Node orders suspended, production halted

[Peter]

Beginning March 17th, 2021 at 3:00 UTC, you will be unable to purchase a physical Node. Access to the payment gateway in the app and on the website will be suspended.

What happened?

As you may already know, Node uses the Intel NUC (model NUC6CAYH), which is now out of stock. Since we don’t have enough supply, we can’t fulfill all of the orders we’ve received. Unfortunately, this means you may not receive your Node, but instead will be contacted and given a refund.

pNode, Node Tree development halted

Further, we’ve decided to halt Node production altogether. It was a tough decision to make, especially seeing the incredible support and love you all received Node with. But with the lack of accessible supply, continued shipping delays, and new changes to our development priorities, continuing to produce and sell pNodes would do more harm than good.

Will I get the Node I ordered?

If you bought a Node before February 15th, 2021, you should receive your Node in the originally quoted time frame (Between April 30th and May 15th). There’s no action required on your part, and you’ll soon be validating.

If you ordered a Node after February 15th, 2021, however, we are unable to fulfill your order, and you will be contacted soon to organize a refund. I know it’s disappointing to finally have ordered a Node only to have supply cut off. I apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.

To make it up to you somewhat, if you aren’t receiving a Node, you’ll not only get a refund, but you’ll be paid 21% APY on your purchase for the entire time we had custody of your payment, paid in PRV. For example, if you bought 1 Node at $399 one month ago, you’ll receive 30 days worth of 21% APY on $399, paid in PRV.

If I have a Node, will I still be supported?

Virtual nodes will remain unchanged, and if you already own pNodes, they will continue to function as normal. Support for Node operators will also continue.

In short, the only thing that’s changing is that the core team will no longer produce and sell pNodes and Node Trees.

Going forward, validator methods will be self-managed and/or community-sourced, and, once we release all validator slots, every part of the validator cycle will be decentralized. This is a step to help keep the core team focused on its goals of perfecting the layer 1 of the privacy network, so you can have access to self-sufficient and decentralized privacy for all of crypto.

[Stoic]

You guys should develop a d’App for the Avado nodes ( https://ava.do/ ) and enjoy their supply and diverse set of configurations. They are easy to use and installing your d’App on them would allow you to reach a much wider public that love running easy to use nodes.

Here is where they explain their partners program : https://ava.do/partner

[0bfuscatedT0ad]

and my 4 pnodes got stolen by porch pirates.

[daquirm]

Hi, I received an email, that you’ll try to refund me until 9.4.2021. I haven’t received any refund. I’d like to ask what is the status on it?

[khanhj]

To whom that have concern about pNode refund:

• We processed several cases today, if you not one of those, please be patient.
• The refund amount in crypto is base on pNode_base_price and current_exchange_rate. Eg. I bought a pNode $399, now the refund should be:
  • $399 / current_eth_usdt_rate = 399 / 2375 = 0.168 ETH
  • or if you want the refund in BTC: $399 / current_btc_usdt_rate = 399 / 63475 = 0.006285939346 BTC
  • etc.

Thank you for using our services

[daquirm]

I paid 2 XMR, I have received no pnode and I got refunded 1.38 XMR…I have asked my self a question, how sustainable it is to provide 21% AFY on liquidity…I think here’s the answer…this is just not right…

[labidus]

Do you plan to offer something similar for vnode to help new poeples like me to participate, I have a really good machine for a vnode but 1750 PRV cost to much, I would rather participate at first like a pnode, you could add somekind of if you enter/start with 250 PRV you get 30%, by STEP until 100%.

So we pay for the first 250 PRN to have 30%, then when we get PRN over times it change the % until the 1750 PRN have been reached, then we receive the PRN like a normal node. So the vnode auto pay for herself until the 1750 is pay.

250 * 7, for 7 STEP, 30% to 100%?

[XeRnOg]

I am also in the same boat. I am finding the economic barrier to be rather difficult. It is locking out a lot of people from running nodes. Can we get funded Staking like with pNodes?

[bumpin88]

That should be doable. Although, someone would have to “fund” the stake. I don’t believe the core team wants to open source the code to do that and be responsible for providing the stake. Even though they could drop the percentages down to 25 / 75 or even 15/85 and still earn.

Or alternatively if a person/s held enough PRV they could write a app were they lend their PRV out as stake for running pNodes on your own computers. Why this is not already the case I don’t know. Because, more individuals running nodes would go along with the core principles of the project, “decentralization” and “privacy”. Or, lower the cost of running a node.

