đź“Ł Conflux AMA Recap with Nucleon
A recap of our AMA session with Nucleon — a liquid staking solution for Conflux PoS backed by industry-leading staking providers!
Interview Session
Earlier last week, we hosted an AMA session on our English Telegram channel with Nucleon, a liquid staking solution for Conflux PoS backed by industry-leading staking providers. Nucleon lets users stake their CFX- without locking assets or maintaining infrastructure. Here’s a recap of our AMA with Nucleon’s Founder, Artii.
Q: Host (Yildirim): Tell us about yourself.
A: Nucleon (Artii): Well, for a quick background about me and crypto. I started in the crypto world in 2010 when I downloaded some node programs for Bitcoin. I wasn’t completely sold on Bitcoin or crypto, but I started diving deep in 2020. I started to enjoy immersing myself in keeping up on the latest developments of all the new blockchains starting up. I saw an opportunity when Conflux announced its PoW/PoS hybrid mechanism. I’ve spent my time since then building Nucleon.
Q: Host (Yildirim): Thanks for Your Introduction Artii. Now let's jump into the Q/A. What is Nucleon?
A: Nucleon (Artii): Nucleon is a liquid staking solution focused on Conflux’s PoS and its staking providers. Nucleon lets users stake their CFX- without locking assets or maintaining infrastructure. Our goal is to solve the problems associated with Conflux PoS staking, which are:
1. Illiquidity
2. Immovability
3. Accessibility
We want to make staked CFX liquid, allowing everyone to stake with any amount of CFX, and improve the security of the Conflux network, all while earning their CFX staking reward.
Q: Host (Yildirim): How does liquid staking work?
A: Nucleon (Artii): Traditionally, for PoS blockchains, users would have to stake their tokens to the network in exchange for a reward through a PoS pool or individual stake. In Conflux’s case, staking can be done by yourself or on a pool, but the minimum amount to stake is 1,000 CFX.
With Nucleon, a user mints xCFX by staking CFX into Nucleon’s PoS Pool. xCFX is pegged 1:1 with CFX at network launch, but moving forward; each xCFX will include the basic value of staked CFX plus the interest accrued through Conflux’s PoS mechanism.
This xCFX can now be moved around just like any other token. It can be traded. It could be lent. It can be used to prove liquidity. It can even be used as collateral. The choice is yours. This is the liquid part of liquid staking.
The benefit of liquidity is two-fold. It allows users to use other protocols rather than being stuck staking. The second and much more significant for the greater network is that it increases network liquidity. Last I checked, the total locked CFX in validators was about 156M CFX. Imagine how much more network activity could be done if the CFX could be used on other protocols!
Q: Host (Yildirim): What happens to the pooled CFX in Nucleon?
A: Nucleon (Artii): The CFX will be staked in Nucleon’s own PoS pool. Users can track their staking from the website when they connect with their wallet. Once staked, the CFX will stay in the pool, thereby increasing the Conflux chain's security.
Q: Host (Yildirim): How will CFX be converted to xCFX?
A: Nucleon (Artii): The conversion will require LP for the transaction. This is where Swappi (a decentralized exchange on Conflux) will be important. Nucleon’s website has a “Pools” tab where users can click “Get Liquidity. This will send users to Swappi’s site.
Users can create CFX/xCFX LP tokens which can then be staked on Nucleon for NUT rewards. The LP token staking is very important to the smooth exchange of CFX for xCFX.
Here is a link to our live mainnet website. We invite everyone come to check out our site: https://www.nucleon.space/
Q: Host (Yildirim): What can users now do with xCFX?
A: Nucleon (Artii): Users can contribute their xCFX in Swappi’s xCFX/CFX liquidity pool to earn trading fees and stake their xCFX/CFX LP in Nucleon’s xCFX/CFX Pool to earn NUT tokens.
We have plans in the very near future for certain other eSpace protocols for the near future as well.
Check out our docs and tutorials on how to contribute liquidity and stake your LP token on Nucleon
Q: Host (Yildirim): How does xCFX capture the value of accrued PoS rewards?
A: Nucleon (Artii): It’s a crucial part of liquid staking. As Nucleon accumulates the interest rewards, the system automatically calculates the latest value of each xCFX from the time of staking CFX or withdrawing xCFX to CFX.
Detailed pricing formula for xCFX can be found in our docs:
Q: Host (Yildirim): What can users now do on Nucleon?
