Human nodes' fee distribution update

Dear Human Nodes,

Today, we are announcing an upcoming temporary change to the validator fee distribution.

Roughly a year ago, we modified the validator fee system so that up to 1000 validator nodes would earn full rewards for having at least 82/84 epochs, and those who managed to get 84/84 would be guaranteed validator fees even if the number of participating nodes is over 1000.

Currently, thanks to the enthusiastic community and faithful human nodes, we have up to 1800 nodes participating regularly, and the number is on the rise.  And due to people being so enthusiastic, we have an average of 1300 nodes that constantly manage to do 84/84 epochs.

This is both a blessing and a bane.  As you all know, we work on a cost-based fee system, thus, the rewards are based on the real-world cost.  So, the $24 reward is paid out based on the current market price of the HMND, in HMND.  For those of you who have been earning HMND through this rough market and have been saving your hard-earned HMND, you may find that your earnings will flourish to become an amazing amount!  However, at the same time, unfortunately, with the current pricing vs earnings from transactions on the chain, the extra amount that the treasury has to pay beyond the 1000 nodes is starting to become a burden that can hurt the system in the long term.

Thus, starting next cycle, we will be limiting the number of compensated nodes to 1000.

If there are more than 1000 nodes that attain 84/84, the nodes that receive rewards will be randomly selected from those that have attained 84/84.  Having said that, Proof of Devotion and Proof of Time are also key factors here.  Thus, the roll of the die will be weighted to favor those who have been constantly validating for longer.

As mentioned above, this is a temporary measure until one of the following conditions is met.

• Market price recovers to the point that the payout is a non-issue and will not be a threat to the treasury.
• Transaction fees are able to cover all costs, including however many 84/84 nodes there are beyond the 1000.
• Vortex (Humanode DAO) is implemented, and the participating governors vote on the issue.

It is important to note that we, at Humanode, have absolutely no control over geopolitical affairs and how the market fluctuates.  However, it is also important to note that the team is working 24/7 to push forward.  For example, currently, steps are being taken to be listed on a number of major exchanges (which have been long awaited), and talks are moving forward (news to come as soon as possible).  New partnerships are being formed daily, and the increase in use of Biomapper on various chains and dApps will be a key factor in earning transaction fees (and no, it will not take too many to set things right).  We have 3 apps that are scheduled to launch on the Humanode chain shortly, and will be integrating a toolkit that will make building on Humanode easier than ever.  The framework for Vortex is also in development, and the goal is to have the basic framework ready to launch later this year.

In conclusion, it is unfortunate that we are required to make this unexpected tweak to the validator fee distributions, but please note that this is temporary, and by the next time we must decide about the number of nodes to be rewarded, we expect that we would be deciding if we want to reward 5000 nodes, or 10,000 nodes.

For more information on how the validator fees work and the economic considerations behind it, click here: https://whitepaper.humanode.io/whitepaper/validator-economics-and-fee-distribution

Thank you,

The Humanode Core