[chris22121]

That was the main reason I loved this project. I had been working on a way to implement high rate frequency hopping for the node. So are we not going to get it back? I had sone neat upcoming tests I think u all would have liked. Having something like a node, validator, physical staking, something that can be personally held and personally shut down for protection by our individuals. But…

[Tempestblack]

Okay, my issue with the whole Node orders being suspended is not so much that it was suspended for well it can be I guess started back up at some future date when the logistics permit. The issue that I have with the whole pnode, vnode, funded staking, and self staking is this…As we all know the pnodes were sold with the premise that they were funded by Incognito and well the purchaser of the pnode could upon taking possession of their pnode change the status from funded stake to self staked and well if they then decided to revert the process once more they could go from the self staked status to Incog funded stake by simply reaching out to the powers that be at Incognito…Now that was the policy at one time and the policy was suddenly changed to that once you unstaked a pNode from Incog funded staking status to a self staked funding status you could no longer reverse the process back to Incog funded stake status as you could at one time. Now ironically take note that this change in policy took place shortly after the firing of the growth team and even more specifically the letting go of @Peter…those of you who have been around for a minute know that Peter handled a lot of the pNode matters, which I believe included following up with sales of the pNodes and doing transfers of key assignments to pNodes that had been sold in private transactions between parties…something that as well is no longer supported by Incognito…It seems to me that Peter basically handled a big part of the project, meaning the logistics behind the pNodes, basically, he was the point person when it came to the pNodes, and well with his sudden departure that seems to have all fallen apart. So here we are with some members having unstaked their pNode and now wishing to have Incog restake them for they cannot at this time self stake their pNodes for whatever reason they individually might have and well the current policy being what it is it will not be done. So basically as one member put it…unless they self stake their pNode the pNode basically will be an overpriced paperweight.

Now as stated some of the members for whatever reason do not have the 1750 in PRV that is required to self stake. There arises for me the second issue. The amount required to self stake a node…period…whether pNode or vNode…1750 PRV at let’s say $2.50USD per PRV would cost the owner of the node $4,375 USD to stake a node whether it be pNode or vNode. Now I do not know about the rest of you but that is a pretty penny to come up with, to begin with, aside from then having to tie up said funds in said pNode or vNode. Now when this project first began I believe their was no self staking as to the pNodes at first…but subsequently there was a change in policy and self staking was permitted as this post by Peter in March of last year clearly states and I quote:

Peter

Mar '20

Hi everyone, you can use your own 1750 PRV to stake for the pNode from today.
Also see: You have an app update: 3.6.3.2

Now if we go back and take a look at the price of PRV at that time…it was in the ballpark of about 0.55 cents per PRV…so 1750PRV at said price comes to a total of $962.50USD. Today’s price is wayyyy more than what it cost in March of last year to well basically put up the required 1750 in PRV that is needed to self stake a pNode or a vNode. Anyone having had the good fortune of having been around in those early days of the project and self staking pNodes or vNodes at that time has made out like a bandit. The question to ask then is the funding amount based on a dollar figure or a prv figure. How was the initial amount of PRV required to self stake determined, and does that amount in any way take into account the price of PRV at that time? Does the subsequent price change in PRV since then have had a possible effect on the required amount of PRV needed to self stake and if not, why not?

So having added my two cents to this string I would appreciate input or a response from the powers that be at Incognito and well anyone else’s opinion for that matter. In the meantime stay frosty and go Incog!!!..

[Jared]

@Tempestblack

Now that was the policy at one time and the policy was suddenly changed to that once you unstaked a pNode from Incog funded staking status to a self staked funding status you could no longer reverse the process back to Incog funded stake status as you could at one time.

I believe the reason for this is to make the network more decentralized. Funded staking puts the mass control of the network into the developers hands. The dev team is making strides to make everything more decentralized and unfortunately that means changing policies and the way things operate.

[chris22121]

Im not trying to add gas to a fire. My main reason I always love the Incognito project is 1. The privacy and 2. The physical nodes. I have always pushed for physical masternodes, nodes, a physical location where individuals may take their gold or silver and have it locked up for no fixed time. Which would increase the company’s valuation and increasing assets to borrow against. In return the value of the silver or gold sent to the individuals wallet like USDT or another stablecoin they wish for as long as they give the holding rights to the custodian. The price of gold or silver fluctuates but thats not really an issue because every central bank or damn even pawn shops update the prices.

Now though I feel much less in control and its almost like I have to take someones word on things like every other crypto out there. I was doing some really cool stuff with the nodes and getting things ready for new techniques, some new privacy ideas…but hopefully they come back. If they do I’ll throw money your way

[Jared]

It is entirely possible for a community member to manufacture and distribute their own style of pNodes. However, they would also have to come up with their own way of providing stake as well.

There was a push for code and design files to be released to the community as open source but with the discontinuance and removal of support staff that idea might have been scraped.

[thanh_tan]

Can the node runs on Pi? We can use Pi compute to save cost and also be sure of the supply.

[khanhj]

Hey @thanh_tan,

If you can build the golang source code on ARM chip then i think you can run a validator node on Pi, however you need an external SSD since it requires alot of disk i/o access.

ping me on telegram if you still interested in this https://t.me/khanhj

[thanh_tan]

Hi @khanhj

I have experiences in running crypto nodes on PI and also have others kind of PI which support external SSD or even NMVE.

Please share the source code so I can take a try to build a node. I have sent you msg on Telegram, pls check