Sunsetting Incognito   

What to expect with new unshielding fees

#19

Hey guys, just wanted to clarify something related to eth fee. As you might realize, after the contract upgrade that took place a couple of days ago, the gas used for an unshield transaction has been decreased significantly, it’s 170k - 200k gas for now compared to the previous contract’s (> 400k gas). Here is an example of an unshield tx on etherscan (https://etherscan.io/tx/0x02ec169e1e35205c1d99a1488396825e33af48a787fb5131b1a7d9c7661ed701)

Yeah, I know that is still fairly high, especially in the Ethereum network’s busy situation, when compared to a normal transfer transaction. The main reason is due to the computation of unshield process, it needs to verify Incognito committee’s signatures before unlocking assets to the withdrawer’s address. I mean the more computation, the more gas fee you must pay. This is right for Uniswap trade as well, as you would need to pay around 150k - 200k gas for each trade.

We’re still figuring out a good solution for this sort of problem so any idea would be appreciated!

7 Likes
#20

Maybe we should start thinking about integrating other smart contract platforms:
-EOS
-TRX
-DOT
-EGLD
Some of these platforms have wrapped ERC-20 Tokens, like Tether for example (if that’s what you want to call it). Being able to withdraw on a low-no fees platform like the ones mentioned above would be extremely useful.

I also got another idea that’s really outside the box and solves the problem internally instead of externally. It might be a bit to crazy though.
The most likely reason why someone would want to bring their ERC-20 Tokens outside the network is to exchange it on the open market. Well what if they can exchange their Tokens here at market price without having to go to the open market? What if we bring the open market to Incognito?
Well how do we do that:

  • What if we pull market price data from multiple exchanges and constantly input them into Incognito.
  • Then we allow users to trade their coins at market price for an Incognito Token that only get’s minted on sale. This Minted Token would be a stablecoin as it’s matched 1:1 with USD. Users can buy other crypto in the pDEX at market price as long as they use this Incognito Token. The value of the Token would stay at 1$ because you are able to purchase other crypto with it (at market price).

Obviously this could be potentially dangerous as the price data that is pulled could be tampered with, but i’m sure we could figure out a way to implement it safely with averages from multiple exchanges. Maybe make nodes pull the information for the Incognito Network. Since the Nodes would be distributed, majority rules with the price data. Like I said, this is a crazy idea, but it would definitely fix the problem of people wanting to leave the network. No need to leave if the outside is on the inside.

It would also give Incognito a stablecoin, and allow users to do arbitrage with barely any fee’s because they are doing arbitrage for the network, on the network. I’m sure there are problems with this idea though, as large whale transactions wouldn’t move the price, so it’s sort of like OTC.

1 Like
#21

Thanks for posting this. Improvements in the efficiency of the gas units needed is a big help. I’m still not sure why the models for BTC, monero, etc for bonded custodians don’t work for ethereum.

Perhaps the team should also explore L2 solutions like zk-SNARKS and/or zk-Rollups which have privacy increasing side effects also.

Lots of ideas here but I fear we’re going to have to see a sharp decline in people using Incognito due to high fees. What’s worse is that new people won’t know of this high exit fee until they experience it for the first time—then they will be very angry. :slightly_frowning_face:

Even though I read read the teams announcement on on this thread entitled "What to expect with new unshielding fees, " I was still completely blindsided at what to expect.

4 Likes
#22

For Ethereum network, I don’t see any solution except decreasing the Tx volume. Vitalik has a tweet on this issue and he sees the current fees as new normal. Incognito already has BEP2 support. It offers a lot of tokens (even pegged USDT) but there is no liquidity in pDEX since there is no encouragement in Provide. I wrote this a few times. In addition to BEP2, integration to BEP20 (Binance Smart Chain) seems easy. Even its explorer was developed by Etherscan team. Let’s keep support for Ethereum network but why does the team avoid adding more support to Binance ecosystem? This is my technical solution offer.

