In a recent interview with Chris Trew, head of Stratis, and Krushang Patel, head of communications, I discovered how Stratis’ Masternode system within their Breeze Wallet is going to work – and it’s exciting to see what they’ve created.
(In full disclosure, I own, stake, and have profited from Stratis, and I personally believe they’re an up and coming superstar in the crypto world)
Here’s an analysis of Tumblebit, including the pros and cons:
If you own 25,000 Stratis or more, you can earn staking rewards. To earn staking rewards (i.e. “free Stratis”), all you have to do is hold 25,000 or more Stratis in your QT (core) wallet, and keep a synchronized full node running on your computer. Although the amount of Stratis you can stake is variable, for each 25,000 Stratis you hold, you’ll stake / earn approximately 1 Stratis per day.
To be clear, if you hold 100,000 Stratis, you’ll earn approximately 4-6 Stratis per day.
Stratis has recently opened up another tier of rewards for holders of 250,000 Stratis or more – masternodes. By running a masternode, you can earn additional benefits above and beyond staking rewards of 12-15 Stratis per day:
Masternode owners can provide a Tumblebit™ service, acting as a Bitcoin tumbler. A Bitcoin tumbler allows users to send or receive Bitcoin in a more anonymous fashion, because your transaction is mixed, or ‘tumbled’ with dozens of other transactions of the same amount / size, obscuring whose Bitcoin came from where and was sent to where.
Imagine I had a black box, and 20 different people all put in 1 Euro. I shook the box, then told 20 other people to pick out 1 Euro each. Assuming the serial numbers or other identifying information were not previously known (this is far easier with Bitcoin), you couldn’t tell that “your” Euro went to a specific person, but the intended recipient would still receive their 1 Euro as agreed. In this way, you could anonymously send or receive money – this is what Tumblebit™ promises to do for Bitcoin (and other crypto) in the future.
As a masternode owner, here are benefits:
- You earn 1% of all Tumblebit™ transaction fees, which, over time as transaction volume grows, will likely double the value of your staking rewards, or possibly a lot more
- There will be a very limited number of masternode owners, which will keep your transaction revenue high.
- You’re helping to provide people with a way to send or receive Bitcoin in a trust-less, anonymous, and private way.
- You can continue to stake AND receive Tumblebit™ fees. In fact, your Stratis never needs to leave your QT wallet. Soon, you’ll be able to keep your Stratis on a hard wallet and run a masternode as well.
- Your IP address is hidden from prying eyes, because masternodes that help tumble transactions do so through the TOR (the onion router) network.
- You may not incur liability for tumbling Bitcoin (although I’m not an attorney and you should always consult legal counsel for advice) because all transactions are encrypted and unknown to you, the tumbler.
- The fee to allow you to send / receive Bitcoin anonymously is minimal – 1% of the transacted amount.
- If you’re an enterprise client, such as an exchange or financial services business, you’re a honeypot for hackers who want to steal your money. By tumbling incoming and outgoing transactions from customers, you can potentially reduce a hacker’s ability to sniff your traffic and steal from you, due to the encryption, anonymity of tumbling, and IP obfuscation of the TOR network.
- You can receive tumbled Bitcoin without having to have Stratis’ Breeze Wallet – you can use your own preferred wallet, if you wish.
- You can use Stratis’ Breeze Wallet as a secure Bitcoin and Stratis wallet, from which you can send your Bitcoin through a tumbler, even if you don’t run a masternode (more tokens supported soon in the Breeze Wallet).
- Coming soon, you’ll be able to invest money in ICOs (again, check with legal counsel) in a more secure way, using Tumblebit™. Stratis is soon to launch an ICO platform that allows companies to create and promote their ICOs and accept tumbled Bitcoin (possibly tumbled Ethereum soon).
Although these features are awesome, there are some drawbacks that, in fairness and full disclosure, I need to point out:
- Tumbling takes time – to ensure that ‘enough’ transactions are tumbled at the same time to preserve anonymity, privacy, and a trust-less environment, sending or receiving a tumbled transaction takes 10 blocks to confirm (10 minutes per block * 10 blocks = 100 minutes on average to send or receive a tumbled transaction).
- To keep transactions anonymous, you can send or receive increments of 0.1 BTC only at this time – this will soon change and be expanded to other denominations.
- You must pay an extra tumble fee of 1% of your transaction, but this is a small price to pay for anonymous, private, and trust-less transactions that were the promise of Bitcoin since its inception.
- To tumble your BTC, you must first send your BTC to a Breeze Wallet, then tumble it – an extra step. To receive tumbled BTC, this is not required.
- Not only must you have 250,000 Stratis, but you must also pledge and hold 5 BTC in your Breeze Wallet to qualify to run a masternode. Yes, this process is expensive, but worth it, if you believe in Bitcoin and crypto and its promise of anonymity, decentralization, peer-to-peer transactions, and more.
To find out more about Stratis token and their ongoing and upcoming projects, including Breeze Wallet, Masternodes, their ICO Platform and more, visit www.StratisPlatform.com, join their slack, telegram channel, and find them on social media.