IOST Nodes — Contributions Reward Reminder For Q3 2019

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IOST

4 min readSep 20, 2019

Introduction to the Contribution Reward System

The objective of the Contribution Reward System is to incentivize all Nodes to contribute towards building and developing the ecosystem, as well as allowing Nodes that do not receive a large share of votes to still earn a large amount of rewards for significant contributions to the IOST ecosystem.

The following document lays out the contribution rewards mechanism and process for IOST Nodes. Any feedback and suggestions on the Contribution Reward System is welcome.

Nodes Reward Pool Overview

The total Nodes Reward Pool is 840M IOST, equivalent to 4% of the total IOST supply. It comprises of

Ecosystem Reward Pool (420M, issued by quarter) and
Token Issuance Reward Pool (420M, issued by day).

Ecosystem Reward Pool includes quarterly-issued Contribution Rating Rewards (210M) and quarterly-issued Share of Votes Rewards (210M).

Token Issuance Reward Pool includes daily-distributed Block Production Rewards and daily-distributed Share of Votes Rewards.

Ecosystem Reward Pool Timeline

Dates for Q3 Contribution Rating Rewards:

September 23rd— September 30th: submissions open for Q3 node contribution reports
October 1st — October 14th (Due to China’s National Holiday): report assessment and ranking by IOST/ICAC & Initial results release
October 15th — October 21st: Dispute period & Final results release
Before November 30th: Finish the distribution of Contribution Rating Rewards

Share of votes snapshots are taken daily, and rewards are based on the average share of votes received for the quarter.

Contribution Assessment Method

Nodes submit their contribution report each quarter, detailing the contributions they made to the ecosystem for that period and which contribution category is most relevant.

These contribution reports are then assessed and ranked for each category starting from the most valuable contribution to the least. Based on these rankings, Nodes are split into Reward Tiers and then issued rewards.

Contribution Categories

Nodes can submit reports for 1 of the 5 categories. The chosen category for each Node should be the most relevant one. If there are contributions made outside of this category, they should still be submitted as they will count towards the final ranking.

Example: Two Dapp developers launch Dapps of equal value, but if one of the Dapps also create content to promote it, this Node will rank higher.

The reward categories are as follows:

Content creation and promotion
Dapps
Integrations (wallets,exchanges,explorers etc) & Technical Support
Events / meetups / hackathons
Community building

Contribution Assessment per Category

Each contribution report is assessed based on the following criteria for each category.

1. Content Creation and Promotion

Creating awareness and education about IOST to crypto and mainstream audiences is one of IOST’s most important objectives in order to grow and attract more users and developers. Quality of content is important, but even more so is the number of people this content reaches. Quality content produced should be placed where it can get a lot of exposure outside of the IOST community and shared via social, news and community channels.

quality of content (accuracy, production quality)
views / clicks / impressions / shares / comments
Enjoyability / watchability

2. Dapps

Value to the ecosystem (e.g is it an interesting, useful novel Dapp, or a clone of an existing Dapp already on IOST)
Daily active users (DAU)
Daily transactions volume

3. Integrations (wallets, exchanges, explorers etc) & Technical Support

Value to ecosystem (is it an interesting, useful novel integration, or a clone of an existing already)
Downloads / Visits
Daily active users (DAU)
Token volume
Quality and frequency of technical support

4. Events / meetups / hackathons

Quality of event (content, topic, speakers etc)
Number of attendees
Press / News coverage

5. Communities

Community activity (e.g. airdrop and giveaway)
Growth of members
IOST community support and engagement
Number of active users

Contribution Assessment Submission Format

Contribution reports should be submitted through the official report submission channel: https://iost-eng.typeform.com/to/V3dFPM

Each contribution activity should be specified in a numbered list with a clear description and addressing each assessment criteria. As much supporting and verifiable documentation should be included for each activity. Any activity which is not verifiable will not be included in the Node’s ranking.

Contribution activities will only be considered in contribution assessments if they are accretive to the ecosystem. Example: Node A casting votes for Node B or Node A providing a specific service (such as marketing or technical) for Node B are not considered contributions given that these are commercial dealings between nodes only.

Contribution activities should only cover the time period for each report (3 months). Example: A Dapp’s DAU should only report the increase during this 3 month period. Forward looking statements, such as plans for the next quarter, are not considered in contribution assessment.

Contribution Tier Rewards

Nodes in each tier receive the same amount of reward regardless of category. The 210M Reward Pool based on contribution is divided between tiers in the following way: