DyslexicZombei's Darkcoin Community MasterNode Svcs: CLOSED. Nodes 2 4 5 Refunds

[Otoh]

The first community owned DZ DRK MN is partially set up! Lots more to do but at least I've gotten started. For anyone doing an Ubuntu install: get used to doing a lot of vi text editing (only a fellow nerd would understand). 

Thank you Otoh for being the first and fastest to believe in this concept. 

I figure I'll let this server simmer and take my time locking it down. There shouldn't be any network traffic on it when I get back from my 1 day business trip or I'll have more work to do. Otoh's funds and my own are ready for start up which should be Wed. or Thurs. night. 2 things I'm adding to help out and to simplify things:

- You can now opt for "Pay-as-you-go" protection for pro level Hosting/AV/FW/DDOS protection at only $1.50 per monthly payout (2) per 25% stake for only $3 per month! This simplifies things for team setups, requisition, billing, team members having to pay one another...

- Until June 8, I'll reduce my DRK MN Server Setup Fees to 50% to 15 DRK for those that sign up for Batch 3 before June 8 (6/8/2014) to help out those that set up MNs before payments go live on the 14th.

Sounds good, many thanks for offering this service DZ

[DyslexicZombei]

Quick update: I have the MasterNode software installed and the darkcoind client running.

Steps to take:

- hardening
- installing AV/Fw etc

[DyslexicZombei]

Sounds good, many thanks for offering this service DZ

It's been fun, interesting, and definitely right up my alley.

Exciting times! I'm more than happy to be part of the leading edge of it and gaining experience setting these up and administrating MNs. Didn't get a chance to work on this yesterday, but I'm working on our server this evening for a few hours before I have to switch to *another* IT project (work related. When it rains it pours). Here's an update:

- I'm at the point where I need to create the encrypted wallet file with the 1000 DRK contributed by Otoh and myself:

" using home pc, make 1000 DRK encryped wallet.dat to upload
* use home pc, not ec2
* install new wallet
* check account address 0 / getaccountaddress 0
* https://www.darkcointalk.org/thread...ternode-requirements-masternode-payments.225/
* send 1000 DRK to that address
* encypt wallet
* backup wallet
* using scp upload encypted backup wallet.dat to ec2 ubuntu home directory"

still a ways to go as my wallet client is syncing and it's at 11 days behind. The 1000DRK will temporarily go to this wallet address:

XmXXRQtRMMxHRxRX7eKowGpckTvyxJtiAa

prior to encryption and being sent for node registration. I paused at this step because of...

- continuing hardening, temporarily installing a lightweight GUI (which is helpful for graphical monitoring as long as resources used are minimal) to Ubuntu Server 12.04 and for also checking that only the packages/software I want are installed
- The Security Suite is a bit of a bear to install and I can't believe that they expect a client to download 12 different install files to get it up and running. It's capabilities are impressive but the installation package leaves much to be desired.

8 more days to go before payments go live.  We're definitely going live this weekend with our first node just as soon as the following 3 are done:

- Standard & custom security enhancements and Security suite installation/configuration are complete
- My wallet finishes syncing later on tonight/tomorrow
- The initial 1000 DRK stake completes transfer to the wallet address for encrypted upload to register as a node owned by Otoh & I.

I'm setting this up so that launching additional MasterNodes with these same standard & custom protections will take much less time thanks to imaging/cloning.

[DyslexicZombei]

Nice, the first transaction went thru to the address I listed. Sent 1 DRK, forgot about the transaction fee. so only 0.99 got thru.

I'll have to remember to send extra DRK for both the 2nd & 3rd main transactions to encrypt the wallet so that there's exactly 1000DRK being sent.

Rest of the funds to that address being sent now, since the first test transaction went well.

[DyslexicZombei]

1000DRK sent to our MN "holding place" that darkcoind sets up for you. It's very close but I'm seeing this error I'll need to research and will likely have to pick this up tomorrow morning.

"Error: You must specific a masternodeprivkey in the configuration. Please see documentation for help."

[DyslexicZombei]

Solved. We're up!

