I'm neither for or against High Performance Masternodes, henceforth referred to simply as 'Super Masternodes'. The level of decentralisation we choose will depend on how we intend to use the Plaform aka Evo. The examples that QE often gives us for Platform is a contact list and merchant directory, if those are examples of the kind of data that one might store on Platform, then rest assured 100 nodes, is ample for such data. This is is because there is no threat of censorship of such data, in fact I would argue you'd have better access to and integration options if you simply stored such data in Google or other web2.0 solutions, you don't even need Evo for it. If OTOH we use Platform more as a general purpose data storage in the cloud, where perhaps we may have dapps such as a dashyleaks where whistle blowers could drop sensitive leaked data there and then prove that they did so to trusted people and be certain the data could not be tampered with, then indeed, the level of decentralisation proposed is insufficient. This later use case is the one I was hoping we were going for, since it is the one lacking in the world currently. No one cares about your contact list and some merchant directory! Figure out what it is we wish to store on Evo and then you will know your required level of decentralisation required.
QE alludes to what kind of data he thinks will be stored on Platform when he says, no one would be willing to pay the high fees if we replicated across 4k nodes. Well that's right, no one who is storing something as boring as a contact list would pay more than a cent to store it, since it's unimportant and there is no expectation that the data would ever come under threat, however someone storing more sensitive data might see the value of that data differently. So, clearly QE is thinking about very pedestrian data like the stuff I just mentioned and his numerous cat photos, certainly nothing that would ever be deemed too risky to post on facebook, twitter or any other web2.0 site.
What ARE the costs then?
When we consider the fees, the most expensive part is the data storage, DCG has some whacked out fee model, but it can be simplified to cost of SSD space to store the data for 10 years times number of nodes. So, a back of the napkin calculation, to say store your profile data together with a small grainy avatar would be.
- Assume 100GB SSD is $24/month.
- Assume our profile data is 14KB.
- Assume 100 evo nodes.
Cost to store -> 14kb / 100GB / 1024MB /1024KB * $24 * 12 months *10 years * 100 nodes = $0.0384.
and this is the number QE thinks ends users would be willing to pay for such a transaction. 3.8 cents. Compared to $1.52 for the entire network.
Why are we hearing about this just now? I thought we were closer to the finish line?
The reason we are hearing it about it just now is because the devs assumed fees would be low, it was only until someone sat down and did the calculations and then finally got it right that QE sh!t himself and realised the fees would be too high for the data he thinks people will want to store on evo, silly memes, phone books, grainy avatars. It was an oversight and wilful ignorance of people such me telling them fees would be high that caused the delay in discovering that yes fees will be high.
Why the 10k Collateral?
The 10k collateral was chosen to shrink the Evo network into approx 100 nodes, here is the proposed solution.
- 10,000 Dash will be required to upgrade to a Evonet Super Masternode.
- 25% of the block reward will be withheld to pay exclusively to the SMNs.
For the sake of simplcity let's say there are 4000 active MNs at the moment (actual is 3660). Then if the collateral of 1,000 Dash were unchanged, but 25% were withheld for the SMN only, then we might assume that 25% of the regular MNs would move over to hosting the SMNs. thus, 3000 nodes would be running regular MNs and 1000 nodes would be running SMNs. However DCG is targeting 100 nodes, so how to achieve that? Well if they also increase the collateral requirements ten-fold, then those 1000 SMNs will collapse down to just 100, giving us a final split of 3000 + 100 = 3100 Masternodes.
Will increasing the collateral mean SMNs run on more powerful infrastructure?
QE believes that if we increase the stake required to run a SMN and the ROI is assumed to be higher that the infrastucure those SMNOs choose will be higher powered, hence the high performance masternode, I see no evidence why that would be the case. The (S)MNO will always run the infra that is required to get the job done and no more, this is called optimisation. So, I disagree that increasing the collateral would result in more powerful nodes, however, I do agree that running evo on fewer nodes would require those fewer nodes to be more powerful than they otherwise would be due to additonal demand placed on them by the network.
I have fewer than 10 nodes, I feel cheated because I can't run a SMN even if I wanted too !
For this, I give the same answer to those people that have fewer than 1000 dash. Crowdnode will be running SMN, that you are happy to pool into. Further, currently Crowdnode are testing trustless masternodes with 100 Dash minimum stake, they will also branch this out to offer stakes in SMNs at 1,000 Dash each. If you have fewer than 10k Dash, you can pool stake over at Crowdnode with the rest of us!
