March has been an exciting yet busy month for us at HydraDX. We kicked off by opening HDX claiming, after which we worked hard towards finalizing our testnet preparations.
We onboarded our first validators and nominators, and are now ready to announce the start of our incentivized testnet called Snakenet! To make things even better, we managed to recruit some talent across various open positions.
First of all - MAKE SURE TO CLAIM YOUR HDX if you have participated in the xHDX LBP. You can do so by following the steps in the guide. So far we have had 2783 claims (~50%). Claiming HDX allows you to participate in what is coming and not miss out on staking rewards.
Staking is Almost Here!
We want to share with you some exciting news: Our incentivized testnet called Snakenet will be kicking off mid-April. The slight delay is due to resetting fundamental epoch parameters which have to satisfy the overwhelming demand for validation.
We have prepared a big bag of rewards for all you Hydraheads out there who want to join our efforts as we move HydraDX towards mainnet. To participate, all you need to do is stake your HDX tokens.
It is easier than it sounds – to get started, just check out our newly released staking guide which will help you decide which role suits you best – validator or nominator. Taking part will be well worth it, with an expected APY of about 50%. More details will be released soon!
Please make sure you do not stake all HDX you have. You should put at least 100 HDX aside to cover the transaction fees needed for controlling the process of validation or nomination.
We are aware that in the past days some Hydraheads who staked all their HDX got “stuck”, and are now prevented from participating as a validator or nominator. Our team is working on a solution to send dust HDX to unblock the affected accounts.
However, this will take some time to complete so we are asking for your patience (ETA shortly after launching Snakenet). In our guide we have specifically highlighted this to make sure you don’t stake your total balance (see below).
A Note on Slashing
At this stage you cannot lose your bonded HDX. The slashing itself is not technically turned off completely; we have deferred the slashing period to maximum - 27 days and will be cancelling all the applicable slashing penalties.
However, offences like downtime or equivocation will still be logged and will result in loss of nomination. These offences can get you kicked out from the validator set. Validators will then need to be re-elected if they want to resume validation. We believe that this is the best mechanism to find a reliable validator set without compromising security.
Miscellaneous
Besides building towards incentivized testnet, another important topic that has been keeping us busy over the past month is recruitment. We are proud to share that we have managed to grow our team to 9 FTEs (out of which 7 are engineers), with another 10+ people working part-time.
Hiring in such a competitive environment is challenging but we are humbled to see all the great talent that has joined our efforts. We expect to attract even more people by introducing an incentivized testnet reward scheme – to be announced soon!
We are still on the lookout for a researcher which is one of the key positions we are looking to fill. As this is a very demanding role, we expect the recruitment process to take somewhat longer. Please reach out to us if you are interested in this position or you know someone who would be a good fit.
Sourcing talent may be even easier in the future since HydraDX was chosen to participate in Berkeley Blockchan Xcelerator Program 2021 Cohort. We are very happy to take part in this.
Furthermore, there is HydraDX merch coming your way. Yes, there will be NFTs too. No, the T-shirt design we’ve shared will NOT BE an NFT. Will follow up with details in coming weeks.
Another update will follow soon. Do not forget to stay hydrated as it will get hot very soon!