/.darkcoin$ tail -f ~/.darkcoin/debug.log
2014-06-07 04:33:40 dsee - Got NEW masternode entry 107.170.79.105:9999
2014-06-07 04:33:40 dsee - Rejected masternode entry
2014-06-07 04:33:40 dsee - Got NEW masternode entry 107.170.237.136:9999
2014-06-07 04:33:40 dsee - Rejected masternode entry
2014-06-07 04:33:40 dsee - Got NEW masternode entry 54.215.181.251:9999
2014-06-07 04:33:40 dsee - Rejected masternode entry
2014-06-07 04:33:42 dsee - Got NEW masternode entry 211.99.224.198:9999
2014-06-07 04:33:42 dsee - Rejected masternode entry
2014-06-07 04:33:45 ThreadRPCServer method=getmininginfo
2014-06-07 04:33:56 Added 1 addresses from 90.188.39.87: 1 tried, 1820 new
2014-06-07 04:33:40 dsee - Got NEW masternode entry 107.170.79.105:9999
2014-06-07 04:33:40 dsee - Rejected masternode entry
2014-06-07 04:33:40 dsee - Got NEW masternode entry 107.170.237.136:9999
2014-06-07 04:33:40 dsee - Rejected masternode entry
2014-06-07 04:33:40 dsee - Got NEW masternode entry 54.215.181.251:9999
2014-06-07 04:33:40 dsee - Rejected masternode entry
2014-06-07 04:33:42 dsee - Got NEW masternode entry 211.99.224.198:9999
2014-06-07 04:33:42 dsee - Rejected masternode entry
2014-06-07 04:33:45 ThreadRPCServer method=getmininginfo
2014-06-07 04:33:56 Added 1 addresses from 90.188.39.87: 1 tried, 1820 new

Thanks once again to Otoh for teaming up on this. Woohoo!

I still have quite a bit of work to do before this is complete but this is the first confirmed community owned Darkcoin MasterNode!

It's about 99% ready for when payouts begin on the 14th (not including whatever new updates MN admins need to install/test).

[Zimowski]

Congratulations on a job well done!  You clearly have high level skills & created the MN in barely a week, I read the entire thread from the first post.  I'm potentially interested in Batch 3, but 25% of 1,000 DRK is a fair amount of crypto when buying currently in USD. Do you agree with this math from Minotaur's post?  https://darkcointalk.org/threads/some-simple-questions-about-masternodes.1094/ 

"MASTERNODE PROFITABILITY FORMULA

Assuming the minimum block reward of 5DRK, to have a worst case scenario. If difficulty goes down then adjust accordingly.
Masternodes take 20% of the block rewards.
Masternode payments start mid June [​IMG] Need to divide between the total number of masternodes, I am assuming 500 MN for the example, but adjust accordingly for your projections.
Finally, Masternodes are randomly selected so this is just an indicator, some masternodes may be more lucky than others, you get the idea but it should even out over a year.

(5 drk/block x 576 blocks/day x 0.2 = 576 DRK / 500 MN = 1.152 DRK/day x 365 = 420.48 DRK/year x 15USD = 6307.2 USD/Year"

Of course, if DRK goes up, so much the better.

[DyslexicZombei]

Thank you! I can't say enough that I wouldn't have gotten this far without community support and Otoh's buy in for the first node.

Once I feel comfortable with a roll out and management process I'm strongly considering making a future Batch with 100DRK ownership chunks (10%) in order to improve accessibility to more DRK holders.

Regarding potential returns: I was considering future plausible scenarios before considering whether to offer this service. Using the sample parameters you mentioned, If one were to run the numbers backwards on a hypothetical $15K loan of $15 DRK over 1 year with simple interest that comes out to about a **45%** annual interest rate!

http://www.csgnetwork.com/apr2calc.html

...and this doesn't take into account potential appreciation in value of Darkcoin itself over this time period. Some interesting food for thought for those considering setting up a MasterNode: you essentially get the benefits of making incredible interest on coins that one was likely planning to hold anyway.

The genius of the system Evan built is that Node operators are essentially next gen banking services where people can easily open their own "mini-Bank" franchise without all the massive barriers and regulations that would be necessary to open a brick n mortar fiat bank.

Lots of variability in the variables above. They are definitely not guarantees nor promises of future returns.

[Scott J]

Great to see that you are making such good progress on this.

Do you have an ETA on batch 2 currently?

[DyslexicZombei]

Great to see that you are making such good progress on this.

Do you have an ETA on batch 2 currently?

Thank you, Scott. Unfortunately, I have to work all weekend. First time in a long time where I've had to work consecutive weekends. I jump on the forums in between backups or package installs on the server I'm working on.

Realistically: and this is dependent on whether promised DRK arrives - I won't have time to set up the next one until Tuesday. Additional nodes should be much easier to launch, but I don't want to rush out nodes without  making sure you're they're set properly.

My goal is that for whoever signed up and is still interested that I can get them in a node or two before payments start (on the 18th), so that we all hit the ground running.

Teams need to come together well, and in the next week I will be introducing people to their teammates so that contact can be made and consensus formed as to how they would like their protections set up and paid for (whether pre-paid or pay-as-you-go).

[Otoh]

Solved. We're up!

/.darkcoin$ tail -f ~/.darkcoin/debug.log
...
2014-06-07 04:33:56 Added 1 addresses from 90.188.39.87: 1 tried, 1820 new

Thanks once again to Otoh for teaming up on this. Woohoo!

