The path towards sustainability

Mar 10, 2022

Aloha Samurais,

We hope that all of you are safe and sound during these unprecedented times.

Before delving into the scope of profound and meaningful features, changes and implementations that are approaching Samurai, it is vital to begin by shedding light on the history of the protocol and the rationale at its inception.

This protocol was launched as a fork (1:1 copy) of RING's, a DaaS protocol, which unfortunately failed. While the Samurai protocol never shared the DaaS approach, thesis and focus of RING, we were thrilled and excited for many of the mechanisms underpinning RING's codebase, which is one of the core reasons that led to the formation of Samurai.

However, soon after the inception of Samurai we encountered a series of unexpected issues stemming from the smart contracts being exploited. At the time, the pressure and urgency of the situation led to a number of decisions, which while being executed in best faith, have not been the most optimal and garnered poor results (reductive migrations, 1:1 token swaps, arbitrage debacles, and more…)

For an extensive amount of time, we have therefore heavily focused on trying to find solutions and ways towards fixing the situation, proving ourselves and presumably, overly focusing on making somewhat of a tangible comeback. At the same time, our reputation and credibility took a toll and hence seeking partnerships and cross-protocol integrations that could deliver additional utility and appeal to Samurai was not viable, which yet again led to us making efforts and new decisions that did not come to fruition later on.

The vast majority of our time was therefore heavily spent on finding ways and approaches to deliver the desired tangible comeback and in many ways the other, yet important components of maintaining the protocol were not given enough attention and focus.

Furthermore, when forking RING we made assumptions that most of the flaws and issues are a result of the team’s decision making and management. However, after establishing a more profound understanding of the protocol and its functionality over time, the deep flaws and imperfections of the overall model surfaced. It became apparent that the model is unsustainable and its long term prospects are fundamentally flawed.

This is a fundamental flaw that is coded and solidified in the protocol’s smart contracts but that we strive to change with the implementation of numerous, meaningful features and changes. The only solution towards long term sustainability is a deviation from RING’s underlying model and there are numerous paths that will be taken to attempt to address this:

1. Hybridising into a NaaS model

As you read this, we are rolling out RPC endpoints for all Samurai nodes. Although the enforcement of this may appear small or negligible, it is a big step for the protocol, as it effectively marks our transition into a hybridised model of NaaS (Nodes as a Service) and allows us to achieve several things. Firstly, it allows us as a protocol and its node holders to provide infrastructure solutions for different blockchain protocols (our RPC endpoints are compatible with Avax, Polygon and Fantom). This is attained by leveraging a proprietary system that aids in a number of aspects such as security, scalability, and reliability of data transactions. Furthermore, it allows us to tap into a new market of consumers that are interested in NaaS solutions and opportunities, effectively enhancing the exposure, visibility and accessibility of Samurai. Last but not least, the implementation of RPC endpoints enhances the overall utility of the protocol, as node owners can use the RPC endpoints of their nodes to execute transactions and no longer have to rely on the public, congested RPC endpoints.

2. Enhancing the utility of the token

It is essential to deliver new ways in which Samurai’s native token can be utilised. Our plan is to deliver and introduce a number of utilities over time, starting with a lottery system that utilises Samurai’s native token as its main medium of exchange. This ensures that a portion of the tokens collected by the introduction of the system will be directed towards the replenishment of reward pools.

3. Deconstructing the underlying unsustainable model

This is a meaningful step in building a functional protocol that deviates from RING’s underlying and unsustainable model.

Turning nodes into NFTs

• All existing nodes will be turned into NFTs. This will enable the nodes to be transferable and tradeable. It will also enable a secondary market for the nodes to appear, effectively mitigating the previous system of “sunk costs” when purchasing a node.

Introducing a node cap

• A node cap/limit will be introduced, ensuring that there is a finite amount of nodes. This will inherently enhance the node scarcity.

Switching to a system of dynamic rewards

• The nodes will issue rewards in a dynamic manner, based on the performance of the protocol. This ensures that the rewards issued are sustainable and that the protocol’s tokenomics are no longer threatened.

By introducing a node cap, this will effectively terminate the use of nodes as a liquidity mining program / substitute to staking, and will no longer allow new participants to enter.

The total deviation and pivot also require a change and refinement in how resources are utilised and allocated. Given, that the primary focus of the protocol will now revolve around building out an ecosystem of various utilities for its native token, the resources need to be appropriately re-allocated to enable, allow and fuel the corresponding development efforts and related undertaking.

These are significant changes that require a lot of amendments and effective development of new contracts from the ground up. While we have been actively working on a number of these aspects already, the development is heavily time-consuming. It is however our top priority to shift to this model as soon as possible and hence most of our time is spent on the development side of things for the time being.

Thank you for fighting with us!