In my last article Tips, tricks and hints. What else do I need to know about now I have my Masternode? I rounded off my 3 part series introducing you to Masternodes and how to run them.
This time around I would like to introduce you all to a project that is close to my heart (I am the VP of Projects here). And that project is Apollon. As always nothing in this article should be considered as investment advice and the views expressed here are my personal ones and not necessarily that of Apollon. Before you undertake any investment you should always DYOR (do your own research).
What is Apollon?
Apollon endeavors to make investing in masternode coins easy, secure and transparent.
To this end the organisation has recently released their masternode investment platform. This platform will simplify the whole set-up, running and monitoring of any masternode that is hosted on the service. You can download the Nodebuilder platform here
The platform initially consists of software that will run on any home computer and using this ‘node builder’ you can launch a new masternode within minutes. In this first iteration of the software you will still need to download and fund your desktop wallet with enough collateral to run your desired masternode but once that is done the whole process to start up a masternode is very straight forward. A demo video of how to do this can be found here.
The pricing model for the Apollon platform has recently changed and whilst Apollon accept payment in both XAP and BTC there is a considerable discount applied if someone also holds XAP nodes on the Nodebuilder platform. More details on the pricing structure can be found here. XAP is the cryptocurrency of Apollon and by accumulating 25,000 XAP you can run an Apollon masternode which will pay out XAP. Therefore running an Apollon masternode will cover your hosting fees easily and still leave additional passive income. You can currently buy XAP at Crypto-bridge, Graviex and CoinExchange.
As well as the builder Apollon will also, in time, launch it’s node monitor service. With this you will be able to monitor the performance of your masternodes, look at performance such as income over time, regularity of income payments and various visual indicators about the performance of your portfolio.
OK so what happens next?
The roadmap for Apollon gives more information about the future of the investment platform. The intention is to build out a web wallet first — this will further simplify the deployment of masternodes on the platform and bring greater integration between the wallet and the builder.
This will be followed by the mobile wallet, a demo pic of which can be seen at the start of this article, which will really bring the world of masternode investing to the person in the street. With this wallet you will need zero knowledge of setting up and running a masternode. If you can use a standard banking app then you will be able to fund the wallet and invest in any masternode on the platform. This completely simplifies the whole process of running a masternode to a few simple clicks in the app. Apollon will also be offering shared masternodes (this is where you take a share in a masternode and gives people the opportunity to take a part ownership in one of the more expensive masternodes such as Dash or PivX). The other product offering will be a conglomerate of the masternodes running on the platform. You will be able to take a share of one of these conglomerates and this will diversify your masternode investment across different projects.
OK so what projects will Apollon host?
So Apollon made a decision very early on that only coins which meet certain criteria should be welcomed on to their platform.
However recently this initial decision was reviewed and adjusted for a couple of reasons.
Very quickly after launch the team realised that they needed to find a path to revenue whilst still retaining the ability to provide a system on the Nodebuilder that allowed people to still be selective about the nodes they invested in.
Plus there were many in the Apollon community that wanted to run other masternodes on the platform they were currently invested in and made many requests for the project to try to accommodate these whilst remaining true to the projects values.
Therefore Apollon have implented a stratgey of hosting all masternode coins but will also initiate categorisation of new projects depending on certain criteria.
These being:
Cat A — our research team has conducted checks on the project for certain types of documentation such as companies with a visible team who have verifiable online profiles, are a registered corporation or foundation, have a business plan that outlines a clear path to revenue and endeavours to reach a sustainable cash flow position, and have a detailed pro-forma to share.
Cat B — requested by the Apollon community
Cat C — listed on various masternode listing sites such as masternodes.online and Masternode.live.
Currently as of writing there are 20 coins on the Apollon platform. XAP — of course, Stipend, Nix, Phore, LightPayCoin, Trittium, Bitcoin Green, Xorn, SMK, PACcoin, Polis, Bulwark, Condominium, GoByte, Logiscoin, Daral, Vivaldi, SaveNode, Cryptoflow and Concierge Coin.
And more coins are being added on a regular basis
Great platform, but who is in the Apollon team?
The Apollon team consists of too many individuals to go through all of them in this article but what I will do is focus on the core management team members.
Firstly we have the Apollon founders Markus and Philipp. Markus and Philipp started the project back in February 2018 with a vision for making it easier for people to run and monitor their masternodes and are responsible for the Apollon project existing.
They are both responsible for development on the project and have been very busy recently both releasing a new codebase based on PivX and launching the platform. At present the team are heavily focussed on adding new coins to the platform.
They both hail from Linz in Austria and have been working within software development for a number of years after graduating university.
Secondly we have Chad Sichello the Apollon CEO. Chad joined the team back in March 2018 after taking an interest in Apollon and doing some further research into the project. Chad is a social entrepreneur and has run successful companies in the past. He has wealth of experience in running businesses and it was for this reason that Chad was welcomed onto the Apollon team. You can view Chads Linkedin profile here.
And finally you have me. I started working with Apollon back in May 2018 after reaching out to the team offering to provide project management experience to help the team work towards the launch of the project. Apollon is a project I feel very strongly about and I believe in this team. As you can see from my Linkedin profile I have worked within project management for many many years and I am working hard with the team to ensure we hit our roadmap targets as quickly as possible.
If you want to know more about Apollon please let me know.
Until next time.
Happy noding!
Ade
Feel free to follow me on Twitter for updates when my next article lands on @Ade_Redman
More resources for Apollon:
Website — https://apollon.one
Twitter — https://twitter.com/apollonxap
Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/apollonxap/
Discord — https://discord.gg/SmaxmwC
Medium — https://medium.com/apollon-xap
Masternode.live listing — https://masternode.live/currencies/XAP/ApollonCoin
Masternodes Online listing — https://masternodes.online/currencies/XAP/