Brief introduction
Initially, the Rust Cup contest was hosted to test a Rust-based node, polish all the functionality, and restore its working order, as well as set a world record for smart contract execution speed.
To cut a long story short, all of the goals were accomplished. Everscale successfully transitioned to the Rust node, which is now operating on the mainnet. During the contest, Everscale broke the world record for transaction throughput, with validators managing to achieve over 64,000 transactions per second on Rustnet. As one of the largest public experiments in blockchain, the Rust Cup played a significant role in the core development of Everscale, adjusting and polishing the tech stack as well as setting up a solid foundation for the network's security and Everscale’s validator community.
Although the results of the Rust Cup experiments were excellent and the impact on the development of the Everscale tech stack was significant, when the time came for finalizing the results and paying out the initial rewards, it became clear that market conditions had dramatically changed. The collapse of Terra and FTX, and the further chain reaction of bankruptcies in the crypto industry led to the point where fulfilling all of the initial Rust Cup obligations to the participants could potentially lead to a crash of EVER’s tokenomics and disruption of the network’s economic sustainability. At that point, the community started discussing further steps for finalization of the Rust Cup, but the discussions and debates were slow-paced and led to no results. That’s when the Everscale DeFi Alliance took the initiative, and truly unique cooperation in the community started to form.
Payout of rewards – initial proposal and a more balanced solution
Initially, the dialogue started with a proposal on EVER DAO from the validator community itself to initiate distribution of the Rust Cup rewards, as the locked stakes for validation were about to expire, and some validators could be doubtful about continuing their work.
The first proposal didn't meet the requirements for the current Everscale economy, as the macroeconomic situation had drastically changed since the beginning of the contest. The proposal thus caused considerable debates and potentially could have led to a dramatic split in the community, as well as strong selling pressure on EVER. However, moving ahead a little, we can say with confidence that the initial proposal was the starting point for unique cooperation on EVER DAO within the Everscale community. This cooperation eventually led to the achievement of complex distribution of rewards and ensured consensus was reached between all parties and the long-term validators were incentivised. Overall, it led to sustainable development of the network. Let’s elaborate more on that.
The Everscale DeFi Alliance used the initial proposal as a basis to prepare a more balanced and advanced version of the Rust Cup payouts proposal. After a few iterations with a narrow focus group, and then with a much wider group, the Everscale DeFi Alliance came up with a proposal that truly met the requirements of Everscale validators, the community, and the network governance.
In a nutshell, the new proposal consisted of two options. The first one offered a quick reward for validators who wanted to be compensated for their operational expenses as soon as possible, and they would also receive an additional 50% of the rewards in LEVER tokens (pegged 1:1.2 to EVER with a two year lock-up).
The second option was proposed to validators who were interested in continuing to work in the network long term. This option did not involve quick payments, but provided long-term motivation for validators: increased rewards for validator stakes that are locked for more than 12 months with an additional yield of 8–16% per annum depending on the lockup period, as well as increased odds for prize stakes when combining several pools into one in the main network.
Results of the program and rewards payout
The community met the amended Rust Cup terms warmly, and the second proposal passed on EVER DAO with a 99% threshold of “YES” votes. After all the addresses were finalized and the payout options were coordinated with the winners, all rewards were distributed to them.
Results of the program:
- Total numbers of validators who joined the Everscale network and are currently live in the mainnet: 81
- Confirmed participants who received four-year lock stakes: 263
- The total subsidy stake from Giver: 182.7M EVER
- The total validator-owned stakes locked for four years: 24M EVER
Summary
The Rust Cup was not only an experiment for the core development of the network aimed at fixing bugs and transitioning to the Rust node, as well as pushing the network to its limits – it was also a valuable exercise in holding an open dialogue between Everscale’s validators, community, and core team. Despite the challenges, all validators and community and core team members demonstrated a high level of cooperation and benefited network development in its entirety, proving once again that Everscale is a truly decentralized network.
