Frequently asked questions

The blockchain is a hash-linked data structure. It is the first type of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), which within itself include other different technologies sharing a similar objective. In simple terms, a blockchain is a continuously growing list of records, stored in what are called blocks, which are linked and secured using cryptography. Bitcoin is the first blockchain ever created.

A blockchain allows connected computers in a peer-to-peer network to reach agreement over shared data. While it is technologically decentralized, the implementer may have total control over the network. We can then differentiate between open and closed blockchains, depending if anyone can freely join and participate in the network and its consensus mechanism, or if a central party/ consortium controls it. Bitcoin and Stakenet are open blockchains, while banks and other financial institutions are using closed blockchains (or some other sort of closed distributed ledgers). These differences aren’t necessarily good or bad, they just have different use-cases.

By design, a blockchain is resistant to modification of its data. As said, it is managed by a peer-to-peer network, collectively adhering to a protocol for inter-node communication and validating new blocks. Once recorded, the data in any given block cannot be altered retroactively without alteration of all subsequent blocks, which requires the consensus of the network majority.

Bitcoin was the first (open) blockchain to solve the Double Spend Problem without trusting any third parties - this is why the real innovation and value are in open blockchains. While it doesn't seem like a big deal at first, it is actually one of the biggest revolutions in past decades. It has sparkled a transformation in the financial industry with cryptocurrencies and smart contracts, creating an entirely new world out of it, pretty much like the internet back in the day.

A cryptocurrency is a digital or virtual currency designed to work as a medium of exchange - it is money. It uses an open distributed ledger (usually an open blockchain) to secure and verify transactions as well as to control the creation of new units of a particular cryptocurrency.

The term cryptocurrency was determined by bitcoin (BTC) - the first and leading one. Notice one difference, Bitcoin (uppercase B) is the name of the financial network created using a blockchain, bitcoin (lowercase 'b') or BTC is the coin of this network.

By definition, a cryptocurrency is open, permissionless, decentralized, trustless, and censorship-resistant. Anyone can freely participate (transact, store) and independently validate its transactions. If it doesn't fit these rules, it is not a cryptocurrency. Using a blockchain or any other type of DLT doesn't make it a cryptocurrency.

There are some closed, permissioned, and censorable digital coins being created recently, which utilize closed distributed ledgers, and piggyback off being labeled as cryptocurrencies for marketing purposes (e.g. to increase a coin or companies shares value). These are digital coins masquerading around as something they are not, only because they are using Distributed Ledger Technology.

While closed blockchains are great as they cut down costs and improve speed in the legacy financial sector, they don't come anywhere close to the real innovation that open blockchains bring. The value of a blockchain relies upon its intrinsic asset (cryptocurrency) that is the basis for a game theoretical model of security via consensus algorithms that depend on competition (PoW, PoS, et cetera). The open blockchain is used to achieve the decentralization needed (open participation and validation) for this model of security to work, so no single entity has the power to control the network. On top of that, open blockchains can infinitely scale, provide instant settlements, and be essentially free to transact on, while providing a seamless user experience.

Don't be fooled by the marketing efforts of corporations with closed blockchains - they are not creating anything as revolutionary as a cryptocurrency, but rather a faster version of permissioned and censorable money (in most cases backed 1:1 by FIAT), using closed Distributed Ledger Technology. This is how the "blockchain, not Bitcoin" nonsense cliché was born; some people either don't understand, or are interested in taking away the real value of open, permissionless, and censorship-resistant money. You must ask yourself why.

Any cryptocurrency other than bitcoin is called an altcoin.

A Smart Contract is a virtual agreement managed by the blockchain between different parties.

Its main role is for two parties to conduct this agreement that can be digitally self-executed and self-enforced, eliminating the need for a ‘middleman’. This would transfer power away from those who currently manage or verify transactions in our current society, entirely changing the way the world currently operates.

Each cryptocurrency serves a purpose and has different characteristics, although most of them act mainly as a medium of exchange.

A cryptocurrency coin is a cryptocurrency which operates independently of any other platform, so it has its own dedicated blockchain like Bitcoin (BTC) or Stakenet (XSN).

A token is a cryptocurrency that requires another blockchain, such as Ethereum or Neo, to exist and operate. Golem is a token on the Ethereum blockchain (those are called ERC20 tokens) and Ontology is a token on the Neo blockchain (those are called NEP5 tokens).