A: Nucleon (Artii): Users can stake CFX in Nucleon to earn PoS rewards and receive xCFX. They can also stake CFX/xCFX LP tokens once created on Swappi.
Think of it as adding the foundation before we build integration with other protocols.
Q: Host (Yildirim): Why did you choose Conflux eSpace, and what are your expectations for this chain?
A: Nucleon (Artii): Conflux aims to connect decentralized economies to strengthen the overall DeFi ecosystem globally. Its fast, scalable, solidity compatible, zero congestion, low fees, and compliance features offer unique advantages for building and scaling projects.
Conflux eSpace, in particular, is important for its EVM compatibility. This key feature makes moving assets back and forth from other chains significantly easier. With a combination of low gas fees and compatibility, it’s easy to see why Conflux eSpace has such a bright future.
Q: Host (Yildirim): Can you walk us through the Tokenomics of Nucleon?
A: Nucleon (Artii): Nucleon has a two-token model. xCFX is the interest-bearing ERC20 token that represents CFX staked into Nucleon’s PoS pool and its interest accrued in CFX over time. There is one type of xCFX, with an uncapped supply determined algorithmically, and will be tradeable on exchanges like Swappi.
NUT is Nucleon’s governance token, which can be staked to vote and boost staking interest rewards. The project team en allocations and will be tradeable on secondary markets. Total Supply: 300,000 NUT released over four years.
Q: Host (Yildirim): What are your plans for NUT? What is NUT’s utility?
A: Nucleon (Artii): NUT, as I mentioned, is Nucleon’s governance token. Some of the more important roles moving forward will be that NUT can be staked in Nucleon to vote as well as use it as a booster similar to Swappi’s PPI Boost to increase interest rewards.
The plan is for NUT to be tradeable on DEXs, ideally starting with Swappi. That means we will be performing an IDO on Swappi, which we expect to be between Feb 3rd-5th.
We can’t wait to share the news once it’s been made official!!!
Q: Host (Yildirim): Are the contracts secure? Can it effectively prevent hacker attacks?
A: Nucleon (Artii): We take security seriously. To that end, we had our smart contracts audited by Hacken. Hacken is a highly regarded smart contract auditing firm. Should the need arise, we are not afraid to have someone else ensure there are no other issues with the protocol. Protocol security is always an important point of trust with users, even more so in DeFi.
There always seems to be some new attack, so we will keep an eye on our security.
For those interested, here is a link to the official Hacken audit report in our Documentation:
Q: Host (Yildirim): Which wallets will be supported at launch?
A: Nucleon (Artii): MetaMask and Fluent (Conflux’s native wallet) are currently available at launch. We will add more in time as we continue to develop the protocol. I will say that right now, if you have both, the connection is a little wonky. The default wallet is set to MetaMask. We aim to have that fixed very soon.
Q: Host (Yildirim): What are Nucleon’s current marketing objectives? Are there any plans to collaborate with other markets or projects?
A: Nucleon (Artii): Our current focus is to raise awareness among CFX stakers that their CFX can do more than be staked. As I’ve said, many options exist to increase the return besides leaving your CFX in a PoS pool.
Our second goal is to raise awareness for liquid staking in general. The number of users with crypto is growing every day, even in this down cycle. As long as we continue to spread the gospel, everyone benefits.
We have some exciting use cases for xCFX in the works, so stay tuned for upcoming announcements and partnerships with some other great projects building on eSpace!
Q: Host (Yildirim): Besides using the Dapp, how can our community get involved in Nucleon?
A: Nucleon (Artii): We will conduct an IDO on Swappi between Feb 3–5. You can stay up to date on the event when it is announced.
You can also join us on the Telegram community and follow us on Twitter for the latest news and information.
Q: Host (Yildirim): Now, we will enter the next Session. Our Nucleon guest Artii will answer community questions that we previously collected from Twitter.
Q #1: I read that Nucleon aims to open up PoS participation with flexible amounts of CFX to improve the security of the Conflux Network, but is Nucleon somehow committed to offering its technology to Conflux? Or could you offer your solutions to other networks?
A: Nucleon (Artii): Yes, our focus is on opening up PoS participation to those with less than the common 1,000 CFX requirement. There’s no requirement for Nucleon to remain exclusive to Conflux, but you must remember that we have limited resources. I would much rather focus on doing one thing right and developing it well than try to spread out Nucleon too thin and make a bad protocol.
Q #2: For more than one year, I have delegated my CFX without any problem; I know about the risks to which I expose myself, and I know that one of the benefits of Nucleon is the immediate liquidity, but what other features could make me change my mind and bet on Nucleon?
