The other thing is: If you want it to make an impact on the token and value, you probably cannot make it a voluntarily option. You have to make it mandatory. Otherwise the effect is smaller than it could be and unpredictable.
I disagree. Any mandatory or forceful locking of tokens would seem like an exit scam waiting to happen. It has happened in the passed where massive tokens were sold off to execute a rug pull.
IMO, the held back amount would be locked away in a staking pool. SNOs would either opt to get the remaining payout on L1/L2 or lock the entire payout in the staking pool in a tier locking period.
As per the documentation:
- Months 1-3: 75% of Storage Node revenue is withheld, 25% is paid to the Storage Node Operator
- Months 4-6: 50% of Storage Node revenue is withheld, 50% is paid to the Storage Node Operator
- Months 7-9: 25% of Storage Node revenue is withheld, 75% is paid to the Storage Node Operator
- Months 10-15: 100% of Storage Node revenue is paid to the storage node operator
- Month 16: 50% of total withholdings are returned to Storage Node Operator, with the remaining 50% held until the node gracefully exits the network
The locking period could be 3/6/9/15 months based on dynamic APR. SNOs could opt to unstake 50% heldback amount or principle amount and keep the staking rewards locked for next locking period.
SNOs could also send their tokens to this staking pool to earn rewards but then the only lucrative part is if it offers better rewards than already existing offers such as from Binance.
Because now Storj would be an investment token. You accept the risks involved when you invest money in a token. I have never seen stablecoins get more than 11% APR anywhere so far. While I have seen Storj token getting 43% APR at one point.
This is a forceful locking. However there is no difference in todays procedure: A fraction of your payouts get locked. Now the question is, why should Storj pay any rewards on that if it is working already today without additional rewards? it is additional cost.
An unintended side effect could be an influx of SNOs craving for the stacking rewards → less payout per SNO.
They have already clearly stated that they want long-term commitment and to avoid short term staking behavior.
So no I don’t think this will be it.
This is what I am saying.
That was what I was thinking of as second reason:
Of course, if the potential returns are high enough then for a number of people it will outweigh the risk. But again, if this is for SNO only, it is likely that the number of SNOs will go up. With the current state of the network I don’t know if this is what is required.
And: This is also the coin, the SNOs will be getting paid. I am not sure that it will have good effects, if the price of the token will be determined by greed. It will probably become more volatile than ever.
The devil is in the details but from the blog post nothing has interested me to hold/stake. The APY is funded by the buybacks and the rate will eventually balance itself out to probably somewhere around 10%.
So, I will keep dumping for stables.
1 Like
And additionally, they are required to put additional effort and resources into calculating and handling the numbers and regulations, the buybacks, the APRs, to control and limit a potential influx of SNOs, handle their opt-ins and opt-outs. At least it sounds like it would required a lot of effort and resources to make sure the outcome is as intended. And all of this instead of working on gaining new customers.
I don’t think the marketing team can code or provide legal assistance or is knowledgeable enough to help in the infrastructure to build a staking pool. The devs on the other hand would have their hands full with extra sprints focused on tokenomics.
1 Like
It is a matter of resource allocation: Do you put your money into legal assistance and creation and monitoring of tokenomics or do you put it into the marketing department to be able to attend more exhibitions or to build local sales teams in important markets?
No APR will ever convince me to save/stake/invest my node’s payouts. They are there to cover expenses. Absolutely zero interest from me for any of this nonsense.
4 Likes
Exactly. Getting paid for providing storage and investing/gambling are two independent activities.
I’m getting paid for storage in USD (albeit via STORJ, but conversions are back to back, so very little risk of value loss).
If then I decide that this happens to be the precise amount of money I have to have invested, and STORJ staking appears to the best vehicle for risk adjusted return (too many coincidences here, don’t you think?) only then it would make sense to invest/stake STORJ.
But if this is such a great opportunity — I would want to invest/stake $10k-$50k. Oh, I can’t? Only node payouts can be invested? lol. Why would anyone bother witn this?!
I think I’d have anything to say about it, but now I think it’s useful. I’m of the opinion that it’s your business (Storj’s) and you can do what you like with it, it’s your company.
In short, I’m going to be very direct and say what I think, you or some of you (employees who make strategic decisions at Storj are very very bad). It’s a full-fledged profession to analyze situations and make simulations (I’m talking about economic simulations, cases where you take the time to describe every possibility of every action with risks (i.e SWOT analysis).
I’m telling you this because I get the impression that this isn’t the first time the company has gone into full panic mode without thinking things through.
In fact, you always had the idea that the token was only a means of payment, and suddenly you change your mind. It’s easy to see that it’s very advantageous for the company to change (it’s a bit like going to the stock market, even though it’s not at all comparable).
But for the change to succeed, you need a stable coin, or else a very huge API%. I’ll give you an idea of one possible solution for your case, which I’ve simply taken from a company that does this and where it works well.
Here’s what you can do to increase the value of token, because if you want people to stack, you need to increase the value of token.
Case study inspired by YUH.
If we look at the swissqoin of YUH which is a company of swissquote
we can read this on their website:
“Amount credited at last financing 83’710.75 CHF | Amount credited since launch 2’282’646.25 CHF | Next financing 15.07.2025 ”
To increase the value of their stable coin they increase the value by (0.25 cts per customer) which means that the company burns some of the tokens it owns to increase it.
For this swissqoin each month it increases by about 1.17%, so very few people who own it sell it, you can do the same with the Storj if you wish, you can decide to burn x token in relation to the number of new customers, the turnover of each month up to you to imagine what is the most interesting.