A cryptocurrency wallet is a digital wallet (an application) used to receive, store, and send cryptocurrencies like bitcoin (BTC) and stakenet (XSN).

It should be noted that a wallet only allows access to the blockchain, where all coins are "stored". So to speak, the wallet is just the medium which stores the private keys, and makes it possible to communicate safely with the blockchain to access certain coins.

Wallets can be of various types such as an Online wallet (web-based), Mobile wallet, Desktop wallet, Paper wallet, or Hardware wallet. A hardware wallet is a special type of wallet which stores the user's private keys in a secure hardware device. For the average user, it is the most secure wallet of all.

Note that if you leave your cryptocurrencies in a Centralized Exchange you don't own them - the exchange does, as they are in posession of the wallets and private keys.

The private key is the "ticket" that allows someone to spend the Bitcoins (or any other cryptocurrency) associated to it, so it is crucial that these are kept secure. They're automatically generated by each coin's wallet software and can be kept on computer files (usually encrypted within a file called wallet.dat), be printed on paper, or protected within a hardware device (hardware wallet).

A private key can be generated once by a wallet, and it may be able to "unlock" an almost infinite amount of addresses created thereafter within that wallet using that private key - these are called HD wallets. If you lose the private key, the coins it can unlock will be lost forever. In the early days of Bitcoin, a lot of people lost their private keys, and now there are millions of BTC in the Bitcoin blockchain that can never be recovered.

The public key is the unique identifier for your cryptocurrency wallet that is known to the public. The address is another identifier, derived from the public key. The address is the identifier people use to send cryptocurrencies to each other.

Note that if you leave your cryptocurrencies in a Centralized Exchange you don't own them - the exchange does, as they are in posession of the wallets and private keys.

An Unspent Transaction Output (UTXO) is a list of money received that has not yet been spent. In other words, if you were to total up the UTXO of someone, you would get that person's available balance.

Bitcoin, and other cryptocurrencies such as XSN, use UTXO in their blockchain technology to verify that a person has unspent crypto available for spending.

Proof of Stake and Proof of Work are both methods used to validate transactions in a blockchain to avoid double spending and fraud.

The Proof of Work consensus is done by what we call "mining", where the miners have to solve complex mathematical puzzles over and over again. The more computational power (measured in Hashrate), the more chances you have of solving this mathematical problem (the solution is called hash) and earning a reward from the blockchain. It is a way of proving the blockchain that you are investing in it with energy/work.

Proof of Work (mining) is not a waste of energy or environmentally destructive, as it not only protect Bitcoin and other blockchains, but also encourages humans to search for the most efficient and cheap source of energy possible. Most of the energy used for Bitcoin mining comes from renewable sources or excess of energy that exist in some areas. As Satoshi Nakatomo stated: "The utility of the exchanges made possible by Bitcoin will far exceed the cost of electricity used. Therefore, not having Bitcoin would be the net waste."

The Proof of Stake consensus is done by minting or forging. In this case, very basic computers can mint or forge (validate transactions) since this is not a very demanding task. Instead of using electricity to prove you are invested in the blockchain, you prove it by owning its coins. Everybody can mint in Proof of Stake systems as it only requires a very cheap computer, online connectivity, and owning some coins of the blockchain you're minting. You don't need to spend huge amounts of money on specialized computers (ASICs) and electricity, like in Proof of Work.

Staking is the act of holding PoS coins in a Stakenode to mint (or forge) new blocks. Minting (or forging) is the act of creating new blocks in a Proof of Stake blockchain to have a chance to receive a block reward.

A Stakenode is a computer that runs the coin's wallet with a positive coin balance. The wallet will automatically stake by using the node's resources to protect the blockchain by verifying the legitimacy of the transactions. For its services, the blockchain will send rewards (coin payments). Rewards are based on the number of coins the wallet owns, the more coins the more chances there are to receive a reward. The node must always be online or it won't be staking and therefore not receiving rewards.

A Masternode is similar to a Stakenode, but instead of protecting the network like Stakenodes do, Masternodes provide services to it. They form a huge network of interconnected computers that are used in benefit of the blockchain.

Each Masternode requires a certain collateral (locked coins) balance to work. In Stakenet, exactly 15 000 XSN per Masternode is required. In our case, XSN Masternodes will hold other blockchains and run Stakenet DEX, among many other things.

