NKN is a project in the larger DLT space with tokens being the primary driver of the NKN network. I urge the team and supporters to consider carefully the titanic shift occurring in the space today - namely Defi and NFT’s. Maybe more importantly, how mainstream this is becoming both on a retail and corporate level. This isn’t just a passing trend geared to solely pump speculative asset prices … it may appear that way on the surface, but underlying it is a fundamental paradigm shift that has far reaching consequences on our future.
It should be obvious to us that the success of any project is dependent on a number of factors (including luck), it doesn’t succeed solely on the merit of its technology. I think we can agree that part of that success is almost certainly widespread adoption. If we peer back in history, we will find a graveyard of brilliant technologies that “never made it” because they were unable to captivate the minds of a broader audience. To ignore that reality and not consider the social aspect of this endeavor would be a disservice to the project and the enthusiasts supporting it. Just because we build it, doesn’t mean they’ll come - complacency destroys.
So I ask… why would we be, at all, against incentivizing enthusiasts (liquidity providers, content creators, artists, academics, etc) to draw more eyes to the project and embark on this crusade that is part of a much broader social narrative? How much more excited would people be if they discovered a project and saw a future with tools that free you like Surge that they can use now (what an amazing project!) The accessibility, availability and incentive to on-ramp users is paramount to the success of NKN. Let’s dream of a token value beyond just mundane utility (gas) and numbers.
I arrived at NKN after reading Stephen Wolframs book A New Kind of Science. I was fascinated to see that the NKN team was pursuing an application of those ideas. I know there is a bit of a purist streak in the NKN crowd and I’m certainly not an advocate for the lambo bros or rampant speculators, but I do get deeply discouraged when I see that nMobile has a total review count of eight on the App Store (my guess is Tom is one of them). Why bother doing it at all if that is the entirety of our ambitions? Share that fascinating techology with more people. I suggest we be a bit more unorthodox and not so timid about ushering in the attention of a much broader audience. What I know for certain is no liquidity = no adoption. period. You can’t utilize what you don’t have access to or aren’t aware of (irrelevant) and that is broadly the case with NKN. It is almost comical guiding people on the use of DEX’s with names like Uniswap, Sushiswap and PancakeSwap, but I challenge anyone to go gauge their metrics and the incredible speed of adoption and evolution and see if they are still laughing.
Going back to the geyser proposal - it’s a good start. I don’t think impermanent loss is avoidable and it shouldn’t be, but we should be generous and highly encourage enthusiasts to get involved… especially the ones putting themselves at the highest risk early on. (I was an excited early node operator and eventually stopped because it was just a terrible financial decision). To address impermanent loss I’d take a peek at Thorchain and how they address IL with their RUNE token.
As for adoption, in addition to having a large network of nodes, we should start paying more attention to other metrics like the acquisition of users, useful network transaction volume and [potentially] NanoPay and other financial metrics (e.g. staking, pools, liquidity, swaps, etc). With that I am confident NKN will have a much more formidable position in the market.
Apologies for the long post. Still a big fan and supporter.
