So you could stake XSN but receive your rewards in BTC or that hot new coin that’s just been released.

The economics behind a project is vital to its success and we believe we have a great model which provides plenty of incentive for people to run Masternodes to host the services for the network and staking to provide the security. They provide multiple revenue streams for passive income and flexibility in choice so there is something for everyone.

Any plans for other exchanges?

Yes, of course, we spent 2018 building the foundations for Stakenet but 2019 our focus will be pushing it to the wider audience through marketing, partnerships, attending conferences and of course new exchanges.

How many funds do the core team have in budget for development and marketing?

Every block reward is split 45% to Masternodes, 45% to Staking and 10% to the treasury to fund development. We also have to gather funds from services on the Cloud like the Cloud staking pools, this can be seen via RSB monitoring on the website.