Move from $ to Storj for payments to Operators in micro increments

Maaking it more frequent is only useful if you expect the price to rise. If you expect the price to fall, then less frequent is better.

Storj promised me $20 for 1TB uploaded. My node uploaded 2TB in a month, I get $40 under the current system.
While you could say “I lost money because if it was converter more often, I would have more than $40”

Well, if I expect the token price to go up, I can just borrow $40 and buy the tokens with it right now instead of waiting for Storj to pay me every day.

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I have, have you read my objections though? I think we’re having some misunderstanding here.

This is exactly my objection. You want to convert stable fiat to a volatile token and not worry about price? That sounds like a contradiction. If my balance is kept in Storj it IS volatile and I DO have to worry about the price. If it is kept in USD, it’s stable and I don’t have to worry about it. In addition to that, there is no way to avoid that market risk if Storj Labs converts it. And in practice Storj Labs is holding volatile assets for me, which might get them into hot water with the SEC.

Now consider how it is now. By default, I’m always getting the value I’m owed. At worst I have to take into account exchange rates between my local currency and the dollar. Which is obviously not nearly as volatile as tokens would be. If I would like to opt in to that volatility I can switch to zkSync payouts. Raising the frequency of payouts with zkSync might be possible in the future as well btw. Storj Labs themselves have brought this up as a possible future development. I could also just buy tokens of course if I want to opt in even more.

So one option forces a choice on you that involves risk, while the other offers you a choice on whether you want to take on the risk or not.

Here you are again flipping it around. Holding your assets as a token IS the market risk. The risk being you have no idea what the token value will be by the time you reach the minimum threshold. The longer Storj Labs holds it while you can’t withdraw yet due to the thresholds, the MORE risk we would have to take on. Not less.

It indeed doesn’t and we are discussing it. It’s just that the suggested options have significant problems for which no solution is provided. And especially after zkSync was added as an option, they actually represent taking an option away from SNOs. Which is the option to avoid token value risks. The reason why the timing argument is relevant is because the majority of people complaining now would have exactly the same complaints if it were the other way around but the token value went down. “You’re holding my tokens because I haven’t reached the threshold, but I provided you $20 of service. I deserve $20 worth of tokens” And the thing is… they would have a better point, because they would have absolutely no option to opt out of that risk and the actual value (buying power) provided to them would be less.

This is why I tend to stay away from referring to a rise in value or a decrease of value in my responses and instead refer to it as market risks or token risks. Sure you may want to take that risk because you think it will go up. But it might not. So instead of talking about missed gains or missed losses, we can talk about missed risk instead to refer to both. So my arguments aren’t dependent on market trends. I also never change my mind based on market movement. My opinion is consistent and my arguments work whether the market goes up or down.

One without transaction fees… But we live in the real world.
I think the only thing that would improve on what we have right now is a higher frequency on zkSync payments. That probably resolves the remaining issues. But I think the currently provided options are close enough.
I’m not sure what you are looking for. It would be great if the money could just magically appear in my bank account in real time. But the solution would of course still have to fit within the regulatory framework. I think that leads to some limitations. Storj Labs probably has limitations on to what extent they can hold volatile tokens for us without losing the status as utility token. For the same reasons they also can’t work with exchanges directly. I think solutions like zkSync are the right direction as they solve these things without requiring such associations and within the legal limitations they have to deal with.

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@Pentium100 @BrightSilence Thanks for your thoughtful responses, I start seeing your point.

I think the confusion here is that Storj is considered a cryptocurrency, but the payment system does not align with cryptocurrencies standards by being pegged to a fiat value. So in the end there are 2 schools of though :

  1. Those who only care about fiat value and have no intention of holding the token
  2. Those who are used to cryptocurrency standards, and want to be paid in token as quickly as possible, similar to the mining pool system I propose

The current system aligns better with the first group than the second, and with the price rise, the second group is getting more vocal. I agree that if the frequency of payments with zkSync is increased, it will make it a lot more interesting. The drawback is that zkSync have the SNO paying the transaction fee when withdrawing.

The point of my solution was to make it possible for SNO to get their Storj value as fast as possible, while being able to wait to reach a certain threshold where they won’t have to pay the transaction fee. But now I understand that in this scenario, the first group will be penalized. So forget my example, still have to think how that could be solved.

So right now my issue with zkSync is that it is opt-in without knowing what the threshold will be at the moment of payment. I’d prefer being paid the traditional way, letting Storj Labs handle the transaction fee like before. But if, and only if, I don’t reach the threshold, I’d prefer being paid immediately with zkSync. Maybe having the option to set zkSync in a “fallback mode” would solve this?

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You can withdraw from L2 directly to the L1 address of an exchange. The costs for this are only a fraction higher than a normal ERC20 transaction to an exchange. So there is in practice no additional cost to the SNO. You can just keep your tokens in L2 until you want to exchange them. I think in your scenario you would be best off just opting in. The upside of zkSync is also that you can pay for your transaction to the exchange with STORJ tokens. That might be an additional benefit.

Ps. I think you pointed out the different perspectives pretty well.

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Token price goes up - the second group gets very vocal.
Token price goes down, the first group would get very vocal (and some people from the second group would join as well).

The current system is objectively better if the token price is going down. Your proposed system is objectively better if the token price is going up.

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We have tried different approaches to pay more fairly - average, last price, etc. The best approach is to use USD value. Who want to play with market can just opt-in for zkSync and take this risk. Who want just be paid - will wait to clear a minimum threshold.
In the first case you can gain from growing or loss from falling, it’s a free open market.
In the second case you will get exactly the same USD amount, independently of market and you can do with them anything, what you want.

If you opt-in for zkSync, you will receive STORJ tokens converted from USD on sent date. And you can make a decision when you want to withdraw and take all market risks, as you and author propose.

You exactly described the zkSync. You get tokens and can withdraw them when you want.

The first group will wait to clear a minimum threshold, the second can opt-in for zkSync and get tokens every month or even more frequently.

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Check the history examples of any country with high inflation rate. You will see how it is going every time.
Probably you are getting salary in usd or another currency with stable exchange rate so you had no chance to fill how bad if you salary in the unstable currency that goes up and down.

With current approach I can be sure that I will get my money in USD with no risks to loose everything. Taking into account that HDD or other hardware price is fixed in USD I can plan my investments without extra risks.

If you want to take profit from exchange rate changes. Don’t invest in mining. Buy cripto currency and focus on trading.

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