Feb. 8 Update on SNO Payouts and High Ethereum Gas Prices

[peppoonline]

I have 6 nodes (all are about 7 months old) and didn’t receive a payment last month and neither this month.

That’s how it works @ these high GAS prices

[kevink]

Yes, reading the 2nd post

@jtolio

Our minimum threshold policy (above) is that the transaction fee can’t be more than 25% of the payout, which means we’re doing payouts at 4x $17.41, so $69.62.

I earned around $60 too and didn’t receive it.

[Alexey]

@Putte

I can understand the issue, of course we don’t want to pay more in fee’s than the value of the transfer, but there is one issue with holding back the tokens, what if the Storj token becomes a hundred times more valuable for a few weeks now and the drops down? Then our chance to trade them, is taken away form us…

We do not hold tokens.
We postpone USD value until the next payout period. You will receive exactly the same USD value. The conversion to tokens performed on time of the tokens transfer.

[firewire963]

Is it possible to receive payment in bitcoins via technical support ticket?

[Alexey]

We never send bitcoins, we have had Counterparty tokens, but we migrated to the Ethereum tokens three years ago.
At the moment you have only these options:

@john

To address the rising Gas prices on Ethereum, we’re actively pursuing three options for SNO payouts:

1. zkSync - last month we announced to the community that we will be introducing zkSync as an option to SNOs for STORJ payments . By way of an update, this effort is continuing on track for us to allow SNOs to choose zkSync in time for next month’s payouts (payouts for the month of February, paid in March). The main things we want in place to deliver this solution are a way for SNOs to opt-in to a zkSync solution, and payment of transaction fees in STORJ on the zkSync production mainnet. We’re in QA with an update to the SNO Board to allow SNOs to opt in to zkSync, and documentation for SNOs to use the solution.
   We recognize that zkSync is still new and unfamiliar to many. zkSync has the potential to significantly decrease transaction costs. We anticipate that many of the SNOs who choose to use it will want to withdraw their payments out of zkSync to a Layer 1 wallet, and that will cost gas for that transaction. If more of the Ethereum ecosystem supports zkSync, particularly exchanges, we would expect these withdrawal transactions to be unnecessary and the usage costs to be even further reduced. We remain hopeful that zkRollup-based solutions (such as zkSync) will be integrated into more of the Ethereum ecosystem.
   Preformatted text Once zkSync is available to SNOs, we are contemplating a number of options to bridge the gap until zkSync (or another suitable scaling solution) is more widely adopted in the Ethereum ecosystem, including a temporary premium to offset transaction costs. As we get closer to rolling out zkSync, we’ll share additional details on how we anticipate this will work.
2. Existing minimum payout thresholds - We already discussed last month the introduction of our new minimum payout threshold , wherein we won’t send a payout if the transaction fee costs more than 25% of the overall payout, in USD. Absent a change to policy, SNOs who do nothing (e.g., do not opt in to zkSync) will keep getting paid this way. For many SNOs, this means the SNO payments will happen much less often when fees are high. On the positive side of this option, we’re currently paying the transaction fee for SNOs here, but on the negative side, these fees really add up.

[Putte]

The same USD value, yes, but not the same amount of tokens, because the amount of tokens i based on the marked value, right?

So the amount of tokens may not be the same “today” as it would be next month?

[Putte]

Another thing, is that we lose the option to trade the tokens, if the marked should spike for some reason…

[unrealSpeedy]

Thats a good point. I think a lot of SNOs are not paying out their tokens just in time. Especially at this transfer-fees.
But there is one big difference. If the SNOs get their payouts they can transfer it if they want, they have the control.
With one Payment e.g. we are dependent on storjlabs - its a thing of trust. And after the decisions the last two month I (thats only my opinion) have no trust anymore.