A: Nucleon (Artii): To be clear, we are not saying that any other validator is worse than Nucleon. If you are familiar with the validator and trust them, that’s great!
We need many validator pools in Conflux. What we offer is unique and something that no other validator offers.
Liquidity and 1 CFX minimum with competitive fees. Other than the LP options to boost rewards, it’s pretty simple for now.
Want to leverage other eSpace protocol’s yields? Our liquidity helps with that.
Don’t have 1,000 CFX? We only need 1 CFX.
Q3: I read that the project team defines the NUT token allocations and will be tradable in secondary markets, but will the community decide on it? Or will the founding team decide alone? And really, why not keep them fixed?
A: Nucleon (Artii): That was there as a placeholder until we were more certain about the proper allocations. Indeed, you are right that they should be fixed and set, which is why we have updated that section of our Documentation.
If it’s not live yet, it will be shortly. The emissions are split into four categories: Team, Marketing, Treasury, and LP’s. I can recall that 60% of emissions go to LP holders.
Q4: About the "Liquid Staking," I read that; the contract stakes the tokens deposited by the users "using chosen staking providers," so how can one be a staking provider, and if it works like that, how does NUCLEON make sure that those staking providers do not access the users' assets?
A: Nucleon (Artii): It was and is a future goal to integrate other validation pools with Nucleon to offer xCFX. Unfortunately, it’s a bridge too far for now. So, we have decided to create a new dedicated validation pool. Either way, we would have given users the full-control of their assets.
Q5: Among Nucleon’s plans, one of them is to build the most solid-liquid participation ecosystem in Conflux. How do you plan to achieve it, and what is the roadmap or strategy to follow to be a solid project in Conflux?
A: Nucleon (Artii): Yes, the long-term dream goal would be to get every CFX user to stake CFX and make xCFX synonymous with Conflux. So the long-term dream goal would be to get every CFX user to stake CFX and make xCFX synonymous with Conflux.
That’s not realistic…for now, but our goal is to reach out to every protocol that uses CFX and make it available for them.
The first step is to integrate with other Conflux eSpace protocols. Since Conflux eSpace is just starting, I’m sure you can guess what they are.
Further out, we want to find a way to target non-eSpace CFX users and give them the ability to stake their CFX outside of eSpace.
Essentially wherever there is CFX available to use, there will be xCFX.
Q: Host (Yildirim): Alright! That completes the Second session of our AMA!
Let’s now proceed to the free-ask section.
Q1: I read on your website that “The value in xCFX will be combined automatically and the value of xCFX will be expanded automatically,” but could you really explain to us what the value of xCFX is combined with? And really, what use can I have with this asset? What will I not have with CFX?
A: Nucleon (Artii): The difference in value is the staking rewards tied to staking CFX in the validator pool. That is what causes the difference in value between xCFX and CFX. The use case is to make this interoperable with CFX on any protocol.
Q3: What is the major difference between Nucleon and many other liquid staking platforms?
A: Nucleon (Artii): There are many kinds of liquid staking. We have a paper in the works defining various Liquid staking forms. The difference is the network they service and the underlying support. We are focused on delivering the best experience possible on Conflux.
Q3: The liquid staking process seems a bit complex to me. Do you have any tutorial videos or medium articles where I can research more on this so I don’t get to make mistakes?
A: Nucleon (Artii): Yes, we do have tutorials and guides.
Here is a step-by-step guide on how to go through each feature of our Protocol:
We also have detailed steps that will be added very soon to our Documentation page:
Q4: I read on the DOC that The $NUT Token will have a maximum supply of 300,000. Do you mind telling us the reason for this?
A: Nucleon (Artii): The 300,000 is a thought-out choice. Some Protocols often offer amounts in the millions but dilute each token's price. We want NUT to mean something to those that own it. It is meant to be a token of importance, not something cheap to be traded for pennies.
Q5: Do you have tutorial videos so we can get to know your project more clearly, or do you have a YouTube channel or something? Can you share it with us?
A: Nucleon (Artii): We are working with Youtubers to create tutorials. We noticed one user created a Youtube video for users in Indonesia for the Testnet. That was Awesome!!!
We invite the community to make some videos and share them to spread the word and bring in others.
Conflux Community, if you would like to know more about Nucelon, here are some useful links for you:
App: https://www.nucleon.space/
Docs: https://docs.nucleon.network/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/OfficialNucleon
Telegram: https://t.me/nucleonspace