I still have quite a bit of work to do before this is complete but this is the first confirmed community owned Darkcoin MasterNode!

It's about 99% ready for when payouts begin on the 14th (not including whatever new updates MN admins need to install/test).

Excellent! Many thanks, very glad to be a part of this.

[DyslexicZombei]

6/10 update 6/13 update: RC3 launch pushed back to 6/27 6/20 to thoroughly test upgrades and patches before public release. If you missed the news, MasterNode payouts go live on June 20th. Sign ups end on the 18th for free set ups. You must be signed up by this date to reserve a free setup but you must have your stake deposit in by the 18th to be guaranteed a spot in a live hardened node on the 20th.release. This is a good thing as the market tends to punish those who can't protect their own coins key variables & rules (double spending is an example of the abuse of the variables involved).

Devs are also adding the ability to hold the 1000DRK offsite (pref.in cold storage) which also reduces some of the incentive for trying to break into a MN.

With that in mind, since payments won't begin until the 27th 20th, we'll launch nodes at a slower pace which allows me to take even more time locking down security, which should be multi-layered and multi faceted, and requires constant attention as to the latest zero days and other cyber threats.

Also:

- since there's been another two week delay I'm now offering FREE MN setups for those that sign up before the 21st 18th. (This service will cost 15-30 DRK for nodes set up in July)

- By popular request: Batch 3 *will* include 10% stakes. That means you can now own 10% of the Node output by only using a 100 DRK stake! Operating and software protection fees are only $12 per node per month for a limited time.

Just state 'Reserved' below or send me a PM if you wish to remain anonymous. You can also still request stakes at multiples of 25% MN ownership.

[theskillzdatklls]

Following

[fernando]

6/10 update: RC3 launch pushed back to 6/27 to thoroughly test upgrades and patches before public release. This is a good thing as the market tends to punish those who can't protect their own coins key variables & rules (double spending is an example of the abuse of the variables involved).

Devs are also adding the ability to hold the 1000DRK offsite (pref.in cold storage) which also reduces some of the incentive for trying to break into a MN.

With that in mind, since payments won't begin until the 27th, we'll launch nodes at a slower pace which allows me to take even more time locking down security, which should be multi-layered and multi faceted, and requires constant attention as to the latest zero days and other cyber threats.

Also:

- since there's been another two week delay I'm now offering FREE MN setups for those that sign up before the 21st. (This service will cost 15-30 DRK for nodes set up in July)

- By popular request: Batch 3 *will* include 10% stakes. That means you can now own 10% of the Node output by only using a 100 DRK stake! Operating and software protection fees are only $12 per node per month for a limited time.

Just state 'Reserved' below or send me a PM if you wish to remain anonymous. You can also still request stakes at multiples of 25% MN ownership.

Just one small detail, the 27/6 date is not fixed yet. Devs have only said late June in the official communication. One of them had said that maybe the 27th before that, but it maybe another day around the 27th.

[Scott J]

If offline storage will be available, does this place less of a burden on providing security for the Masternode?

As I understand it, the worst a hacker would be able to do would be to disable the masternode. Definitely worth protecting against, but doesn't compare to losing DRK.

Thanks again for your work - looking forward to launch day 

[Jesse Livermore]

I PMd this to Dyslexic but maybe one of you can answer?
With regards to doing a 10% share of a MN:
-you state many fees for each batch and I'm kind of confused by it now so could you tell me what the total monthly fee is for this 3rd batch?
-is that fee taken from the DRK node payments which accumulate over the course of the month or do I pay via credit card?
-what is required of me, besides agreeing to join and sending 100 DRK to join in?
-Am I locked into holding this 10% share for a certain amount of time? And what happens if some people want to redeem their share of the MN? Do you take their place or does that person have to find a new partner to replace them?
-what if something happens to you? Do you have disaster recovery steps in place to make sure all 'investors' get their DRK back?

[TsuyokuNaritai]

RC3 brought forward to June 20th.
https://darkcointalk.org/threads/rc3-hard-fork-on-june-20th.1241/#post-8076

[splawik21]

that is really cool!
The excitement is rising

[DyslexicZombei]

I PMd this to Dyslexic but maybe one of you can answer?
With regards to doing a 10% share of a MN:
-you state many fees for each batch and I'm kind of confused by it now so could you tell me what the total monthly fee is for this 3rd batch?
-is that fee taken from the DRK node payments which accumulate over the course of the month or do I pay via credit card?
-what is required of me, besides agreeing to join and sending 100 DRK to join in?
-Am I locked into holding this 10% share for a certain amount of time? And what happens if some people want to redeem their share of the MN? Do you take their place or does that person have to find a new partner to replace them?
-what if something happens to you? Do you have disaster recovery steps in place to make sure all 'investors' get their DRK back?