We can compare a Masternode to a Merchantnode: while in the TPoS process you would find three entities (Owner, Merchant, and Merchantnode) in the Masternode process there's only two, the Owner and the Masternode. There's no need for an intermediate Merchant, as the Owner is the one directly controlling the Masternode. The Merchant entity was purposely added in TPoS so they (merchants) would be able to trustlessly stake Owners coins.

You can rent an XSN Masternode using our Masternode hosting service in Stakenet Cloud. It is a trustless solution so you're always in control of your money and there are no associated risks. Since there's no Merchant entity in the Masternode process, as it is in TPoS, you need to deposit some XSN to your Cloud wallet in order for us to take fees for our Masternode hosting service.

You can also set up your own Masternode following this guide: https://medium.com/@ethminer89/stakenet-xsn-masternode-setup-guide-453a49663e66

Block rewards are new coins (in our case, XSN) created and automatically distributed by the network to users as rewards for its services.

In Stakenet, rewards are distributed to Stakers and Masternodes on each block creation. In Bitcoin, miners get the block rewards.

ICO stands for Initial Coin offering and is a mechanism by which funds are raised for a new cryptocurrency venture. Typically during an ICO, coins are presented/ sold to initial investors at discounted rates.

No, XSN did not hold an ICO.

Forking implies any divergence in blockchain - temporary or permanent. Very simply, forking is said to happen when a blockchain splits into two branches. A hard fork is a permanent divergence from the previous version of the blockchain; nodes running previous versions will no longer be accepted by the newest version. Some examples are Ethereum vs Ethereum Classic, and Bitcoin vs Bitcoin Cash.

A soft fork is said to happen when a change to the software protocol keeps it backward compatible. What this means is that the new forked chain will follow the new rules and will also honor the old rules. The original chain will continue to follow the old rules.

Stakenet isn't a fork with other parallel moving blockchains. Stakenet is built on the Bitcoin.core blockchain architecture using a modified Dash and Peercoin codebase.

Orphan blocks are those blocks which are not accepted into the blockchain network due to a time lag in the acceptance of the block in question as compared to the other qualifying block. Orphan blocks are valid and verified blocks but are rejected.

They are also called detached blocks as they exist in isolation from the blockchain. Orphan blocks don't cause any harm at all to the blockchain itself.

Stakenet is a Lightning Network-ready open-source platform for decentralized applications with its native cryptocurrency – XSN. Its blockchain is custom-built and is infinitely upgradeable to adopt new technological innovations as they develop.

XSN is digital money, like bitcoin in the Bitcoin blockchain, or ether in Ethereum, as its supply isn’t controlled by any government or company. It is decentralized, secure, scarce, and is used by people all over the world to make payments or as a store of value.

Stakenet is a Proof of Stake blockchain with Masternodes, which means all stakeholders can help secure and power the network, thus earning a passive income through staking or running a Masternode. Unlike Bitcoin or Ethereum, which have a high entry barrier due to requiring specialized hardware to mine.

Thanks to Stakenet’s invention Trustless Proof of Stake, you can stake your coins from cold storage such as a hardware wallet, and receive staking rewards whilst your funds are offline and never at risk - resulting in one of the highest levels of security among any existing blockchain.

What makes Stakenet and its cryptocurrency XSN stand out?

It is the first blockchain with Masternodes to ever be Lightning Network ready. This means XSN has instant, virtually feeless, and unlimited transactions per second, making it more valuable than most other cryptocurrencies whose only use-case is speed or scalability. It is also the first, next to Bitcoin and Litecoin, to ever perform Lightning Swaps.

If Amazon were to accept Bitcoin over the Lightning Network, XSN would automatically be accepted due to its cross-chain capabilities. Essentially you can pay anyone accepting Lightning Network payments with XSN. This is what adoption looks like.

Stakenet doesn’t want to impose a brand new standard, but rather adhere to the existing Bitcoin-Lightning Network (BTC/LN) protocol. The advantage this provides over others is truly massive: we don't have to hope that our solutions are adopted, they will always be alongside both Bitcoin and the Lightning Network.

The Stakenet network can run decentralized applications created by anyone over Lightning Network, which is where the future is being built upon.

