Matic AMA Recap with Infinity Stones
On the 22nd of January, 2021, Nicole T., a core member of the Infinity Stones; A silicon valley tech company providing PoS Staking Services, was live at the Matic Network telegram AMA Session, to provide the Matic community with insights on their validation infrastructure and why users should stake on their validator node. The session was moderated by Delroy, one of Matic Network’s Telegram Community moderator.
In order to ensure clarity to my readers, this article has been divided into two segments; the first segment, gives full account of the questions asked by the moderator of this AMA session (Delroy), while the second segment, gives account of the questions asked by Matic community members.
SEGMENT 1
Delroy — Today we have Nicole from Infinity Stones joining us for the AMA. Please keep your questions ready for the end of the AMA.
Nicole T —
Hi guys, I’m Nicole from InfStones. Thanks for the organization of Matic and happy to e-meet and communicate with you guys.
Firstly, let me make a brief introduction about InfStones. InfStones is a world’s leading blockchain infrastructure company. We are dedicated to bringing down the threshold to connect with blockchains, allowing clients to easily build their applications on top of hundreds of blockchain networks of their choice.
Delroy — And would you like to give us a brief introduction about yourself?
Nicole T —
Sure. Thank you Delroy. Let’s continue with the introduction.
InfStones is a world’s leading blockchain infrastructure company. We are dedicated to bringing down the threshold to connect with blockchains, allowing clients to easily build their applications on top of hundreds of blockchain networks of their choice.
Currently, InfStones is providing services to 30+ large institutional clients around the globe, supporting thousands of nodes on 40+ Public Blockchains. It is our great honor to join the Matic ecosystem.
Delroy — Thanks a lot! It was also equally good having a project like you onboard with us too. Would you like to provide us some information on the networks that you’re currently operating nodes on?
Nicole T —
Sure. Now we are providing infrastructure based on a batch of public blockchains. For example, we are the Elected Super Node of Top dPoS chains, including EoS, Tron, Vechain, and Ontology. and also the active staking node of major PoS chains, including Polkadot, Cardano, Tezos, Cosmos, and Dash (masternodes).
In addition, as a part of our efforts to promote the adoption and application of blockchain technology, we are also partnered with Chainlink and Band Protocol to provide decentralized data oracle services to the industry.
Delroy — Oh that’s nice! And that’s a great list of networks that you’re operating nodes on. So what made you choose Matic? What was the decisive factor for you?
Nicole T —
We have been in the crypto industry for several years and we would like to contribute to the projects with value and potential. Matic’s passion for decentralization is just like us. As you may know that decentralized transactions now are somehow slow, expensive and complex. The aim of Matic is to change this situation by leveraging a combination of blockchain scaling, developer platform and tools, and they are also focusing on user experience.
Besides, Matic team is technical expertise and responsible. They are always there to help. It is really our honor to join Matic Network.
Delroy — Thanks for the kind words Nicole. Really appreciate it.
Nicole T —
Matic worths it of course.
Delroy — So I’m sure with operating so many nodes you must have a robuts team and protocol in place. But for the community, would you like to let us know on how do you ensure the security of your Node? How do you maintain the efficiency of your node?
Nicole T —
Yes. Security is quite important for the node and the network. And high availability has always been at the center of our business. On blockchains, deploying nodes requires the hosts to formulate unique and well thought out plans for each chain as they have distinctive features and network conditions.
And we utilize hybrid cloud deployment to ensure redundancy while achieving nodes monitoring continually.
Delroy — That’s pretty good. Thanks for sharing that information with us. So in terms of Delegation. How excited are you? Why do you think delegators should delegate to your node? What would be the benefits to them?
Nicole T —
We are thrilled for it and our node have got ready for the delegation. As we are quite experienced in the staking industry, the delegators could have stable and high returns from the delegation. We shall make use of our leading technical strengths and resources to help delegators to achieve secure returns.
In addition, we are aiming to help Matic to be further decentralized and help to promote the ecosystem development. We sincerely hope to have your support and delegation.
Delroy — Yes that is the whole objective. And come 31st January we will be turning a new leaf in our journey and will be the biggest milestone for us. So what is the commission rate that you’re planning to set for your node?
Nicole T —
Quite look forward to it. And as for the commission rate, it will be set in a competitive way at first stage, and we are adjusting the rate according to the actual situation of the market and also the network.
Delroy — Alright. What kind of concerns do people have when considering who to delegate through and how do you address these?
Nicole T —
From users’ perspective, their concerns may focus on whether they will have a high return through staking delegation and also their tokens will be secure without any risk all the way. I think these could be main problems to settle.
Relying on our rich experiences on different kinds of blockchains, you can rest assured that the delegation will be “safe” and the delegators could enjoy consistent stable returns. Reliability is quite important when choosing validators to delegate.
Delroy — Absolutely Nicole! Well said. Moving to a slightly different topic, Once operating, what are some big challenges validators are met with from a business and personal perspective?
Nicole T —
There are indeed lots of challenges. The validators need to know the mechanism of the chains and also have the skills about node node set up, operation and maintenance etc. Besides this, one important thing to consider is the economics of the chains, how to break even for the validators themselves and also provide good returns to the users.
For us, since we are professional validators, we are now thinking about providing more than infrastructure to the community, we would like to do more to promote decentralization and also the ecosystem development.
Delroy — Staying on the same topic. I have another question. What are the first things you’d encourage someone like up and coming Validators on POS networks to consider before getting started?
Nicole T —
Good question. Setting up a validator node is somehow not that difficult. However, you need to keep the nodes operating 24/7 and manage to stay away from the slashing. The operating and maintenance part will be more important and also challenging for validators. While you can definitely enjoy a lot in this validator journey. So why not give it a try?
Delroy — Its always good to do your own research before you dive into things. Good suggestions. Lastly, would there be anything that you’d like to add?
Nicole T —
I think we could answer some questions from the community, would like to talk more.
SEGMENT 2
Community Question 1 — What criteria are you taking into account to add new projects to your portfolio of staking options?
Nicole T —
Our mission is to promote the adoption and application of blockchain technology in the world, we are actively continually looking for promising projects that could significantly improve the ecosystem. Matic is of course a quite good project.
Community Question 2— Is the KYC required to use Infstones, or some kind of verification?
Nicole T —
No KYC required from us. you could just follow the delegation steps to delegate to us. and welcome for the delegation.
Community Question 3— InfStones is located in the Silicon Valley of the US, right? What kind of work do you concentrate on in the field of cloud service and block chain?
Nicole T —
We are dedicated to bringing down the threshold to connect with blockchains, allowing clients to quickly build their applications on top of hundreds of blockchain networks of their choice. Currently, InfStones provides services to large institutional clients around the globe, supporting thousands of nodes on 30+ Public Blockchains.
Community Question 4— In terms of what you said about staking which you have said as delegator we will have stable and high return. how? there’s never been stable return in staking since price is volatile and always depends on demand and supply.. what is the plan on this.?
Nicole T —
Well, first you need to find the right project and trust the future of it and hold the tokens. As the inflation happens, if you don’t stake the tokens, it means that your tokens will be devalued.
Community Question 5— Could you please tell me just a little more about the team and some of their backgrounds? I have personally seen many projects launch with inexperienced team members, and some of those didn’t go so well due to easily avoidable mistakes.
Nicole T —
We are headquartered in Silicon Valley, with offices in multiple cities worldwide. The company’s core team comprises senior engineers and business leaders from established companies in the hi-tech and financial industries.