I’d say it’s impossible to determine any point in the near future where ‘stable’ market conditions will exist. Given that there will be an abundance of contextual market information to determine the real effects of this adjustment, moving forward with this RIP as quickly as possible is the best option. Longer time frame means more data against broader range of variables, which equals better results. Lock it up, I reckon.
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Hi everyone!
I completely agree with this proposal.
As a darknode operator, this proposal gives me confidence that we are willing to adapt to market conditions in order to meet the economics of our network. I think this proposal will also cause the desired effect of bringing more bond and more operators.
I am a direct example of the above statement. I will be deploying more darknodes before the end of this epoch.
Looking forward to the launch of other host chains!
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I agree with Chico. There are now competitors in this space. Among other advantages, REN is cheaper to use. When someone mints 100 or 1000 BTC they will go for the cheaper option.
I agree with this proposal. Now is a good time to increase fees to 0.2%. It’s just before the launch of new hoste chains and renVM has been running for 6 months without major failures. Lets do it fRENds!!!
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I am greatly in support of this proposal and would encourage other DN operators to rally behind it. We are in the early stages as a community, but understanding our global priorities of Security, Economics, and Growth must be maintained and prioritized.
Security
We need to incentivize more DN operators to join the network and keep our system security. In order to do this, we must prioritize DN income. Without this, we will continue to see disappointed node operators de-register who will look for another opportunity in the Crypto Universe, everyone in Crypto has a large risk appetite, and if we cannot consistently deliver attractive returns until we reach a point where the price of a DNs have Decoupled from the rest of crypto due to its own value metrics than we are still competing with everyone other types of yield in the Crypto Universe.
Economics
This raising of the price is encouraged and I further like the idea of raising the fees even further upon the realization that our total income is rising. Price discovery is important for our network to determine its worth. Sure there is existing competition and more projects trying to compete with us every day seeing the value we are creating, but we also have many advantages, and our competition as mentioned in interviews all provide a different set of values. I strongly believe that we will see many DEFI opportunities on new chains that will attract waves of BTC holders to chase, our nominal fee will not bat an eye, what they want to see is faster and smoother MINTS / BURNS, if we deliver on these metrics our fee is just a simple necessary toll, and in the most ideal case with proper integrates the customer doesn’t really care or realize they are being charged by the DN network.
Growth
The REN team has done an incredible job with interviews, and public awareness of letting people know the advantages of RenVM, how it works, our priorities, and our goals as a network. It is a neverending goal to get in front of customers, to remind them to use our services, Coca Cola still spends $4B each year to remind customers to use their product, and they have one of the most recognized names in the world. Our fees should not impact our growth as long as we position ourselves as a premium and superior product, which in the eyes of many in this community and those who value decentralization we are the superior product, and in order to maintain this superiority we need to increase our economics which will cause more node operators to join the network which will increase our security.
In summary, I am very much in support of raising the fees, and with the fee raise I would further encourage others to comment on #RFC002 Multi-Variable Fee Control, as Loong has hinted at in his response
The RenVM network should have separate fees for assets, chains, and direction, and being able to monitor and control these fees whether it be up or down, in order to maximize return is something that we all need to prioritize and vote in favor of.
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I am not a huge fan of changing the fees. However, with the network usage dropping and peoples hesitation to charging a continuous fee, I think it is okay. I actually disagree with FF above on the point that we have true competitors; maybe keep but last i checked youd have to be very “adventerous” to sign up as a signer. So i do think we have some room to play around with fee variables.
One thing to watch for, in my opinion, is from the perspective of the customer that we are not portraying “we just want to see how much we can charge you and you’ll still keep using us”
The emphasis should be we are doing hard work as a bridge and and custody and to do that work it is fair to get paid more, i.e. concerns of keeping nodes in the network, tlv vs tvb. I do think we are portraying this but just wanted to state it explicitly and make sure comms about the increase remain around why its necessary.
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- This growth model is financed off the backs of Silicon Valley and VC investors, the DN network does not have the benefit of subsidizing its customers with lower rates infinitely, we have to stabilize our economics for the security of the network and the growth of the network. The sooner we can realize our true decentralized and stabilized self the stronger our product will be in comparison to our competition. Another RFC during those times will surely come up in regards to attacking market share and growth through incentives.
- Agreed, liquidity flow between chains is the name of our game, and having different fees to incentivize this flow is what was raised in the RFC002 Multivariable Fee Control , I believe these networks will all offer highly competitive and attractive yields, and our RenVM fee will be so nominal in comparison making sure we are attracting node operators to strengthen our economic decoupling from the rest of the cryptoverse is key to this successful growth.
- DEFI is still in its early stages, and RenVM has proven that it is a great choice in bridging assets, although we are not the top choice today, as larger and more frequent mints can be found at WBTC, I think this is because customers can see that we are under-bonded, and not fully decentralized yet, which in order to get there we need to stronger economic incentives for DN operators. The sooner we reach #MAINNETONE, the liquidity will come.
- I think the reason we do not see the same level of volume as wBTC is exactly that customers are unsure about the Greycore. The sooner we are able to prove we can maintain a well-bonded network, and can take the training wheels off the better for the Network. Optimizing for growth, I think is a mood point, the fees we charge is so negligible to the yield had on these DEFI opportunities people are selecting the fastest and smoothest bridge operator, fees I feel need to be discovered its too early to claim that the current rate is driving any growth at all.
I am in the camp that we need to raise our fees until we see an excess of volume decrease above and beyond our income growth. I expect us to see over the next epoch a similar flow of volume with twice the fees until there are more DEFI yields increase again.
