Summary of Nov 20, 2020 Polyient Games-Matic Network AMA

Below is a fully transcribed summary of the Polyient Games AMA session hosted by Matic Network.

Polyient Games is the leading third-party network validator on Matic Network and Polyient Capital is an investor in MATIC token. We plan to unveil a number of major incentive structures that benefit both MATIC delegates and current Polyient Games Ecosystem participants with the launch of Matic Network node delegation.

AMA Transcription —

Delroy = Matic Network

Craig = Polyient Games

Delroy, [20.11.20 11:00]
Hey Craig I hope you’re doing well and staying safe. Thanks for joining us today on our 1st Validators AMA. It would be nice if you could give us an Introduction about Polyient Games

Craig, [20.11.20 11:00]
Thanks Delroy — Hi everyone, it’s great to be here.

Craig, [20.11.20 11:01]
Want to start off by saying thank you to the Matic team for hosting this AMA and for being such a great collaborator over the course of the past year.

Craig, [20.11.20 11:01]
My name is Craig Russo and I’m the Director of Innovation at Polyient Games.

Craig, [20.11.20 11:02]
Polyient Games (PG), a subsidiary of Phoenix-based investment firm Polyient, is a unique, collaborative ecosystem focused on the NFT and decentralized finance (DeFi) markets. PG is built around a core thesis that NFTs will emerge as a substantial alternative digital asset class and via our ecosystem, we aim to facilitate the infrastructure, collaborations and tokenomic innovations to unlock this potential.

Craig, [20.11.20 11:02]
In addition to Polyient’s core investment activities, we are also building out a suite of internal products, including a decentralized swap market (Polyient DEX, which is now live on Ethereum with ~$1.7M in TVL) and the Particle Bridge, a special smart contract that enables the fractionalization of ERC-721 NFTs into fungible ERC-20s to unlock a world of liquidity for the asset class.

Craig, [20.11.20 11:03]
Finally, we have our own token economy that features PGFKs, a unique rewards and membership NFT, and PGT, a governance token that fuels decision making within the PG Ecosystem. We completed a $5M sale of PGFKs in September and have since seen ~$2M in secondary market activity.

So very excited to share more!

Delroy, [20.11.20 11:04]
Oh wow! That sounds pretty cool Craig. We would like to extend the gratitude to you as well for being a great Dapp project building on Matic.

Delroy, [20.11.20 11:04]
Can you tell us about the experience you’ve had in the Staking industry?

Craig, [20.11.20 11:06]
Sure thing — I’ve been involved with PoS mechanisms for a number of years on a personal level. For those of you who were around and went through the masternode era, you definitely understand just how much of a “wild west” frontier this space has been.

However, with the recent surge in decentralized finance and the adoption of more sustainable staking models based around real capital flows, I am definitely bullish on where the space is heading.

Delroy, [20.11.20 11:07]
Oh yes we remember Masternode!

Craig, [20.11.20 11:07]
Fun times!

Delroy, [20.11.20 11:07]
Absolutely!

Delroy, [20.11.20 11:07]
So what made you choose Matic Network as one of the networks to run a Validator node? And also, would you also tell us if you’re operating node on any other Networks? The community sure would love to hear that from you

Craig, [20.11.20 11:08]
Yeah absolutely

Craig, [20.11.20 11:08]
First off, while we are active participants as investors in a number of different networks, Matic is actually the first network on which we are running an official validator node! So this has been a great experience

Craig, [20.11.20 11:09]
We decided to run a node on Matic for a few major reason…

Craig, [20.11.20 11:09]
First — we see Matic Network as an elegant solution to scaling issues facing the Ethereum network and the focus towards building out efficient bridges between the L2 solution and mainnet makes this a high potential play.

Craig, [20.11.20 11:10]
Second — a number of our ecosystem members and portfolio companies have already adopted Matic as their scaling solution for their decentralized applications and blockchain games. This ultimately made our participation as a validator a substantial opportunity to help further support our portfolio while actively rolling up our sleeves to stay involved with the latest market trends.

Craig, [20.11.20 11:10]
Third and final — we are building out our ecosystem to be a one-stop-shop for innovation and new token economy creation. We aim to leverage our validator business segment to further support capital flows and liquidity adoption of the ecosystem.

Delroy, [20.11.20 11:12]
Thats great to know Craig. I clearly remember when onboarding you as validator. You were the first of the few that joined us a validator right after our Mainnet launched. Its great to have to onboarded as a Validator

Delroy, [20.11.20 11:13]
So in terms of efficient node operating, what do you guy do to ensure the safety and effective maintenance of your node?

Craig, [20.11.20 11:16]
On a high level, we are keeping our node lean and extraneous code to a minimum. Our dedicated team ensures that updates are executed in a timely manner, as old code can lead to the degradation of efficiency.

