It’s been over 2 months since the decentralization of the SKALE Network ( mainnet phase 2) began. With an unique approach of requiring participating investors to stake a minimum of 50% of their tokens for a period of at least 2 months ( Proof-of-Use), the SKALE team focused on attracting long-term supporters of the project, as opposed to speculators looking for a quick flip.
In this post, I want to take a look at a snapshot of the on-chain data that shines light on how SKL holders are engaging with the network now that the Proof-of-Use period has come to an end.
SKL is an ERC-777 token (backwards compatible with ERC-20), so information about it is available on Etherscan. We can see that there are 4,083,530,877 SKL tokens, which are held by 3,903 different addresses. 166,857,860, or roughly 4%, of those were sold in a public sale through the Activate platform. For a detailed breakdown of the supply and associated lockups, check out this 1-pager.
I want to start this analysis by taking a look at token transfers. Visualizing the transaction counts and amounts, we can clearly see how the initial tokens were distributed to investors leading up to the phase 2 mainnet launch on October 1. We can also note an uptick in activity when the first SKALE staking period ended Dec 1 (as of now, tokens can only be staked for periods of 2 months). At this point, the first tokens unlocked and the SKL token gets listed, e.g. on Binance. On Dec 1, 6,358 transfers were carried out moving 267m SKL, or around 6.5% of the supply (see chart). Right after, activity declined significantly with on average around 500 transfers happening per day during the past week.
Looking at the total stake in the network, which e.g. can be found here, we see that the overwhelming majority of tokens are involved in staking. 74.5% of all tokens are delegated, which places SKALE in the company of established networks such as Cosmos (71.42%) and Tezos (79.44%, see Staking Rewards). In terms of addresses that are involved in staking, we see that there are 1,167 unique delegators. 30% of all addresses that hold the SKL token are also staking.
Furthermore, one may wonder how many SKL tokens have been unstaked or are planning to unstake at the next boundary (Feb 1). The official dashboard shows 112m SKL (~3.7% of the currently staked supply) have been unbonded after the first staking period. So it seems like a majority of token holders plan to continue staking (it should be noted that a majority of token holders like the foundation, team, and early investors have longer lockup periods and cannot transfer their tokens yet).
Generally speaking, the interest in staking seems to remain high. While this amount will likely increase as the month continues, we can currently see that 15m SKL tokens plan to unstake at the next boundary (Feb 1). This is three times as much as new delegations that are coming in (i.e. accepted and proposed), which amount to around 5m SKL tokens at the time of writing. If we assume constant growth and that this ratio will remain until the end of January, then the staked supply would decline by roughly 80m, which would barely impact the staking ratio.
There are currently 47 validator organizations running a grand total of 152 nodes, whose resources are distributed across elastic SKALE-Chains. The average reward per node, which is split between the node operating entity and its delegators, is 211,075 SKL per node. With 152 nodes, this means the SKALE Network is currently paying out 32,083,400 SKL (or 1.04% of the supply) per epoch.
Using the median commission rate across validators of 12%, this means the average SKL delegator is currently earning 0.9152% per month on his SKL, translating to an APR of 11.55% (including compounding).
Looking at the stake distribution among nodes, we can see that a majority of the stake is controlled by a small subset of validators with only 3 of the 47 entities controlling right about 33% of the stake (see chart).
SKALE’s design seems to have successfully incentivized an engaged base of holders that are interested in supporting the project through staking. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the project is still in a very early phase of decentralization, which can be seen both by looking at the token distribution among addresses (the top 100 addresses hold a majority of all tokens), as well as in the stake distribution across validators. For more on the importance of censorship resistance in Proof-of-Stake, check out e.g. this thread by the Solana team.
Chorus One is offering staking services and building protocols and tools to advance the Proof-of-Stake ecosystem.
We are an active validator on the SKALE Network. Support our work by delegating to us. Learn more here.
Website: https://chorus.one
Twitter: https://twitter.com/chorusone
SKALE is an elastic blockchain network that gives developers the ability to easily provision highly configurable fully decentralized chains that are instantly compatible with Ethereum. SKALE chains can execute sub-second block times, run up to 2,000 tps per chain, and run full-state smart contracts in addition to decentralized storage, execute Rollups, and machine learning in EVM.
Website: https://skale.network/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/skalenetwork
Originally published at https://blog.chorus.one on December 10, 2020.
On November 18, 2020 the Oasis mainnet transitioned to a fully permissionless platform with ROSE tokens becoming transferable on the network. This constitutes a major milestone for the Oasis ecosystem and we are proud to be part of the initial 75 validators that made this possible!
Oasis and its privacy-preserving technologies allow developers to build entirely new types of applications in which users remain in control of their data enabling a better Internet and a responsible data economy.
Coinciding with the official mainnet launch, we are excited to announce that we have finished our Ledger integration of Oasis in Anthem enabling ROSE holders to transfer and delegate their tokens to earn staking rewards to initially earn up to 20% APY (more on the economics here).
Connect your Ledger device or try out Anthem’s portfolio feature with any Oasis address at: https://anthem.chorus.one
At Chorus One, our goal is to improve non-custodial participation in the staking economy to strengthen decentralized networks and help them deliver on the promise of an open and transparent financial and user-owned Web3 ecosystem. Anthem is a tool geared towards helping users participate in these emerging networks.