I guess I dont understand how or why this increase would stunt volume and adoption? Do you mean that people will go elsewhere because of this kind of increase? I think that is highly unlikely. I think people would say that for any good service you have to pay for it. And there isnt anything out there that has such a small fee attached to it. It seems like, to me anyway, user would expect to pay more at some point. I cant imagine the team hasnt reached out to partners and integrators and/or have plan to slowly introduce a fee increase schedule.
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I do believe this is a particularly volatile time, we have a presidential election in 3 weeks, a large stimulus package which may or may not be agreed prior to that election and a global pandemic.
I’m just saying by early 2021 the election will be over and the effects of any stimulus will have settled and thus giving more reliable data
If the goal is to reach greater levels of decentralization by the end of this year, waiting until 2021 to address our economics is not wise. In addition, there will never be a perfect time. There will always be reasons not to move forward and to keep the status quo.
I respect both sides of the argument and see merit to both. However, I believe not testing our economics in a nimble way would be a mistake.
I’m curious if there will be some sort of vote functionality. To be frank, I believe weighted votes would also make sense considering folk’s have different exposure to Ren / operate different # of nodes.
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I must admit seeing so much volume go through Ren and seeing quite a low return on the Darknodes always made me wonder when we would raise the fee. I am very grateful for this project and personally am happy with my returns so far.
However since you are mentioning that it would be easy to implement this change, I highly suggest we increase the fees to 0.15% which is still a 50% increase to test the Network effects.
We can test this for a 3 epoch period and if you like the results you can keep it there or increase it to 0.2%.
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As a darknode owner who isn’t very technical , I have gotten my friends to buy ren tokens . After that, they on their own see yield farming and all these staking Options in the space and ask me how to stake. I explain to them what a darknode is. Some of them understand and some don’t . But all of them agree, that the ROI annually isn’t very appealing . The network has been secure since May, we have very professional telegram groups , 1billion in volume. And even with the fee increase still will be cheaper than the likes of uniswap. I am 100% for new Coinbase type investors being told that the Annual ROI is now double so that they feel more confident to start to accumulate 100k for a darknode . I am 100% confident in the team moving us to full decentralization and while the economy’s of the world are in fear mode, I’d rather do a fee increase now, before the real bull market starts and the chris Blec types really try and unjustly magnify a move like this to being “ greedy “ when in fact, we are far from greedy( greedy would’ve been the team raising fees all on there own, in the start of all the defi hype. The team waiting for a forum like this to start discussion and debate and then doing a test run is why we are blessed to be a part of the Ren family
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0.2% is good but 0.3% seems steep Also I would like to know if we don’t use continuous fees how will we tackle the tvl:tvb being so high and only getting higher as the time passes
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Dear fRens,
I would primarily rename the name to RIMP because of the unpleasant connotations that the abbreviation RIP has in the well-known meaning 
As for the fee increase, and from the aspect of the person who invested in this project and holds the Darknodes, I generally believe that the priority and emphasis should be on the adoption and spreading awareness of the existence of RenVM through the masses. This is achieved through security, reliability, ease of use along with fast and affordable user support.
Also, this is achieved by faith in the team, ie the people behind the project, and for which people must be visible that they work hard and dedicated to their project on a daily basis and that the goals to be achieved are clear.
When all the listed features are connected, it will be recognized by the users who will use it, regardless of the price.
I believe that it is not crucial for users of large transactions to conduct their transaction as cheaply as possible, but as safely as possible with the belief that it will come from point A to B. Such users will be willing to pay for it, regardless of whether it is 0.1% or 0.2%.
I would say that it is not good if something is too cheap, because it sometimes gives the impression that it is a cheap product. In other words, the more expensive the service, the sooner larger investors will actually pay for it, because the more expensive it is, the better it is considered. Pure psychology.
Based on all the above, I believe that our project fulfills all the prerequisites for increasing the fee to 0.2% and that such an opinion is shared by the masses. We need to learn to appreciate our product and know how to charge for it. Namely, the amount of money that is inside RenVM is extremely high and it is a responsibility that costs. Especially if we hope and expect that with new implementations it will only grow. There will always be those who will disagree, but once we implement the increase I think it will soon be forgotten and we will start thinking about a new increase very soon.
Therefore, I fully support the proposal for an increase minting fee to 0.2%.
5 Likes
Hello Everyone!
I’m thrilled that Loong and the team have decided on this proposal.
Besides the importance of gathering the necessary data to continue evolving as a company, an increase in fees to .2% should incentivize Ren traders and institutional investors to consider registering dark nodes.
Benefits
- Decrease in circulating supply
- Further decentralization
- Token Demand increases
The road to becoming the protocol that connects the entire blockchain industry seamlessly has never looked brighter.
Looking forward to this development.
2 Likes
I’m fully in favor of this proposal.
Hits multiple issues at once:
- contributes to efforts wrt long term economic stability of the network
- added bonus: likely higher profits for darknodes depending on price elasticity of demand
- transaction pricing is better aligned w other industry players
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I’m in favor of this RIP.
As other people stated there also some good arguments to not do it. But I think we should start experimenting now and not at a later stage as this will have a larger impact on a larger user base.
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This is one method. Increased mint fee should theoretically:
- decrease mint volume.
- increase revenue and subsequently ren token value
Other is decrease burn fee.
I prefer mint fee increase as it is value accretive rather than value dilutive.
I’m fully in favor of this proposal. 
I’m in favor of this proposal, but maybe if it’s feasible we should think about using 0.05% of the mint fee as an affiliate commission to incentivize integrators. Someone on telegram had suggested this and i think it’s a great idea. Smart contract developers get better ROI on their time by creating some random farm token than integrate renjs to their platform.