These decentralized applications are powered by the Masternodes and directly benefit all XSN holders. The first developed one is a unique Lightning Decentralized Exchange using instant and infinitely scalable Lightning Swaps, where all trading fees collected are automatically used by the network to buy and distribute XSN to the Masternodes. This operates alongside its own TOR network whilst further privacy methods, such as MimbleWimble are continuously being researched.

Stakenet have an open governance and decentralized self-funding mechanism that allows Masternode holders to cast their votes on development proposals, which are then funded from the network’s treasury.

You can learn more about XSN in the Stakenet video presentation, XSN Comparison chart, and in our dedicated XSN page https://stakenet.io/xsn

We strongly suggest reading FAQ completely, as most questions are covered on it.

You can stake XSN by leaving your wallet unlocked and running 24/7 with a positive balance, or you can stake with Trustless Proof of Stake. TPoS is a technology developed by Stakenet that allows users to trustlessly stake XSN by having a Merchantnode (a server which acts as a Stakenode) do the staking for them while not having to share any spendable balance or private keys with it. This is done with a smart contract.

With TPoS, you can safely keep your coins anywhere, like in a hardware wallet, and they will be staking and growing over time, even while you sleep. Not having the coins exposed in the staking server is a huge step forward in terms of privacy and security.

You can run your own Merchantnode to trustlessly stake your own coins, or you can also hire a Merchantnode from a third party to stake your coins for a small fee with no risks associated, as your funds always remain with you. Merchantnodes are provided by independent people called "Merchants" - a whole new market emerged from this technology. You can find them in our social channels, like in our Discord. Keep in mind that a server online 24/7 (Merchantnode) is always needed in order to run TPoS.

Having trustless and decentralized Stakenodes with unique IPv4 addresses makes XSN one of the most secure PoS blockchain. Other cold staking solutions can't achieve this level of security, as they don't have as many nodes verifying the blockchain. Trustless Proof of Stake, in combination with Lightning Swaps, will allow users to stake XSN held in a hardware wallet and earn Bitcoin (or any other LN compatible coin) directly to this hardware wallet as rewards.

In a TPoS contract there are three entities: the Owner (wallet that owns the coins to be staked), the Merchant (wallet that creates the smart contract with the Owner and earns a commission), and the Merchantnode (the wallet from the Merchant that will be staking in a server online 24/7).

If you are a Merchant providing services to other Owners, you can use your own local wallet to act as the Merchant wallet where you will earn the commissions from all the TPoS contracts you have created - this Merchant's wallet, as well as the Owner's wallet, can both remain offline. Then you will have servers online 24/7 running the wallets acting as Merchantnodes and staking each Owner's coins.

If you are the Owner and want to TPoS your own coins without hiring third-party Merchants, you can do so and there are only two wallets involved in the process: the wallet with your coins (Owner), which can remain offline, and the wallet running in a server online 24/7 that will act both as Merchant and Merchantnode and will stake your coins. This wallet will earn the commission you set for the contract, as it is acting as a Merchant wallet. You can however set the comission to 0% so all the rewards go to the Owner's wallet.

There are two addresses involved in a TPoS contract: The owner's and the merchant's. When the Owner creates the contract with the Merchant, he will receive his Owner's TPoS address. This address acts as a cold staking address, where the Owner can withdraw and deposit coins to it at will. The coins in it are always staking, risk-free, and without further intervention. The other involved address is the Merchant TPoS address, generated by the Merchant wallet. Any commission is received by this address.

Please check the TPoS guide here: https://medium.com/@ethminer89/stakenet-xsn-tpos-merchant-setup-guide-e4931b274cec

Atomic Swaps are trustless cross-chain trading. They allow people to trade with one another directly from their wallets, without the need and risks of intermediaries. This is revolutionary, as you no longer need to trust any centralized entity in order to buy or sell crypto assets. They work with Hashed Timelock Contracts (HTLCs), a kind of smart contract.

Atomic Swaps (Cross-Chain Atomic Swaps), are done on-chain. This means they are limited by block size (not scalable), confirmation times (slow), and fees (expensive) inherent to the respective blockchains.

Lightning Swaps (Lightning Network Cross-Chain Atomic Swaps) are done off-chain over Lightning Network. Lightning Swaps are infinitely scalable, instant, and have little to no fees at all. So they don't have any of the on-chain Atomic Swaps limitations.

With the issues on-chain Atomic Swaps have, it is clear why Decentralized Exchanges haven't gained enough traction so far, they simply can't match the user experience of Centralized Exchanges. Lightning Swaps solve all of these major problems, so they could very well revolutionize the entire ecosystem.

The possibilities that arise are limitless, and considering the huge progress the developers working on the Bitcoin-Lightning (BTC/LN) protocol are making, it is clear to us that it is the future. That is why Stakenet is leading on Lightning Network innovation, and it is among the first three, next to Bitcoin and Litecoin, to ever perform Lightning Swaps.

In December 2018, the head developers of Stakenet formalized a collaboration with the Litecoin Foundation to work on and further develop the Lightning Network.

Stakenet is one of the most secure PoS blockchains. In order to perform an attack, you would need to own more than 50% of the current online staking supply. At this moment there are around 35 000 000 XSN staking. This represents over 50% of the total stakeable coins (coins not locked in Masternodes), a pretty impressive figure thanks to Trustless Proof of Stake (TPoS). This is multiple magnitudes higher than other PoS blockchains.

Therefore, you would need to own half of those 35 000 000 XSN currently staking, that's around 17 500 000 XSN. On the other hand, if you couldn't buy any of those currently staking coins, you would then need to buy more than 35 000 000 XSN (the current staking amount + 1).

So the attacker would need to own between 17 500 000 XSN and 35 000 000 XSN to successfully attack Stakenet. That's between 15% and 31% of the total circulating supply. If more coins were to be staking, or more supply to be locked in Masternodes -and developers are working towards that happening-, there might not be enough supply available to purchase to perform the attack at all.

This kind of attack would require to invest and lose an insane amount of money, time (many years), and effort, to no benefit at all.

Even in the worst case scenario of someone acquiring the XSN needed to perform this attack, the bad actor will stake, but he won't be able to do much as he can't write every block or fake any transactions. He can't generate two copies of the chain for longer than 20 blocks (our confirmation time), as there's a built-in mechanism (coinage) where coins become immature, thus decreasing the chance of the attacker of minting a new block on each generated block. A double spend won't occur because one block will be dropped in the event of multiple blocks. The most they can do is simply mint empty blocks - and the next blocks will include the transactions anyway, so developers would probably just put a measure in to stop empty blocks from being accepted. For example, wall off coins linked to empty blocks as a new upgrade or fork version.

Something else to keep in mind is that Proof of Stake doesn't allow pre-minting, so they can't generate the next block without generating the previous block. And there is network drift and difficulty as block inputs. They would need to continuously mint 20 blocks on both chains - the chances of that happening with the systems in place are close to none.

Taking into account everything previously stated, we can conclude the chances of such attack happening are essentially zero and Stakenet is among the most secure blockchains in the industry.

Becoming a TPoS Merchant is purposely made easy. This will ensure competition and enough decentralization amongst TPoS Merchants to prevent a single Merchant from monopolizing the market.

Furthermore, as the setup is fairly easy, a lot of the people just choose to run their own Merchantnode to cold stake their coins and not pay a commission to a third party. This is especially true with people that own large amounts of XSN.

So it is simply not possible to gather the vast amount of XSN needed to perform this attack using Merchantnodes, as most of the coins are being staked by their Owners directly, and you are competing against dozens of other Merchants. After making a lot of marketing efforts and noise, at best you could gather a few hundred thousand XSN by offering Merchant services, nothing in the grand scheme of things where you'd still need to buy between 12.5M and 25M XSN.

The developer team also can work on one-click TPoS setups for Merchant UI’s if need be to even further ensure decentralization and allow average non-techies to enter the market.

On-chain up to 240 TPS with one second confirmation times.

Over Lightning Network, where the majority of the transactions will happen, XSN can reach billions and instant transactions per second.

XSN has 1 MB block weight limit, but with SegWit blocks can reach up to 4 MB.

Approximately 60 seconds.

Each information bit within a blockchain has undergone a process known as cryptographic hashing. For this purpose, Stakenet uses the X11 algorithm. This is a cryptographic algorithm which uses a chained combination of eleven hashing functions which differ by their output size. The enhanced complexity of such a chained hashing solution provides a higher level of security and longevity for the store of value of a digital currency; compared to other single hash solutions, all eleven algorithms need to be broken at the same time to threaten the network.

XSN Masternodes are aimed to be one of the most powerful stations in crypto. They will earn a passive income based on everything they will do:

· They will host and run Stakenet DEX.
· They will host all blockchains needed to keep Stakenet DEX decentralized and making sure users can perform swaps without needing to download entire blockchains.
· They will handle Lightning Swaps (Lightning Network Cross-Chain Atomic Swaps).
· They will facilitate instant and private on-chain transactions.
· They will host dApps.
· They will host Lightning Channels.
· They will use their Masternode collateral to provide Lightning Network (and Stakenet DEX) liquidity.

While developers are working towards all of this, it is only the first steps of what XSN Masternodes will be capable of.

You need exactly 15 000 XSN locked in as collateral per Masternode.

The treasury is a cryptographically sealed public address that holds funds allocated to it by the network. In Stakenet, 10% of the block rewards go into it. It is used to fund Stakenet further coin developments, new projects, et cetera.

There is also a long-term development fund for larger projects, partnerships, competitions, long-term marketing, key developments, et cetera. The treasury is used to cover any expenses before tapping into the long-term development fund.

Since the total block reward will stabilize at 20 XSN per block, supply is theoretically unlimited. This is the case with other coins like Ethereum, Dash, Monero, et cetera... Being an inflatioary currency is a requirement for our economy to work in the long-term.

However, XSN burns the transaction fees and will introduce other mechanisms which will serve to offset some or all of the inflationary effect of the block reward. Therefore, it is expected that XSN supply will only increase very slightly with time.

Current XSN inflation is under 10% annually, and it goes down on each minted block.

No. Most coins, like Bitcoin or Ethereum, are inflationary. The coin price depends on the total circulating supply and the market cap. So the more the market cap XSN has, the more will be the value of every circulating coin, and vice-versa.

It is also important to note that XSN inflation is low compared to most other cryptocurrencies, currently sitting at under 10% annually - and since the block rewards are fixed at 20 XSN, it's lower on each minted block. XSN inflation will be at 5% annually by block 5 000 000. Its monetary policy is based on hard-coded rules and consensus via XSN Masternodes - any decisions of how inflation is used are left to vote in a decentralized democracy. No group of people, whether elected or otherwise, can unleash a tragedy of the commons.

From each block rewards: 45% Masternodes - 45% Staking - 10% Treasury.

Masternodes provide network services to the Stakenet blockchain, and Stakenodes protect it. As you need a node to be online 24/7 to do both, it is up to every individual to choose. We recommend to always have a Stakenode trustlessly staking your coins (we call these nodes Merchantnodes, they are part of TPoS), and if you can afford then also run Masternodes with 50% of your coins.

Profitability varies constantly, although at this moment it is around 12% annually both for Masternodes and Stakers for block rewards. While staking you can freely move your XSN, but running a Masternode with a locked collateral have certain benefits. such as earning the fees from the dApps powered by them, like Stakenet DEX (our Lightning DEX), having voting permissions, et cetera... thus increasing the ROI dramatically.

XSN Masternodes receive 45% of the block rewards for providing network services. Stakers, whether that be from TPoS or regular PoS, also receive 45% of the block rewards for running their nodes and securing the network. The remaining 10% is sent to the Stakenet treasury.

There is no minimum. However, the rewards are distributed based on the weight on the network of your coins, so if you stake with a low amount of coins you may be waiting a long time to receive a reward. You can stake via TPoS or just by leaving your wallet unlocked and running, they are the same in terms of rewards distribution and minimum amount.

Yes, but not with the same coins. The XSN being used as collateral to run a Masternode can't stake.

Please first understand how TPoS work, read here: https://stakenet.io/faq/#what_is_trustless_proof_of_stake_tpos_how_does_it_work

You can check the TPoS guide here: https://medium.com/@ethminer89/stakenet-xsn-tpos-merchant-setup-guide-e4931b274cec

With this method, you don't need to leave your computer online 24/7 and your coins will stake even if you are holding them in a hardware wallet.

