UPDATE RELEASED: June 7th, 2021
First and foremost, thank you for showing interest in StakeMyHNT and maintaining a delicate balance of patience and excitement as the Helium network transitions the Consensus Groups from the PoC miners to dedicated Validators.
The Helium core dev team is nearly ready to launch Mainnet for Validators and we have been preparing tirelessly, fine-tuning our staking services for the Helium community. We have worked extensively with security, compliance, and legal experts to ensure longevity and peace-of-mind in our service to you. In our collaboration with professionals in the space, we have come to the unavoidable conclusion that we must delay our services for partial stakers.
The current structure of the protocol requires us to take custody of your HNT in some shape or form to offer our robust services. Since we are a US-based entity, this puts us squarely in the definition of a Money Services Business (MSB). In order to provide our services we must obtain licensing on a state-by-state and country-by-country basis.
This news pains us as much to deliver as I assume it is to receive, particularly because Eddie has been moving mountains of code to optimize our liquidity match-making systems to provide the most fluid and enjoyable experience possible.
However – we are pragmatic, and we are solutions-based – much like so many in this veracious and voracious community. The answer is always: onwards…
What does this mean moving forward?
Initially we were working with our legal team to acquire the appropriate licensing and offer our services to specific geographic entities on a rolling basis as we expanded.
However…
The recent proposal of HIP31 caps our upside of pursuing licensing. Here’s why:
HIP31 proposes governance via token burn, meaning Helium Network stakeholders can vote on proposals by burning HNT. A key aspect of this proposal is only staked tokens are eligible to vote.
In a world where staking companies must take custody to provide partial staking services, these companies would become some of, if not the most, powerful influencers of the Helium protocol due to their massive custody of HNT.
This kind of aggregation of power is exactly what HIP31 is trying to combat.
This leads us to believe that assuming HIP31 passes community vetting, there would very shortly thereafter be a proposal to implement delegation mechanisms to Validators. This would allow small quantity (<10,000) HNT holders to keep custody and participate in validation, thus giving partial stakers the ability to participate in governance of the protocol, while reducing the influence of large singular entities – exactly how it should be.
If you are a holder of 10,000+ HNT and chose our Partial Staking service (for the liquidity benefits and increased frequency of rewards) but still want to stake with us, please contact us immediately. We will add you to our Full Validator list and get you up and running with a full node(s) ASAP. We invite you to add yourself to the mailing list here as “Full Validator” for the quickest solution.
With the recent change of circumstances, we have increased resources for the UX experience for our Full Validator clients, on top of our already powerful Consensus Election optimization features. We have a robust performance Dashboard, but feel free to contact us with requests and our implementation should be quicker than previously expected.
The Good News
Although we cannot offer partial staking at this time, those of you whom have shown interest are subscribed to some of the most obsessive community members in the space. We live on the bleeding edge and have our ear to the tracks. As soon as there are any developments in the partial staking realm, we will get to work building services to bring staking capabilities to you. As soon as those services even smell like they’re available – you will be the first to know.
Whether you’re mining, building, or running with the bulls, stay safe and stay tuned.
Kindly,
The StakeMyHNT Team
TL;DR – We are no longer offering partial staking services due to compliance and upcoming protocol developments. When we gain partial staking capabilities, you will be the first to know. We invite you to contact us if you have 10,000+ HNT and we’ll get you set up with a Full Node before Mainnet launch.