To support our work, delegate ROSE tokens to our node and safely earn rewards. Learn more here: https://chorus.one/networks/oasis/
PS: A recent Chrome update is resulting in the Ledger integration not working on Chrome and Brave for some users. To fix it, you will need to go to chrome://flags#new-usb-backend and disable that flag.
Chorus One is offering staking services and building protocols and tools to advance the Proof-of-Stake ecosystem.
Chorus One is a grantee of the Oasis Foundation and a genesis mainnet node operator on the Oasis network. Learn more about us in our Node Operator Spotlight.
Website: https://chorus.one
Twitter: https://twitter.com/chorusone
A better internet is only a matter of time. The Oasis network is trying to fix what’s broken by giving users back control of their data using a combination of secure compute and a proof-of-stake blockchain.
Website: https://oasisprotocol.org/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/oasisprotocol
Originally published at https://blog.chorus.one on November 26, 2020.
Today, we are excited to announce our partnership with German-based, regulated custody provider Finoa. Our integration with Finoa will enable retail and institutional customers that use Finoa’s custody solution to utilize Chorus One’s staking services starting with support for Polkadot. Other networks that are part of the portfolio of both companies such as Oasis, NEAR, Centrifuge, and others will follow shortly after.
This partnership signifies a larger movement towards adoption of cryptoassets by institutional players. We are excited to help enable access to the vibrant ecosystem of yield-bearing staking assets to newcomers and established crypto investors alike.
We are constantly increasing the product and service offering to our customers. With Chorus One, we add a leading and innovative Staking provider with a wide array of protocols to our portfolio. Especially for the Polkadot ecosystem, Brian and his team provide innovative, yield-optimizing Staking solutions.
Henrik Gebbing, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Finoa
Our partnership with Finoa goes beyond purely providing infrastructure to participate in decentralized networks. In the past few weeks, we have developed capabilities to improve the user experience and returns for staking users on Polkadot through a first version of what we refer to as a “staking agent”. The staking agent is an API that algorithmically manages staking participation on behalf of DOT holders . It makes use of a proprietary algorithm and Polkadot’s key management design that allows the delegation of staking-related rights without giving up custody of funds.
The staking agent enables Finoa users that want to stake DOTs to improve their staking reward APR by continuously updating their nominations across supported validators while requiring no intervention by the user.
We have been impressed with the professionalism and vision of Finoa, who is quickly becoming one of the industry’s leading custody providers. We are also excited to make a first foray into the area of staking yield optimization and to be able to offer this to Finoa’s customers.
Brian Crain, Co-Founder and CEO of Chorus One
We will soon have more information about our staking agent and its benefits available. For now, if you are a DOT holder, wallet provider, or custodian interested in using or integrating the staking agent, please reach out to us at hello[at]chorus.one.
Finoa is a regulated custodian for Digital Assets, servicing professional investors with Custody and Staking. Reference customers include the world’s most renowned Venture Capital firms, large corporations and financial institutions. Finoa was founded in Berlin in 2018, is a qualified crypto-asset custodian (§64y Para. 1 KWG) and supervised by the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin).
Website: https://finoa.io
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/finoabanking/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Finoa_Banking
Chorus One is providing staking services and developing cross-chain communication technologies for Proof-of-Stake blockchain networks.
Website: https://chorus.one
Twitter: https://twitter.com/chorusone
Telegram: https://t.me/chorusone
Background picture by Ben Neale on Unsplash.
Originally published at https://blog.chorus.one on October 7, 2020.
We are excited to announce support for the Oasis mainnet release candidate Amber on Anthem! Starting today, token holders on the Amber network can track their account and transaction history by pasting in their address.
Try it out on https://anthem.chorus.one
Anthem is an essential tool for staking users on blockchain networks. Our goal is to improve non-custodial participation in the staking economy by giving users access to historical data about their investments, as well as allowing them to stake tokens and vote in governance on supported networks.
On Oasis, Anthem allows you to connect any address and access historical portfolio and transaction data with a focus on staking rewards. Token holders can display their balances in different fiat currencies (for Oasis this feature is not available yet). In addition, users can export account data as a CSV file and transaction data as a JSON file, enabling them to easily get the correct data for tax compliance or analytics purposes.
Try out Anthem for Oasis today and feel free to ask us questions on Telegram or through the live chat feature!
After Anthem has been live for a couple of months for the Cosmos Hub, adding Oasis marks the first step towards the multi-network experience we are aiming towards. We expect to soon add Celo and Terra, as well as expand features to improve participation for token holders in Proof-of-Stake networks such as Oasis in the near future.
Chorus One is providing staking services and developing cross-chain communication technologies for Proof-of-Stake blockchain networks.
Chorus One is a grantee of the Oasis Foundation and a genesis mainnet node operator on the Oasis network. Learn more about us in our Node Operator Spotlight.
Website: https://chorus.one
Twitter: https://twitter.com/chorusone
A better internet is only a matter of time. The Oasis network is trying to fix what’s broken by giving users back control of their data using a combination of secure compute and a proof-of-stake blockchain.
Website: https://oasisprotocol.org/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/oasisprotocol
Originally published at https://blog.chorus.one on June 30, 2020.