You can rent an XSN Masternode using our Masternode hosting service in Stakenet Cloud. You still need to own 15 000 XSN, but as it is a trustless solution you remain in control of your coins and there aren't associated risks. You need to deposit some XSN to your Cloud wallet in order for us to take fees for our Masternode hosting service. For more information, please check this video https://youtu.be/x9_YdU8vWrU

You can also set up your own Masternode, please follow this guide: https://medium.com/@ethminer89/stakenet-xsn-masternode-setup-guide-453a49663e66

Keep in mind a Masternode is a computer that needs to be online 24/7. Our Masternode hosting service in Stakenet Cloud provides, configures and maintain this server for you, so you don't need to leave any of your computers online 24/7 or rent any server.

If you have a few hundred XSN, you can use the Cloud to receive some staking rewards that otherwise can take months for you to earn. Keep in mind there are risks associated with the Cloud as it is a centralized and trustworthy solution.

If you have more than 15 000 XSN, we always recommend staking using TPoS and running a Masternode whenever it is possible. Try to keep the balance between Masternodes and TPoS at 50%. If you have 30 000 XSN, running a Masternode and TPoS the remaining 15 000 XSN is a great idea. If you have 15 000 XSN, you can do either one, as profitability is pretty close.

It is beneficial to the Owners of the coins because they don't have to leave their computer online 24/7 to stake them and can be stored these in a hardware wallet - as this is a trustless system with no risks involved. It is beneficial for the Merchant to have TPoS since they will be earning a commission for the TPoS contract.

It is worth noting that the Owner can run its own TPoS, so you don't need to hire a third party Merchant to use TPoS. Third party Merchants are only an added benefit of TPoS.

Staking rewards are paid to the staking wallet. TPoS rewards are paid directly to the Owner's wallet and Merchant's (controller) wallet based on the commission contract details. Masternode rewards are paid to the controller wallet.

In TPoS, you can keep your coins in your Ledger Nano and you will receive your TPoS rewards to it.

The coinage is the amount of time coins have been "maturing" for staking purposes. In order to be eligible to receive a staking reward, coins first need to mature. It is nothing more than a wait time for safety purposes.

In XSN, coins start maturing one hour after 20 transaction confirmations and reach its maximum coinage 24 hours after.

Yes, it is. Stakenet has a lifetime contract with them, so XSN will always be on any Ledger devices.

Yes. Due to a combination of TPoS and our Cross-Chain Proof of Stake technology, you will be able to hold and stake XSN in your Ledger or any other cold wallet, and receive the staking rewards in BTC or any other supported currency directly to it - trustlessly and with no intermediaries involved.

XSN is working towards that. In the future, you will be able to run Masternodes while holding XSN in your Leger Nano S.

It takes 2.6*(total active MN count) minutes for your Masternode to start getting rewards since activation. With around 2700 Masternodes currently on the network, it will take around 5 days.

When volume does get into the $1B+ and approaches scale, we expect demand for Masternodes to be very high. Although the maximum number of Masternodes in the network is capped by the maximum amount of XSN in circulation -and we also expect a huge percentage of XSN to be staking, as 45% of the block rewards are distributed to stakers-, there are plans to avoid having too many Masternodes on the network than is useful - if we ever get to such an extreme.

This would be done by using CPU difficulty challenges, so Masternodes would require more powerful machines. They are sent CPU challenges which they need to solve in a specific amount of time. The more off-balance the MN-Staking count is, the larger or smaller the difficulty challenges would be, ensuring always an optimal balance in MN-Staking.

This way there is no worry of the number of Masternodes growing too large. Furthermore, the more CPU power there is, the more valuable the Stakenet chain is. As through our Dapp network, XSN can utilize the extra CPU to power compute-intensive applications as a service, giving further utility and value to the Stakenet blockchain.

Trustless Proof of Stake works with Smart Contracts and the use of a third key -the shared key- apart from the private and public keys. This allows the Owner of XSN to communicate with the Merchant and have their coins stake on the network with a Merchantnode, without anyone but the Owner having access to the funds.

Shared key doesn't mean you and the Merchant owns it. It means everyone on the network can see your agreements but no one other than the Owner can use it for moving funds - the Merchant can only use it to stake those coins.

Absolutely. It also has other tangential uses in the crypto space as well. Considering we have likely only scratched the surface of TPoS capability and use, it is very likely that some pretty special ideas will be generated in the near future. Stakenet's developers are already implementing some.

We definitely see other coins using this feature, as it is revolutionary within the crypto community. However, if coins choose to do this they will have to fork off from XSN itself.

