Like the great Obelisk of 2001: A Space Odyssey signaling the evolution of modern humans, Blockchain developers have discovered new tools which allow them to take Ethereum to new heights.
To quote Vitalik Buterin, “Satoshi created a great and really interesting thing, and we now can develop great things on top of it.”
EtherChest is an Ethereum 2.0 Ecosystem built on a foundation of next generation Ethereum (Serenity) beacon nodes, validator wallets and smart contracts. Their staking service is powered by a set of smart contracts which control the minting of tokens, manage the maturity of tokens, bind them to the amount of ETH a user stakes plus the future rewards over the lifetime of that stake and oversee the distribution of user rewards.
Gems
EtherChest tokens, known as Gems, allow for proof-of-ownership, one of the inherent strengths of Blockchain technology and one of the pillars of the EtherChest Ecosystem. As rewards are earned by EtherChests validator wallets they are distributed to Ecosystem participants who own Gems. Users may withdraw rewards at any point during ownership of the Gem and claim the stake originally bound to it once full maturity has been reached. Gems allow EtherChests smart contracts to identify the true owner of the stake and distribute rewards accordingly.
Providing access to Ethereum 2.0 Staking
As opposed to other proof-of-stake Blockchains, Ethereum 2.0 validators are required to stake 32 ETH to begin attesting and proposing blocks, Gems allow EtherChest Ecosystem participants to stake at a lesser amount. They currently offer four types of Gems with the largest stake or Gem being the Diamond which is worth 1 ETH + Block Rewards and has a maturity period of 12 months.
Maturity
In nature it takes a long time for a Gem to grow in size and become something of value. EtherChests Gems are similar in this respect and according to their whitepaper, Gem maturity is essential in guaranteeing the stability of their Ecosystem. It contributes to the longevity of the Ethereum Blockchain and allows easy access and transition to ETH 2.0. When a Gem is minted, the amount of ETH staked is locked in one of their available validator wallets for a minimum staking period after which the owner of the NFT may exchange it for the original stake and any remaining rewards.
If a user needs to recover their stake prematurely during the maturity period a waiting period will be enforced and a penalty will be added at time of withdrawal. This will alleviate spamming of their network and guarantee the stability and survival of EtherChests Ecosystem and validators.
However, during the maturity period users have the option of trading or selling their Gem in the EtherChest marketplace or any of the 3rd party exchanges available on the Ethereum Blockchain. This allows participants to move in and out of their Ecosystem without losing the Ethereum the users had originally staked.
Ducats
During the beginning phases of Eth2 Staking validators will not be allowed be allowed to withdraw their stake which raises a bit of an issue for users trying to earn Ethereum from their validators, learn more about the phases of Ethereum 2.0. Enter Ducats, a wrapped Ethereum token which will give liquidity to your rewards while they are locked in the validator.
NOTE:
It is important to note that Ducats are only necessary during the beginning phases of Ethereum 2.0. Once we are able to withdraw rewards from the validators you will have the option of receiving your rewards in ETH or Ducats!
Ducats have a secondary use within the Ecosystem! According to EtherChests Whitepaper dust can be described as bits of cryptocurrency so small that they are not worth the fees to withdraw and even though fees will be considerably less on Ethereum 2.0 EtherChest is anticipating that user wallets will contain dust. This dust may not be worth the effort to withdraw it from the Ecosystem so to solve this issue they have created an erc20 token that will be backed by the dust in validator wallets specific to the currency called Treasury Validators.
If a user has dust in their wallet they may interact with the Treasury and use it to mint Ducats. When Ducats are minted the Ethereum dust will be staked in a Treasury validator and tied directly to the amount of Ethereum that was used to mint the Ducats.
Ducats are pegged at 1 Ducat to 0.00001 ETH and can be broken down in to smaller pieces but can only be minted as a whole token.
Besides cleaning up dust in user wallets Ducats can be used to purchase Gems from other users in their NFT Market and traded on third party decentralized exchanges. They cannot however, be used to mint Gems, in other words, Ducats cannot be staked!
Hive Blockchain
Ducats and Gems are available on the Ethereum and Hive Blockchains and will be added to others as time goes by. Hive Blockchain offers another use case for Ducats which are in the process of being integrated in to Hive-Roller and will be available on their next upgrade. They are also in talks with the other services in Hive to get Ducats integrated as soon as possible.
Whether you are on Ethereum and want to directly interact with our Ecosystem or if you are on Hive and want to stake from the comfort of your favorite blockchain we have options for you!
A look forward
Ethereum 2.0 is currently in testing on the Goerli Testnet and the EtherChest team has been hard at work actively participating in the Medalla, Spadina and currently Zinken tests with over 200 validators and multiple clients! They are committed to bringing on the evolution of Ethereum 2.0 and will continue to actively participate in testing until Mainnet launch.
Testing is nearing completion and it appears that the new network will be rolled out by the end of 2020. When this happens it will launch in multiple phases, the first of which is phase 0 and will mark the beginning of staking Ethereum within the EtherChest Ecosystem. The process of moving the Ethereum 1 chain to a shard on Ethereum 2.0 is known as “The Merge” which will be the biggest test of the new chain as the margin for error is close to zero. Once the Merge has been successfully completed, sometime during 2021 dApp developers will be able to safely begin using the chain and many of the features they have previously relied upon. There is speculation that sharding will allow 100,000 transactions per second a considerable increase from the current performance and an improvement on scalability.
Who is EtherChest?
EtherChest was founded by Daniel Pittman aka Qwoyn a Blockchain Visionary and entrepreneur, Daniel has been actively involved in the Blockchain industry since 2011 and coding smart contracts since 2017. Some of his more notable projects include creating the Blockchain games dAppCapps and Hashkings, among others. Daniel holds an Associate of Science with a focus in computer science from PCC in Portland, Oregon.
AJ Brockman recently partnered with EtherChest and according to his website, AJ graduated with a BFA from Digital Media Arts College, and currently works as a professional graphic designer in South Florida. He specializes in branding, illustration, ad layout and all forms of print design, and also knows a thing or two about Web design, CMS, SEO, UI and landing pages. Thanks to technology, today the only constraint he faces is his own imagination — which means there’s no limit to what he can design. One of his more notable accomplishments includes painting an Obama family portrait and meeting former President Obama.
To learn more about Daniel Pittman, AJ Brockman, EtherChest or any of the projects listed in this article please visit EtherChest.com.
EtherChest Whitepaper |Youtube | Twitter | Discord