Here is my financial solution offer. OK, the feeless scheme was not viable but why black or white? Why do we try to charge all network fees from the users? We have DAO fund and income (except 5M pre-mined amount) from the fixed nodes. Couldn’t we use these funds to compensate some part of the high network fees for ETH and BTC? OK, this also is not infinitely viable but at least this enables us to save time on thinking/implementing a more reasonable solution or waiting for the market to solve this fee issue.

Anyway, I think the team wants to see the positive/negative effects of this new scheme. Let’s wait together :slight_smile:

2 Likes
#23

I think we need to scrap the smart contract and institute a bonded custodian model. That way coins can be sent using 21,000 gas units.

Not to berate the point but to withdraw ETH, it wants 64 PRV or approx $81. (This is a prime time because gas fees are less than 100gwi also.)

1 Like
#24

The app should be able to provide current fees for a “what If” transaction. So before we actually trade and have the crypto to make the unshield we can know the fees to expect.
Currently it says you don’t have sufficient funds and doesn’t provide a real current fee.

7 Likes
#25

Binance already integrate with TRC20 beside ERC20, i think we should do TRC20 first because TRC20 is totally free now

5 Likes
#26

Was “surprised” with unshield fee today.((((

1 Like
#27

Just to clarify @nickvasilich – Were you surprised because you were not aware this announcement and you didn’t expect any fee at all or because of the amount of the unshield fee? Also, what was the fee quoted? I’ve seen it vary greatly.

#28

I was surprised too. I tried to withdraw ~$40 USDC and the total fee(s) was showing ~$5.

2 Likes
#29

Unfortunately it depends on when you try to withdraw as to the fees.
However I have had many sites say the fees would be 10$ and it turns out the actual eth used was 1.2$ or something much less.
I don’t know how (nor do I think it’s been shown by incog) they figure fees and process them.
If it’s the final fee we are charged or the initial guess that is used for gas fees.

Just use btc and then you don’t have the erc20 fee issue.

3 Likes
#30

:wave:t6:
no BNB or XMR They will give you sweet minimum fees😉
Screenshot_20200924-231500_Incognito Wallet Screenshot_20200924-231423_Incognito Wallet

3 Likes
#31

Other than monero, are there any other blockchains that could be integrated that is not part of ethereum? XRP? Tezos?
I am not too tech savvy, but I do like the principle behind incognito. Hopefully there is a solution to this. As I can see these higher fees turning off alot of potential new users.

#32

Please see: Comprehensive List of Supported Coins/Tokens

1 Like
#33

How exactly are the fees calculated again? Fees are low right now but it’s still almost 5PRV to withdraw—as if gas prices were 100 gwei.

image

Things are sooooo unpredictable.

#34

Hey @marko It does have to do with what the current rates of the network are, do note than when you unshield from incognito, you are withdrawing from a smart contract which requires a higher fee.

1 Like
#35

Yes, I know that—but how is the fee calculated? Where is it pulling the gas price feed? It certainly does not follow the “current” rates. Perhaps it’s some sort of average over the past X hours or past X unshields.

#37

Hi @marko, we want to make sure all the transactions are processed fully from the smart contract, so we always get the highest value for any pending tx.
For reference, we pull the gas price via this site: https://fees.upvest.co/estimate_eth_fees

2 Likes
#38

Hi @Peter Thanks for responding with the exact data in the code. I’ve been watching the flow of transactions and I’m thinking that you could set this to “FAST” instead of fastest and there would be no flow problems. It could probably even be set lower? Has it been tested?

Also, have you considered pulling data from gasnow.org? It seems to be the most updated and most accurate. I’m noticing that the link you gave to me is several minutes old.

#39

Hi @marko, there had been lots of issues in the past regarding the unshielded process that we don’t want to bring it back to the user.
Thanks for your suggestion. But we will stick with the current flow to ensure all the transactions go smoothly out of the Incognito network.

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