Yes, but with different IPv4. An IP security protocol is implemented, so each Masternode and Merchantnode needs a unique static IPv4 address. This is done to prevent centralization and further strengthen the network.

However, a Masternode and a Merchantnode can share the same IPv4.

No. You have to create a different Merchant address for every TPoS contract and link it to a Merchantnode with a unique IPv4. Otherwise, you will get banned.

So a single Merchant wallet can run many TPoS contracts as long as every one of it has a different Merchant address and IPv4 linked to it.

There would be nothing to claim. If a Merchant is running a Trustless Proof of Stake contract for funds from an address of yours, your address will receive the rewards as they come in and you would have full access to everything.

No, it will continue staking.

If there is a ? mark that stays in the transactions tab, that means its an orphan block, so it simply didn't get accepted. Just right-click on it and select 'abandon transaction' to free the funds set aside that attempted to stake that block.

To buy XSN you can use any of the crypto trading exchange where it is listed. Please visit https://stakenet.io/xsn/buy-xsn for more information.

To store XSN you can use the official wallet, downloadable at https://github.com/X9Developers/XSN/releases, or use one of the supported hardware wallets, such as Ledger Nano.

No. Myetherwallet.com is only for handling Ethereum ERC-20 tokens. XSN is a coin deployed on its own dedicated blockchain.

Stakenet Cloud is a centralized application where we offer blockchain services, designed to grant a better and easier experience for XSN users, thus helping with adoption.

Please note that Stakenet Cloud a centralized application hosted on the website Stakenet.io. It has nothing to do with the Stakenet open blockchain or any of its decentralized applications (dApps).

In Stakenet Cloud it is featured:

Stakenet Cloud collects fees from the users for using these services. Fees are then sent to the Stakenet treasury to cover costs and further developments.

Note that you lose ownership of the coins you deposit to Stakenet Cloud wallets, as you don't control the private keys. Please do not deposit large amounts of coins to the Cloud wallets, but instead stake on your own with TPoS or common staking solutions, as the profitability will be higher and there will be no risks associated.

Stakenet Cloud wallets are only suitable for newcomers with no experience and a low XSN balance that otherwise wouldn't earn any staking rewards for months - and we can't recommend everyone enough to move to a cold staking solution like TPoS as soon as possible. The rest of the services, like Masternodes-as-a-Service, are trustless solutions safe to use by everybody as you don't lose ownership of your coins.

Stakenet Cloud staking pools is meant for the people that don't have enough coins to receive regular rewards while staking on their own wallets. On Stakenet Cloud, the deposited users' coins are sent to one main address (or pool) that regularly receives many stakes, which are then equally distributed in real time. This way, users that otherwise would not receive a reward for months, can receive dozens of (smaller) daily rewards.

The disadvantage is that it is a centralized and trustworthy solution, so it involves huge risks. Those users with enough coins to receive stake rewards regularly must always stake in their own wallet using TPoS as it provides maximum security.

There is a minimum fee of 30%. This value can be further increased depending on the percentage of the total network coins being deposited to the Cloud. The fees can be high, but are present to further disincentivize users to deposit more XSN to a centralized staking solution, and to promote trustless staking solutions which are more secure and profitable.

Please be aware that Stakenet Cloud should never be your main option to stake your coins. Risks are much higher than if you stake via Trustless Proof of Stake.

No, as Stakenet Cloud charges fees for its staking services it will always be less profitable. The most secure and profitable choice is always to run your own TPoS or Masternode. Alternatively, you can hire a TPoS Merchant to trustlessly stake for you and negotiate his commission. Usually, Masternodes have a higher ROI than staking.

You can also set up a Masternode in Stakenet Cloud. This is a safe and trustless solution, as you never lose ownership of your coins, but there is a fee added for the Masternode hosting and maintenance.

In short, you keep your coins safe in your own wallet and we set up a server to act as your Masternode using your coins as collateral for it. So you don't need to leave your computer online 24/7, and we take care of keeping it updated and running.

For further explanation please check this video: https://youtu.be/x9_YdU8vWrU

Your coins will be deposited to your Cloud account after 20 network confirmations.

Your deposited coins will be eligible to receive rewards from the staking pool 24 hours after the transaction has been confirmed.

Universal timezone and format: YYYY-MM-DD 23:59:59 UTC

As the staking pool grows bigger/ smaller you get a different share from the rewards. Frequency also changes, so it evens out.