We have also built in redundancies to assure up-time and of course, working closely with the Matic team directly enables us to move quickly and efficiently to assure the best outcomes.

With any decentralized network, it’s important to have a good community of devs to call upon and we’ve found a lot of great resources via Discord, etc.

Delroy, [20.11.20 11:19]
Absolutely! I would like to take this opportunity to the community know that Polyient Games have been running their node since July with 100% Uptime Performance. That is in line with all our Foundation Nodes! Great going Craig

Craig, [20.11.20 11:20]
Yes! And this is a credit to our developer team, these guys have been doing a fantastic job

Delroy, [20.11.20 11:20]
Cheers to them!

Delroy, [20.11.20 11:22]
So lets get down to the most important question, In terms of Delegation, whenever the Delegation is open to Public nodes, why should delegators look to switch their delegation from the Foundation node to your Node? What would be the benefits of doing so?

Craig, [20.11.20 11:22]
ah yes — perhaps the most important question

Craig, [20.11.20 11:24]
When approaching delegator incentives, we really want to play to our strengths. Therefore, we will be looping delegator participation into the reward cascade of the Polyient Games Ecosystem.

This means, if you delegate your MATIC tokens to the Polyient Games, you will be eligible to receive special NFT and fungible token rewards. We will be unveiling the full information in the coming weeks, but we are launching a new system of vault staking that intertwines activities from all of our ecosystem segments, including node delegation.

This will be a first of a kind system that will provide you with additional rewards beyond the simple % from staking your MATIC.

Ultimately, we aim to completely re-invent what it means to delegate tokens and show the full potential of participating in an ecosystem fueled by the NFT asset class.

Delroy, [20.11.20 11:26]
Oh wow! So you’re saying as a Delegator I will not only earn rewards for my stake, but I’ll also be eligible for special rewards as well if I delegate to your node. That’s good news! Pleasant surprise

Craig, [20.11.20 11:27]
Absolutely — we see delegation into our node as an in-road into our ecosystem, allowing token holders to access a robust menu of additional reward outcomes.

Delroy, [20.11.20 11:28]
Since you’ve been in this industry for so long, would you know of any concerns that people have when considering who to delegate to and how do you address these?

Craig, [20.11.20 11:32]
sure thing — I think one of the major areas of concern is just trust in the project or validator you are allocating funds to. In the age of anonymous teams and rug pulls, you can never be too careful. We hope to build out that trust layer with the community through a commitment to quality and execution on promises.

I also believe it ultimately comes down to aligned interests and incentives, and if those two factors are lacking, then delegation can be a difficult ask.

We plan to constantly iterate on our incentive mechanism and seriously leverage user feedback (and our governance body of PGT holders) when designing our reward outcomes.

Delroy, [20.11.20 11:33]
Well said Craig. Feedback and hearing out the community will only propel us forward

Craig, [20.11.20 11:34]
Couldn’t agree more

Delroy, [20.11.20 11:34]
So the next question is slightly off topic.

Delroy, [20.11.20 11:35]
I’m pretty sure some folks from the community are eager to run validator nodes on Matic, What are the first things you’d encourage someone like up and coming Validators on POS networks to consider before getting started?

Craig, [20.11.20 11:35]
good question

Craig, [20.11.20 11:36]
For people considering running a validator node, I’d definitely recommend they fully read up on the process of launching and maintaining the node. The difficulty of this process is network dependent and ultimately, this is not an activity for individuals who aren’t fully committed to substantial iteration and troubleshooting.

Craig, [20.11.20 11:37]
The second aspect I’d want to highlight is the CapEx associated with launching and running a node — you will need to make upfront investments, both in node resources and in the tokens themselves to participate.

Craig, [20.11.20 11:37]
This can be a costly affair and given the highly volatile nature of this asset class, I recommend you conduct substantial due diligence before pursuing such a venture.

Craig, [20.11.20 11:38]
But, if you feel comfortable with those aspects — then running a node is definitely worth serious consideration!

Delroy, [20.11.20 11:39]
Absolutely! Running a node though is serious business, but if you do your research thoroughly and agree upon initial investments, I think this would give newer validators a great chance to spin up nodes on Matic Network.

The full list of community AMA questions can be found directly in the Matic Telegram channel.

About Polyient Games

Polyient Games, a subsidiary of investment group Polyient, is a unique investment ecosystem focused on the NFT and decentralized finance (DeFi) markets. Polyient’s portfolio includes leading NFT startups such as Nonfungible.com, Blockade Games, and Cargo.

Discord | Telegram | Website | Twitter | Blog | PG Ecosystem Partner Application | Polyient Games DEX (PG DEX)