Dear Phoenix Global Community:
Nodes and staking are an essential part of a blockchain platform’s ecosystem, and before the merger APEX and Phoenix both had their own respective tiered approaches to nodes and staking. They were different as they were two platforms with unique use cases and characteristics — but since now Phoenix Global is one merged platform, the respective teams have undertaken the tasks of crafting one Unified Node Ecosystem, which in part has optimized the node/staking tiers in the process as well as implementing features that better fits the long-term strategy and vision of Phoenix Global.
The node/staking tiers were set with both the APEX and Phoenix community in mind — the goal is to have them be as simple as possible and a system in which the combined Phoenix Global community can easily accustom to.
Staking Reward Mechanism
Currently Phoenix staking is done through the Insights Platform (insights.phoenix.global), where the application has a level of centralization involved in the staking protocol itself. We will soon migrate to a fully decentralized staking system via a Binance Chain-compatible smart contract, and eventually offer a Phoenix Global mainnet staking option as well (will yield same reward rates).
The reward mechanism will be similar to Phoenix’s original mechanism at a base staking rate of 5% per year. We’ll then subtract the total amount of staking rewards earned by all stakers on this baseline rate from the total amount of PHB pool reserved for staking. The left over amount will go into an excess staking pool (the Bonus Pool). This excess staking pool will then be divided among stakers according to their tier, with Silver being weighted at 1, Genesis weighted at 2.5, Platinum weighted at 4, Zirconium at 6 and Diamond weighted at 8.
Summary on Tier changes from Phoenix & APEX:
- Note that the original APEX Genesis (400k CPX ~ 1M PHB) tier is equivalent to the current Platinum. The current “Genesis” tier is 500k PHB, half of original APEX Tier with the same name.
- The original APEX Supernode (2M CPX) tier is equivalent to the current Zirconium tier.
- For users familiar with Phoenix staking, there will no longer be a Silver Tier, and the Gold Tier is now equivalent to Carbon. Genesis and Zirconium have now been added as mezzanine tiers.
Node Privileges, Roles & Functions:
Users that meet particular node tier requirements may be eligible to participate in additional roles in the ecosystem that will help network and platform function, value, and ecosystem growth. In the process these participants will be able to reap additional rewards other than the staking mechanism itself as mentioned above -
Phoenix Oracle Node Network
As Phoenix Global Oracle’s development is well underway (with Alpha expected to be released as soon as within a month), it will become an increasingly important functional part of the platform that participation of node operators will add substantial value. Oracles will need to be used for a variety of enterprise applications requiring real-time off-chain data feeds as well as the Horizon Platform itself.
There will be three main components to the Phoenix Oracle that node operators will play a role in:
- Data Source Connections — Data Connectors and APIs that will connect to off-chain data sources and feeds.
- On-Chain Contract Execution — the middleware protocols in charge of responding to data queries from other requesting Apps and smart contracts.
- Phoenix Oracle Client — the basic node client that acts as the fundamental bridge between the on-chain and off-chain environments.
The basic transactional model between the Oracle Node Network and requesting users is relatively simple — the nodes essentially “sell data” to the smart contracts and dApps requesting the particular data. The exact mechanism for calculating Oracle fees will be revealed more towards the Alpha release — it is in the current plan to have a baseline reward for Oracle Operators per node/month with data transaction fees in addition.
Supernode Eligibility
Any PHB holder that meets at minimum the Zirconium Tier is eligible for application to become a functional supernode, which comes with additional incentives coming from various network and platform-related fees. Supernodes typically fit one or more of five categories:
- Early Investors
- Tech/System Integration Partners
- Community Contributors
- Marketing Partners
- Strategic Partners (enterprise users, ecosystem partners)
Supernodes will be in charge of the crucial role of running the Mainnet portion of the nodes (separate from Oracle nodes) which mainnet applications will run on. Sources of supernode incentives/rewards are mainly 1) network fees for transactions, smart contracts, and dApps 2) guaranteed node ecosystem incentives (baseline). Node operators will be tasked with running robust enterprise-grade node clients that meet performance and network benchmarks.
Supernode System Spec Guidelines
- Minimum 8 Core Processor (16 Core Recommended)
- Minimum 16 GB RAM (32 GB Recommended)
- 1 TB SSD (2 SSD Recommended)
- Redhat , CentOS, Ubuntu
- AWS or Azure Recommended
- DDOS Protection
Network Requirements
There will be strict network and connectivity requirements for Supernodes:
- 50 MB of outbound bandwidth (100 MB recommended)
- Ping value should not exceed 500ms
- Managed Services
The Phoenix Global Development Team will notify the community and all partners of the start of official Supernode applications and selections process once we open up the option of swapping to mainnet from BEP-2. Mainnet and BEP-2 PHB will be mirrored 1:1, with the PHB holder having the optionality to hold either version. PHX will no longer be available, usable, or tradable at that point. Initially Phoenix Global Development may set BEP-2 PHB to be the only tradable version due to liquidity and transition-related considerations. Essentially BEP-2 PHB will become an easily-swappable Mainnet PHB placeholder and will also be used for Horizon staking/mining.
