We’ve released a new app version to fix bugs and make some improvements based on your valuable feedback.
Changed “key” symbol back to account name.
Added trade path, rate, and price impact to Swap screen.
Fixed “Switching” typo.
Changed UX to “don’t reset “everything” if I change the second coin (the coin I want to trade for).”
Fixed “couldn’t choose coins in Swap screen after going back from pPancake app”.
Thanks again for all your feedback, we’re now focusing on app performance measurement and improvement. Hope we would have a better UX in the next release.
Also, if you don’t know yet, we’ve created a topic for discussion about what criteria a coin needs to satisfy to be able to get verified and listed on Incognito exchange here. Please share your thoughts so we can define a good process for this.
App is working faster than before now. Switching from keychain to keychain is more responsive and the adding of current account name to the top right button makes things much clearer for sure. Great job responding to user input.
Thanks for doing this. I noticed though that the font is either so large or the button so small, you cant actually see the whole keychain name, only the first few letters, so you’re still unable to differentiate which wallet you are in.
Switching between wallets is also taking me approximately 3 to 4 minutes right now. Way increased from before the recent updates. Used to take about 10 seconds.
I think the bottom buttons on the app should all be labeled, instead of just showing the name of the button once you click on it. It would make navigating the app much easier.
I agree with @Mike_Despo, the button at the top right (that is used for displaying the keychain name) should have it’s length increased to 12+ characters.
@hieutran, can you please either make the font on the button much smaller or the button wider? Thanks.
Hey @fredlee, I have a few questions on the above:
Does your statement above pertain to Fixed Nodes only? Reason I ask, I thought that with the implementation of “Slashing” the reward earnings shifted from nodes that were offline to nodes that were online when on the Committee.
Can you please clarify the main differences between a “Fixed Node” vs. “Non-fixed” one?
If there is a difference between Fixed and non-fixed nodes, can you share more transparency on the number of Fixed Nodes vs Non-Fixed nodes?
The Nito bot on Telegram shows the “Total Validator Nodes” on the network. Is this showing number of Non-Fixed validators or is the Total Validators (I.E. Fixed + Non-Fixed nodes)?
Btw, for those that are not familiar with Nito and are running a node, it’s an awesome little bot created by @Josh_Hamon (Thx Josh ) - learn more here : Nito FAQ (Telegram Bot)
I’ll answer the questions to my best knowledge. If I’m wrong in any statement, maybe an official Incognito representative can correct me.
Yes. Community driven node (vNodes and pNodes) are subject to slashing. Only fixed nodes are immune to Slashing.
A fixed node is one of the nodes that participate in every single epoch and is never slashed or rotated. The reason they exist is to offer stability and security to the network while the network is growing.
In every epoch, the committee consists of 32 nodes. Out of these 10 are community-operated nodes that are picked from the pending queue and 22 are fixed nodes that are run by the Incognito Team. This means that today the Incognito team by the majority controls the network and also collects 66% of all block rewards.
The plan was to change this a long time ago by incrementally reducing the number of fixed nodes, but it is ultimately dependent on the total number of nodes that operate. With the low number of validator nodes (2000), if the Incognito team would release all fixed nodes slots to the public, you could theoretically take over the network by staking just a bit more than 2000 nodes. It might sound like a lot, but with today’s low PRV valuation, it’s around 73 BTC. There are a lot of individuals out there that hold more crypto than that.
The point of my post was that I personally don’t think that the PRV staking service is a good idea and I’m also against increasing the committee size. But I’m going to make a separate thread regarding that, since it’s a bit off-topic here.
This is creating centralisation and disincentivizing community run Nodes (I fall into this category). I joined this project as I wanted to be part of a decentralised privacy network. I am not a technical person and I initially want to buy a few pNodes to support this project, but they stopped selling them at the time I joined.
This community has been super helpful and I have learnt a lot about Linux and run my own vNode. Receiving rewards for the effort of running has been great too. However, if I can just stake my PRV and earn 40% APY, I will be honest, that’s far easier, but if that mean it creates a more centralised privacy network - that I don’t like as it goes against why I joined this project in the first place.
The pNode and Node Tree product would’ve been an amazing project differentiator as it would allow the common non-tech person a way to participate in blockchain tech from the comfort of their home. It would help grow the decentralised privacy network globally. I feel this would have given Incognito a superior edge over any other privacy network on the planet.
I had dreams of pNodes being plugged in to wall sockets all around the globe (even in remote countries) all contributing to upholding a core God-given human right to privacy. I know the project has long disbanded the idea of pNodes and Node Trees and I get that is for valid reasons and this rather longish comment is not harp on about it. But this topic does raise a very important question … How do we know if "decentralisation is still at the very core of this project? I feel we need more transparency around the deployment of these “Fixed Nodes”.
I questioned the the Fixed Nodes appraoch with @andrey back in July 2020 and here was his response back then…
Can you imagine if all the new “Fixed Nodes” are running out of a single public cloud provider (E.g. AWS ) and all of a sudden they decide to terminate the contract with Incognito Network? Would that cause the demise of this project?
@Jared, can you ask the core team whether they can provide some kind of map (like Theta Network’s - see below)
that shows rough locations all the: 1) Fixed Nodes, 2) pNodes and 3) vNodes that are located around the globe so we get a sense of centralisation/decentralisation of the incognito network?
