XX Nodes: Countdown to the End of the Team Multiplier

Last Updated on October 24th, 2024

When the XX Network entered main net back in November 2021, the team of the time were keen to incentivise the continued support of Betanet node runners and therefore encourage the network to be geographically diverse and resilient/strong with good quality people, hardware and connectivity, particularly as the network started out and matured.

As part of this effort, the team introduced what they called the “Team Multiplier”. You can read about it in the archived ‘Mainnet transition’ blog. The program was set to run for three years.

The Team Multiplier is essentially the staking of team coins to back the (then Beta) nodes that signed up to the programme which is calculated every day to aid the node’s mission to stay in the active node set. It sets forth a series of parameters and conditions that node operators agree to stay within in order for the node to qualify, every time the ‘TM’ is calculated, each day.

The reason for creating this programme this is not economic (despite its name perhaps confusing matters) – no extra XX Coins were earned either by the team or the node operators purely by having their nodes backed by team coins, other than for the fact those nodes were in the active set and could continue earning normal rewards calculated against non-team stake, nominations, node performance and commission rates.

The active set are collectively the node operators who qualify to process blockchain blocks and rounds on the cMixx network. There are currently 370 slots and all of them are taken, with a dozen or so lying in wait each day hopeful to join at the start of the next day. The Team Multiplier coins still help many of these original nodes (some have calculated it to around half) stay in the active set at this point. A node qualifies to enter the set when its total nominated stake (by themselves or by others) exceeds that of the 370th lowest staking node.

With the continuing decentralisation of the network, plus the fact the programme was only ever designed to last three years, it is now winding down, with an announcement by Keith in the Discord as to the schedule, leading up to November 2024:

A further forum thread was created by Rick just before November, outlining the sunsetting of the programme.

After November, node runners will be free to set commission rates which previously were prohibitively high to qualify for Team Multiplier (max of 22% before), and therefore open up nominations to a more competitive environment so that the most attractive nodes to back should hopefully receive the nominations they deserve. You can see the rates set by individual nodes on the web wallet site.

There are many unknowns with this programme wind-down (and perceived ‘known unknowns’ given how other nPoS chains have seen their networks evolve), but given 50% of current node operators from the start are still going, it’s unlikely to make a huge change at the outset.

What it does do is eliminate “team” involvement in the selection of nodes and leave it up to the Nominated Proof-of-Stake consensus built into the Substrate chain that XX Network runs on, and perhaps encouraging new node operators who have a cache of XX coins to partake more easily than before.

Some original nodes who relied on the Team Multiplier previously may have to ask for nominations to back them going forward, if the amount of stake required to stay in the active set is more than they personally have to back themselves. It will be an interesting transition for those who watch closely, and hopefully create a newly invigorated (at least to communicate their worthiness!) node running community. There are already a few select individuals discussing at length the implications of the end of the programme on the #validators-node-runners channel on Discord – feel free to join in!

Throughout this process and beyond however, the network (both blockchain and mix network) should continue to tick on over just fine into their forth year of continued operation, so if this news doesn’t apply to you, don’t worry!

If you’re interested in running a node, all you need to get started is the requisite hardware, access to good connectivity, 1000XX and a knack for following instructions. Have a read of this page for further information.