The Rise of Bee — Airdrop AMA

Swarm Foundation
Ethereum Swarm
Published in
4 min readMar 9, 2021

What do you need to do to get your hands on these BZZ tokens?

This one is simple. You have to install and run your Bee node. You will need a working, well-connected, and data-rich Bee node to increase your chances of getting the BZZ. The more you contribute to the network, the more chances you have to get BZZ.

Which nodes will be eligible for the airdrop?

The nodes that will be eligible for BZZ tokens are those that have proven exchanged bandwidth with what we call trusted “Queen Bee nodes”.

There are going to be exactly 35 queen nodes in the network and nobody (not even the team members) will know which those nodes are. That will be decided at the very end of the airdrop.

What is the proof of data exchange between your node and the queen node?

The proof of data exchange between your node and queen node is the value of the cheques you cashed from the queen node (qBZZ).

At the end of the airdrop, we will simply run a script and collect all the value of the cheques originating from queen nodes which are cashed out. The more cashed out qBZZ cheques you received, the more BZZ tokens you will receive. It’s not the number of cheques, but the gBZZ value in the exchange. You only need to cash out cheques every once (we advice doing cashouts on a regular basis, like once a week) in a while and make sure you cash out all of them just before the airdrop ends and we switch to mainnet.

How many tokens will you get?

We are handing out exactly 1,000,000 BZZ tokens. The value of qBZZ is not yet determined, as this depends on the network traffic. The total value of BZZ tokens you will get depends on the share of the qBZZ you received over the total number of qBZZ handed out.

For the airdrop, the value of cashed-out cheques matter, not the number of cashed-out cheques.

Example:

At the end of the airdrop, 500k worth of qBZZ cheques were collected from all the nodes in the network. In this case, one qBZZ token is worth: 1M BZZ divided by 500k = 2 BZZ tokens per qBZZ token.

So, if your node collected 50 worth of qBZZ cheques, you would receive 50 x 2BZZ = 100 BZZ tokens. If you ran 3 nodes and they collected 50 worth of qBZZ cheques each, then that is 300 BZZ from the airdrop.

Will the Queen Bee nodes be selected from any node?

The queen bees will be selected from a set of trusted nodes.

Do I only get Airdrop for cheques I received and cashed out?

Yes

Do I need to cashout all the time?

We will announce the airdrop end date so you will have time to cashout.

We advice doing cashouts on a regular basis, like once a week > if your node has crashed and you have lost the keypair, you won’t be able to recover the cheques.

What should I do with received cheques before the end of the airdrop?

This is important — as the airdrop concludes, you will need to cash out your qBZZ cheques. Without this, you will not receive your BZZ tokens once we hit mainnet.

You are strongly advised to join the bee-support channel, our Discord server, or closely follow our social media channels so you don’t miss this tutorial.

Which script do you suggest using to cash out the cheques?

You can use the cashout script by Ralph Pichler https://gist.github.com/ralph-pichler/3b5ccd7a5c5cd0500e6428752b37e975; he is a developer working with us.

This script is from the documentation and this is what we recommend to use for now.

If you are using any script that is not published by us, be sure that it comes from a trusted source.

Will the airdrop BZZ be dropped to my node’s address or to my cheque book address?

We’re still deciding on the exact mechanism. There will be very clear communication about this.

For now, just make sure you have the private key to your nodes and cash out your cheques on a regular basis, like once a week.

Are there tools to decrypt the Swarm keypair?

We highly recommend running your Bee node together with Bee-Clef.

If you are running Bee together with the Bee-Clef, you can type in the command line `bee-clef-keys` and that will store the .JSON file into your home folder and put the password in your clipboard.

You can then use that to import to Metamask or any other web3 wallet provider.

We’re running on the goerli testnet but Airdrop is going to happen on the mainnet. Do I use the same keys?

Yes, keypairs are the same on all EVMs (Ethereum VMs).

If for some reason I change my cheque book address, will I be able to get the rewards of the previous ones if I had some cheques there?

Yes, if you have the private key of the owner of the cheque book that cashed the checks.

We do, however, advise you not to switch too often, as there might be a cost associated for each address with which you retrieve your BZZ from the airdrop.

There are 16M BZZ tokens on the testnet. Will the same amount of BZZ tokens be on the mainnet ?

That will be communicated soon. The testnet is not representative of what the real token will be like.

When does the airdrop end?

The airdrop will conclude just before we go live to mainnet.

The terms and conditions of the airdrop will be released closer to the airdrop date.

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Swarm Foundation
Ethereum Swarm

Swarm is a system of peer-to-peer networked nodes that create a decentralised storage. Website: https://www.ethswarm.org/