Hi Jesse,

I'll just answer these publicly so as not to repeat myself since there's confusion here and on Reddit, since this service is so new.

There's only two fees for all batches: a small management fee and a small hosting/operations fee of $12 per node per month which includes server rental(s), power, Antivirus, Firewall, and DDOS protection.

Batch 3 is open and if you save a spot in the queue by making to do a soft reservation below or via PM before 6/18 (the new date I'm setting as the moved up deadline for free setups). no deposit needed for a reservation, and you can remove yourself from list anytime.

Batch 3 management fees are 3% per month. The hosting/operations fee came out to 2.28% when I ran the numbers for a node averaging 1.152 DRK per day with the values provided in an earlier post to give you some idea of what these fees cost. There will be variability involved but if your node was the prototypical average node (and DRK is $15 to keep this variable constant for this example):

your average secured & hardened node in this subnetwork we're setting up, would have a total monthly all-inclusive fee percentage of about 5.28% per month.

This is still almost half of what DarkDice, the second group to offer node setup and management fee, will be charging at 10% total per month. They will also be giving some cut of player losses to node owners but you will have to be at peace with the notion of potentially directly enabling gambling addiction.

To give a fair comparison:

- I'll add that I have a much longer track record in the crypto economy having been a crypto miner seller since July of last year and the co-founder of what still appears to be the biggest public BTC miners co-op.
- at this point, have handled much more community funds without major incident: 1-2K BTC worth 105TH + ~650 DRK so far
- our team has already handled hundreds of K worth of refunds in multiple rounds when things occasionally fell apart due to mfg. delays (and when mfgs. finally gave back the funds used for ordering)
- Have the highest BTC talk trust ratings of any operators in the Darkcoin space; not even Evan or the Dev team have built up a trust rating here as high as the trust ratings for myself and thomas_s.
- designed and installed servers & networks in 3 world class labs
- am a veteran DoD certified IT Pro doing developmental R&D work for some of our country's cutting edge tech for over 10 years, with my prototypes operating in field tests around the country and the Pacific
- Have been vetted by John K. Escrow and have my real ID and/or work address known by: John, thomas_s., bobsag3, -Redacted-, philipma1957, jungle_dave, BeepBeep2, and a few others should anything happen to me.

[DyslexicZombei]

I PMd this to Dyslexic but maybe one of you can answer?
With regards to doing a 10% share of a MN:
-you state many fees for each batch and I'm kind of confused by it now so could you tell me what the total monthly fee is for this 3rd batch?
-is that fee taken from the DRK node payments which accumulate over the course of the month or do I pay via credit card?
-what is required of me, besides agreeing to join and sending 100 DRK to join in?
-Am I locked into holding this 10% share for a certain amount of time? And what happens if some people want to redeem their share of the MN? Do you take their place or does that person have to find a new partner to replace them?
-what if something happens to you? Do you have disaster recovery steps in place to make sure all 'investors' get their DRK back?

(Continued)

2. So that ~5.2% average monthly fee (could be more or less slightly as DRK value fluctuates) from the average example I mentioned, comes out of gross fees earned: DRK rewarded for being an operational node in the Darkcoin network.
3. You just have to sign up and provide a payout address for bimonthly payouts.
4. You can leave at any time...as long as you give a 3 days prior notice before leaving. This is so that we can find a replacement without having to move the original stake funds around (which would cause remaining team members to lose operational rewards).

At this point, since there's no automation for something like this, I'm hoping that there's only minimal movement out, as we're trying to build a service here that directly strengthens the DRK ecosystem, and allows more people access to the benefits (and risks) of owning and operating a MasterNode.

There's a 1.5% cash out fee taken from the stake funds for the leaving stake owner, as well as a 1.5% Entry Fee for a new stake owner who gets the benefit of an already working and hardened MasterNode. This Exit/Entrance fee is to discourage those with a short term mentality from getting involved.

I'm not here to help those with a day trader mentality that don't really believe that this coin has a future.

5. Server recovery is easy thanks to imaging. I'm not so easy to replace, and do recognize that I'm a single point of failure. As an occasional designer of systems and/or networks: I don't like single points of failure.

To that end: I was planning on encrypting and sending thomas_s. the keys and PWs for him to access should something happen to me, with recovery instructions so that the node can be turned off and the stake funds removed from Darkcoin's mempool. Getting involved with my services means that you understand that thomas_s. will be handling payouts and ownership changes, so the sharing of this key info is logical for emergency redundancy. This is a side project for him and we've worked well together for nearly a year.

Thanks for the questions. Hope that helped!