Komodo needs to attract as much talent and resources into the ecosystem as possible, and NN returns can help do that.
Unfortunately, a lot of smaller investors won't bother voting at all, and of the ones that do vote, many won't necessarily be following closely enough to make informed decisions about tech competence of candidates, and/or won't have the tech knowledge and understanding to judge tech competency anyway other than looking at notary stats of the bottom 30 performers from the previous year.
I think selecting NN is more than just picking the guys with the best stats, as I believe many NN will bootstrap businesses that form the backbone of the whole komodo ecosystem and are able to interact with other crypto and non-crypto entities legally.
As the top30 don't get elected tech competence is already being rewarded, so the community has to choose candidates from these basic categories in each election:
1- existing NN who have one or more NN in the top30 running again in more regions
2- existing NN running again, who don't have any nodes in the top30
3- new candidates who are known in the community, and have some reputation
4- new candidates who are unknown, and have no reputation
If we all agree that it is good to attract new talent into the ecosystem in these early elections then we want to assist candidates from 3-, and particularly 4- above.
But how do those new entrants compete with candidates from 1- & 2- if they don't have enough KMD/VOTE to elect themselves?
How can the community judge the tech competence of new entrants with no reputation?
Crypto time is sped up, so businesses like Binance, Bitmain and Coinbase grew from nothing to billion $ valuations in 1-3 years. Poloniex went from nothing in 2014 to exit sale of 400M USD in under 3 years. This is where Komodo NN businesses are heading IMO, I am super bullish!
So, I believe NN rewards will help fund entities that grow into massive companies rivaling some of the biggest crypto unicorns we see today, and I would prefer there to be 20-30 companies formed off NN rewards rather than 3-5 'too big to fail' monoliths.
When monthly NN rewards are consistently x10 what a top tier sys admin could earn elsewhere I don't think KMD holders will be electing guys from the community on reputation and tech competence alone, I don't think an early adopter guy running 2-3 NN's solo is going to get elected for years and earn +50K USD per month on the promise of offering bounties and donations, that is unrealistic.
NN rewards are a good wage today, but when KMD marketcap hits 2-3 billion USD, do the numbers, NN rewards will be revenue streams for businesses, and some will use that funding to develop new crypto business models that we can't even imagine today.
So, while I think most would agree it's better for the ecosystem to have lots of teams bootstrapping businesses off of NN rewards, I think it's clear that early adopters have a HUGE advantage over new entrants, and afaik there isn't anything stopping existing NN running every year and securing more and more NN publicly, or privately using surrogates & sockpuppet candidates. Look at the current candidates this year, who is running in more regions, who are running as individuals, and who are forming into businesses.
In 2017 I expected the NN selection process would take 5 years to mature whereby the quality and quantity of candidates reached a critical mass for businesses to start sprouting, but IMO 2018 changed that. Despite the bear market komodo development accelerated to such an extent last year that I think this election is the last when a talented unknown dev without capital to elect themselves can gain a NN relatively easily, next year successful candidates will be existing notaries, OR, other crypto business entities, OR, other groups who have made private arrangements with large holders. If the bear market is indeed ending, NN rewards will be much larger next year, and that will attract a lot of attention!
Last year I made about 2k additional KMD/VOTE from revenue sharing from multiple NN I voted for, but I make ~400 KMD PER DAY from my 5% reward - so my revenue sharing was equivalent to 5 days of KMD rewards - does anyone really think my argument is based on trying to justify leaching a few extra $ from NN operators? I've been accumulating BTCD and now KMD for nearly 5 years, and haven't sold a coin, why?
Because I value my proportion of VOTE very highly as it guarantees revenue streams from 1-3 NN in perpetuity, and I intend to use that revenue stream to bootstrap a komodo unicorn business with other like-minded people. I'm here for the long term, and it's worth preserving KMD/VOTE in these early years so I can contribute a stable long term revenue source from 2-3 NN to create a business, and I want to see as much talent enter the komodo ecosystem as possible.
As strange as it sounds, I am trying to encourage new unknown talent into the community by pointing out the advantage of winning a NN this year while they can, even if that means sharing revenue with voters, while they have the chance.
When voters look at an unknown candidate they might ask, "How serious is this guy, how committed is he?"
How much revenue he's willing to lose in his first year to get an opportunity is one measure of a guys commitment to running a NN, and I think last year proved that this measure had some validity, guys who offered some revenue got elected and overall did pretty well!
I value the contributions of the candidates to the komodo ecosystem x1000 more than the KMD they paid me last year! The candidates I supported last year wont need me this election, so I have one more opportunity to help some new guys get a go this year.
So, to answer your question, why aren't I running NN this year, it's because I didn't think the komodo talent pool would be big enough yet, but I think it will be next year, and even if it's not, it'll probably be too difficult for new unknown guys with no reputation to get a look in next year as there'll probably be so many competent people willing to run a NN for the rewards on offer that it becomes very hard for them to compete with existing known community members.
New entrants will have to join the community and establish themselves for a period before they can attempt to get elected, (and that's not a bad outcome), or more likely try and join an existing NN team, BUT, in 2019 an unknown guy could still get elected, BUT, they would probably need to share revenue/buy votes/offer bribes to get noticed. This is like the end of CPU Bitcoin mining era, NN operators get larger rapidly as KMD price increases, not because of hardware needs, but because of competition for rewards i.e it's still game theory
This will be my last post here, I've got nothing more to say, good luck to everyone!
Enough with the whale farts already, get on with the election ... where can I see a list of candidates?
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