AGIX Staking on Cardano has Arrived

Discover our hybrid approach to staking on Cardano, combining the advantages of bonded and unbonded staking

Last month, we introduced our new AGIX staking solution on Cardano. We are now nearing the completion of the third epoch, marking a significant milestone in our journey toward a public launch in the upcoming fourth epoch, starting December 28th 2023.

Our hybrid solution combines the advantages of bonded and unbonded staking. Initially, we were planning to offer both bonded and unbonded staking options separately, catering to diverse user preferences. However, after careful consideration of both business and technical aspects, which we will delve deeper into later in this article, we opted instead to fuse the best of both worlds into a single artfully designed solution.

Here’s a summary of the key features of our hybrid staking solution:

• Safe limits on rewards: Each pool Admin sets safe limits on the total number of AGIX allocated for rewards per staking epoch, minimizing potential risks.
• Flexibility: Users can withdraw their committed tokens at any time, except for a temporary restriction during the Reward Distribution Period.
• User experience: Our innovative staking approach balances user freedom and system performance, offering a staking solution that is crafted to be user-centric from the ground up.

In our previous article, we shared a comprehensive overview of all essential information about staking epochs. It guides you through the process of joining, explains how rewards are calculated and distributed, and answers any questions you might have about collecting rewards.

We are proud to unveil to you the culmination of our tireless efforts: a unique staking solution, not only for its advanced technical architecture leveraging the full potential of the Cardano blockchain, but also for the unparalleled experience it offers stakers.

We invite you to explore some of the conceptual choices that shaped our development:

Bonded Staking Issue — Total Reward Amount

In the original requirements, we aimed to guarantee a certain reward amount for users committing their tokens to the pool. This implied the Admin of the bounded pool would allocate any necessary amount of AGIX each epoch to appropriately reward all stakers, without a maximum limit in place.

Alternatively, a maximum pool size could have been implemented. However, we concluded that limiting the amount of deposited tokens would have significantly impacted system performance. SingularityNET, on the other hand, could not responsibly guarantee a certain amount of rewards without a cap.

To address this challenge, we designed a dynamic reward system. During each Reward Distribution Period, the Admin defines a reward pool proportional to the number of participants who committed their tokens in the previous epoch. Rewards are then distributed among all active stakers based on their AGIX balance.

This approach allows for flexible reward determination based on various factors, including:

• Total staked amount;
• Available tokens in the staking rewards pool;
• Projected growth of the staking pool;
• The Decentralized AI Platform’s need for liquidity.

Based on these factors, the Admin calculates the rewards per user for the next staking window during each Reward Distribution Period. If a participant decides to withdraw their tokens during this window, they forfeit their rewards for that epoch, but the rewards for other participants remain unchanged.

This hybrid system ensures fairness and sustainability while providing participants with transparency.

Unbonded Staking Issues

Unbonded staking presented several challenges. While offering the convenience of staking and withdrawing tokens at will, it resulted in contention levels that exceeded the performance capacity of our system.

Implementing countermeasures to address this issue restricted user freedom to an unacceptable degree, preventing us from finding a compromise that met our user experience standards. Finding a reasonable compromise between unrestricted user freedom and system stability proved elusive.

We ultimately opted for a solution that, we believe, ensures fairness for all participants while maintaining system performance. Participants can withdraw their stake at any time except during the Reward Distribution Period, granting them more control over their stake in case of unforeseen personal circumstances.

However, only users who commit their tokens throughout the entire staking epoch are eligible to receive rewards. This means that, while the total reward amount may fluctuate based on withdrawals during the epoch, individual rewards for those who remain committed for 11 days stay constant.

Conclusion on the Functional Staking Model — The Perfect Balance

We are confident that our innovative approach to staking on Cardano strikes the perfect balance between user flexibility and platform stability. Our hybrid staking solution is ideal for AGIX token holders seeking a secure and rewarding way to support the operations of our Decentralized AI marketplace.

In a follow-up article, we will delve deeper into the technical aspects of our hybrid staking solution. We will share valuable insights into the challenges we encountered during development and testing, and how we ingeniously overcame them to arrive at the current robust and user-friendly solution.

About SingularityNET

SingularityNET is a decentralized Platform and Marketplace for Artificial Intelligence (AI) services founded by Dr. Ben Goertzel with the mission of creating a decentralized, democratic, inclusive, and beneficial Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

• Our Platform, where anyone can develop, share, and monetize AI algorithms, models, and data.
• OpenCog Hyperon, our premier neural-symbolic AGI Framework, will be a core service for the next wave of AI innovation.
• Our Ecosystem, developing advanced AI solutions across market verticals to revolutionize industries.

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