I still cant get it how a company who offers products in such a sensible field like storage-solutions and backups and so on (at tardigrade) can act like this and cancels the payments of their SNOs from one day to another and dont move a centimeter to resolve the situation …
I think this forfeiting of trust could be much more expensive on the long term
I hope there are no potential customers and decision-making-people on road here

The next payment cycle there will be no payment because its rainy …

[BrightSilence]

@Putte

there is one issue with holding back the tokens, what if the Storj token becomes a hundred times more valuable for a few weeks now and the drops down? Then our chance to trade them, is taken away form us…

Another issue, is that, if the value increases, we will be payed less tokens later, than we would have been “today”…

I’m going to just link to this:

December payout question

Rather than look at it as the value going up or down, you should look at it as Storj Labs forcing you to invest in the token or not. The way it works now, you always get paid exactly what you’re owed in USD. Which is a stable currency. You don’t have to take on any token fluctuation risks if you don’t want to. But if you do, you’re still free to buy tokens yourself. Now if it were the other way around and Storj Labs would hold back the tokens in Storj amounts, you would be forced to take on th…

[firewire963]

Maybe we should ask every storjnode operator to set up a standalone ETH wallet on their PCs? This will raise computational power of ETH network and gas prices will become lower?

[hoarder]

It doesn’t work this way.

[firewire963]

Why it not works that way?

[ccristian2003]

last payout I received was 64+ days ago (in December for November). Is my understanding correct the payment values are accumulating at storj side until the minimum threshold is reached?

[giostino]

yes, you´re right( 20 chars minimum.)

[hoarder]

Because there’s no difference if you have 10 or 10000 nodes or 10 or 10000 miners. Any full node will validate all blocks and cryptocurrencies are designed to maintain block time by adjusting difficulty.

[GiantJack]

I think if I should shutdown all my nodes… 278 GWei is sorry stupid… My last eth transaction 7 days ago worked with 100 GWei (max 4$) after about 30 minutes it was confirmed… maybe it takes some hours to complete but it’s way cheaper

[jammerdan]

So I am here now, second month without payment. And still no official statement to the general procedure like to what happens if minimum is not met and a node performs GE or hardware dies or something like that.

I am very unhappy how Storj Labs is handling this issue. Really unhappy. This is management at its worst.

Rising Gas prices were foreseeable and Storj Labs failed to have a plan. It is outright terrible that minimum payout reached new heights of almost $70.

Storj Labs has chosen this coin so it is their sole problem. I really don’t care anymore if they pay more or less transaction fees.

If they keep going on like this, SNOs will call for a strike like they did when they were unhappy with Filecoin.
@jocelyn

[chlortek]

a project that highlights those “fair” token payments in USD value all the time would already pay users back in USDT (tether). but they have no real financial liquidity to do so

[oc149]

I understand it doesn’t work for everyone, but fiat payment will work for both Storj and many SNOs. Keep the STORJ token payments for those who can’t take fiat currency and use fiat for those who can. Paypal and the like take a 3% transaction fee. As you’re experiencing yourselves, converting the tokens to fiat costs considerably larger (and non-percentual!) amounts both at the level of converting STORJ to ETH or BTC and then ETH/BTC to fiat. By saving money on transaction fees you can even be more generous with those that have to be paid in cryptocurrency.

This art for the sake of the art (use cryptocurrency because it’s universal and avoids regulatory issues and it’s also just geeky and beautiful) is running head first into a wall for the vast majority of SNOs who either will not get paid in a long time, or will have to pay large transactions fees for conversion themselves, or will never be able to use their tokens except in a limited fashion if stuck in L2 because of conversion costs.

Major cryptocurrencies have strangely become reserve assets and the ability to use them for small transactions will probably get worse and worse with time.

There is nothing inherent in the STORJ storage model (which is quite brilliant) that requires using an ERC20 token as means of payment. Sure, offer crypto payments as an alternative for those who need them. But why tie a promising technology platform to something as unreliable as cryptocurrencies.

If this is to be a viable business you’ve got to address the financial side better.

Myself I’m 6 months in and reached about $10/month - if a full year passes without further payment -which it most likely will at the current rates, you’d understand the temptation to pull the plug (literally and perhaps ungracefully) will be very strong.

[jammerdan]

@oc149

There is nothing inherent in the STORJ storage model (which is quite brilliant) that requires using an ERC20 token as means of payment.

So true. (20 characters)