I presume they’d have this already as they’d get location data from IP addresses from nodes.
Fixed node reduction is on the roadmap for February and May. This will significantly reduce the centralization aspect of the network.
We couldn’t agree more! The dev team originally created the pNode for this very reason. Unforentualy pNode ended up dying for two reasons. 1) Supply change issues caused by Covid. 2) Household internet and power are intermittent and can cause node downtime that users are not prepared to monitor or fix with a plug-n-play device.
pNode’s send diagnostic information (SSD used space, docker container status, etc.) but do not send personally identifiable information like an IP address. This map would have to be user-contributed and therefore would not show a full and accurate map.
Thanks for the answers @Jared you are an amazing community manager.
As for below… (feel free to spin this off to a new thread is you feel this is off topic)
How does the core team plan on doing this without compromising the security of the network?
Here’s a thought experiment. Let’s say in order to maintain the same level of security there must be the same number of nodes in operation (I am assuming there are 2 types of nodes: 1) Fixed, and 2) Non-Fixed (Community run vNodes + existing pNodes).
Hence, if the core team will be reducing the number of Fixed Nodes, hence if it’s a zero sum game, this means someone else will have to deploy more Non-Fixed “community” nodes, is that an correct assumption?
So, if that is the case, why don’t the Core Team provide more “Rewards” to existing Community Node operators, this will give them the ability to earn more PRV, hence reach the 1750 PRV minimum faster so they can be incentivised to deploy more vNodes sooner rather than later.
I have a vested interest being a validator increased rewards for community nodes, yes please.
@Jared my understanding was that the fixed nodes aren’t being reduced, merely community slots are increasing which is not the same thing. Can’t remember where it was stated but @alias mentioned that. I think the quote was something about either reducing fixed nodes by 7 or increasing community slots by 18. @fredlee will be able to correct me.
Yeah @SPAddict25 you’re correct. I’ve asked about it here but either the @Support team is fed up with me or I’m asking too hard questions cause I’m not getting any answers anymore.
The post you’re referring to mentions that at year 1 the block reward is distributed 10% DAO and 90% validators. Are we still waiting for year 1? For the past couple of years the Incognito team have collected at a minimum 66% of all block rewards. According to the original plan and block reward halving, we’re now on year 3, where the DAO should only collect 8%.
Doing some rough calculations, the Incognito team over the first two years collected a total of 5M + (8.7M + 7.9M) * 2/3 = 16M PRV. Out of transparency and for the sake of community trust, is there a public ledger where we can see exactly how much is held and what the rest has been used for?
I’m still confused on the fixed nodes and the increase in slots.
Hence a couple queries.
The fixed nodes, do they both propose blocks and validate as it currently stands?
“When the 22 fixed nodes don’t hold 2/3 slots in a committee, they play a role as block proposers. They propose blocks and community nodes validate. This reduces the need for a large number of fixed nodes to guarantee fault tolerance for the block proposing process, and block validation duties can be released to the community.”
Does the increase in community slots also increase the proportion of rewards to community nodes (thereby increasing yield) because the fixed nodes move to being only a block proposal role?
hey we saw your posts. currently collecting your questions and putting together some concrete details so we can address them better. sorry, it’s been a particularly busy last couple of days!
Ok, well here’s another thought experiment …
If the ultimate aim is more de-centralisation, this would mean more community run non-fixed nodes, right?
If that’s the case, would the core team be open to halving the amount required to be locked away to run a vNode from 1,750 to 875 PRV?
By doing so, this would lower the bar of entry for new folks to the project and would also allow existing node operators to run twice as many nodes for the same locked capital. It wouldn’t have to be a permanent change, you could run it as a limit time marketing campaign for 3 months then revert back to 1,750 PRV.
Btw, I’d like to understand what is the rationale behind setting the locked amount to 1,750 PRV for running a vNode?
It really depends on if you think 1750 prv is really that much of a hurdle to begin with.
Maybe a side point but my thoughts are is that the biggest thing right now that will drive value is building as many bridges as they can and attracting as much liquidity as possible. Especially because the pdex has only just been revised. Having circa 2.5m liquidity within the app is start up phase. Got to expand that significantly.
Validating already is very profitable as it stands and with a way lower barrier than it was only 6 to 8 months ago. Just a lot people aren’t aware of of how good being a validator is outside those that follow the project closely, especially after the pnode production ceased. Finally validators may elect to reinvest in nodes while the yield is very high. Doing so doesn’t necessarily drive trading activity and usage of the app.
I know the original topic was more centred on decentralization and privacy infrastructure can be marketed to get people drawn into the ecosystem.
I guess I’m pointing out that value creation i.e growth may be a more important issue to tackle.
More generally decentralization is important but growth can be the mechanism that gets the project there. Decentralization relies on a thriving community with several contributors. It’s currently too small IMO to really be self sustaining. A bit of a side track, my son is depriving me of some much needed zzz
) - learn more here : 
For the past couple of years the Incognito team have collected at a minimum 66% of all block rewards. According to the original plan and block reward halving, we’re now on year 3, where the DAO should only collect 8%.