I don’t particularly like the swissquote company, but the token system is interesting. What’s incredible is that, in the end, this reinvestment doesn’t create a loss as you might imagine, but an increase in the value of the tokens as people do everything to earn tokens (for every transaction made with the YUH card, 1 swisscoin is offered to the user), so the commission received from master card or visa earns them money and, as people don’t sell the tokens because they earn value, they don’t spend anything, they simply block a sum of money.
For me two things to do:
- stable coine
- and increasing amount every month
or make a 17% revaede for the stack
What’s your opinion on this solution? To me it seems extremely simple and extremely powerful.
No need to burn anything. The staking process won’t mint new coins.
This will be a phased approach as seen from the blog post where a staking pool would be built then its performance will be observed. If and when it is seemed necessary then other “features” like burning the tokens could be implemented. There is no point in implementing every feature at the same time.
This is how it is. And they should be treated differently. Also investing and paying SNOs are 2 different things and require fundamentally different asset classes.
I am not interesting in gambling. I am interested in stable payouts and no surprises in value and transaction costs.
If Storj wants to improve the situation for SNOs, then there are ways that even their Stripe payment partner offers:
Global Payouts | Stripe Documentation
Stablecoin payouts | Stripe Documentation
And instead of forcing me to gamble with my earnings (which could be interpreted as gambling on the data of their customers) they could make SNOs life better, if they for example pay for trash they use for free on my nodes.
I am really wondering why we are down to talking about gambling now. This was meant to be a serious business with a token used for payment. And now it is turning into a casino?
3 Likes
Its about executing lots of micro transactions which cost more money than sending 1 huge payment which is why Storj token was invented.
Stablecoins are currently out of the question since Storj is focused on adding more value to the token and not have it divided between token and stablecoins.
Yes, this was the original idea. But the world has changed since then while the current token based system is neither cheap nor predictable.
When we check back we see transaction cost of $2 per transaction for Storj but we have also seen even more crazy high gas fees:
Additionally to that there are the handling and transactions cost for the receiving SNO. It is easy to forget about those, but they exist. I see them every month.
It is easy to check the difference between what I have actually received, what was sent and what would have been the outcome if it was sent the via a specialized payment provider. And I can tell you that for the last payout circle I have lost additionally 3,5% to 4,2% of the $ amount sent due to crypto currency craziness compared to what it would have been when sent the traditional way. So on a $100 payout this means $4 loss equivalent to 2TB egress or 2,66 TB of provided storage.
So no, the current system is not necessarily cheaper its cost may just be hidden.
Storj was even forced to introduce a minimum payout for the current system due to high and unpredictable costs and they were also forced to develop solutions for testing different blockchains and zksync because the transactions costs were high and unpredictable.
Nobody would prevent Storj to keep a minimum payout threshold when using a payment provider. But instead of what it is now, it would be stable and predictable.
Additionally I have mentioned more than once that I would be happy to bear those little extra cost (compared to the cost receiving Storj token) in accordance to what seems to be written in the whitepaper:
I have mentioned that I could easily provide a US banking account number through a payment provider. How much can it cost for a company to transfer money to this? Tell me. I am sure it is not a big amount. I would happily bear it as I am 100% sure it would be lower than what I have to pay today to receive STORJ token, convert them and send them to my bank account. So when I bear costs that Storj has to pay today then they would even save money.
In my view, stablecoins will be very important in the future if you want to pay or getting paid without the risk of losing money.
And additionally even more due to this:
Remember: Bitcoin was invented as currency and a substitute for fiat money, so that people can easily transfer money between them without banks. It has been turned into an “investment” aka casino. The “real” Bitcoin would be a coin with a stable value to transfer money between ecosystem participants to eliminate the volatility from the transaction costs. And this is what makes them popular.
2 Likes
Maybe a 3-rd party could offer this service… they receive a list of operators that want to be paid in fiat and the total ammount in Storj token, the ammount that Storj Inc would otherwise send to each operator individualy.
The 3-rd party sells the tokens for fiat and pays the operators minus a fee.
Operators just opt-in to be paid in fiat and provide a bank account for euro/usd.
This way, operators are paid in fiat, avoidind the stress of dealing with crypto.
Storj Inc avoids transfer fees for thousands of transfers.
And everyone is happy.
I believe with the ammount saved by Storj by doing one single transaction instead of thousands, they could pay for those fiat fees aswell.
The 3-rd party could also stake the tokens and pay the operators at the end of the month.
This is what payment providers which I am talking about are doing:
They collect all information like, how somebody wants to get paid, tax info, compliance info etc. beforehand from the SNOs.
Storj submits to the provider how much each SNO shall receive (Excel sheet or whatever) and transfers the entire amount to provider. Provider transfers to each SNO in accordance to what the SNO has (self-) selected on that providers platform.
For Storj it would be a click of a mouse button to pay their SNOs worldwide.
1 Like
If the staking of STORJ is tied to the US dollar, then you can put it under interest for a year.
Let’s say you put STORJ in the equivalent of 200, and got +10% = 220 dollars = OK
But if you put STORJ for 200 dollars, and after a year you withdrew it for 180 dollars, then there is no point in it.
If we talk about the interest rate per month 1%, i.e. for a year at least 12%, and it would be good to use a dynamic calculation formula that will compensate for the price reduction + %
Fun fact: you can host the storagenode on the Storj Global Network and with a high enough staking monthly return, you could host it for free.
I made some calculations based on one of my nodes.
In june, it had 1426GB egress+repair and 3.93TB disk average, so it made 8.74$.
Same data and egress costs a client of Global Network 25.7$.
So, to get even, you just need a monthly staking return of… 300%. 
1 Like
that’s actually an interesting concept 
I am wondering how it would affect the security of the erasure coded pieces in case some SNO’s would actually do that…