Node-Operator

What is staking about? A few just like money, others like to tinker with tech, and some care about decentralization. But no matter what you care about - so far, technically minded people are certainly in the majority of solo stakers. This needs to change!

In order to attract more stakers we have to appeal to more than just the greedy or techy parts of the brain. We have to make solo-staking simple, fun, meaningful, rewarding, beautiful and many more things.

Therefore, I whole-heartedly support this project but it calls for something other than the usual depiction of ugly creatures which are highly polarizing by trying too hard to be different. Node-Operator-PFPs should be unifying, beautiful and meaningful.

Enough words - please look at the image I sent. Here we go:The first 10K Node-Operator-NFTs show a beautifully colored, abstract pattern. On it, a white circle with the word “NO” is shown where the abstract lines meet. This is short for “Node Operator” (= staker) but is not obvious as such at first sight. This is meant to intrigue the audience and lead them to questions like “Why are they saying NO?” or “What do they object to?”. Well, maybe we are objecting to centralization? But that does not need to be spelled out in the image - it will get clearer over time or on the viewer’s further investigation of the stakers profile or posts.

For the staker the mesh pattern of the artwork feels connecting and uniting. It will give them a sense of community with other stakers. I have also uploaded an example picture of how this would look in real world scale on a twitter feed.

In the overview-picture I uploaded you see the time progression from left to right. The more years the node operator stakes, the more the network pattern grows. Additionally the number of NOs goes up representing the number of years staked (plus pre-merge). Therefore, the more nodes (white circles) are shown the higher the status of the staker.

There are many more aspects imaginable to let it evolve over time (e.g. starting greyish and then becoming more colorful) but I leave it at this for now.

The parameters to play with in the initial mint phase will be color and shape. These two parameters already yield an easily sufficient amount of combinations which will each be individual but equally beautiful to look at.

The images you see have been generated using MidJourney. If this proposal is accepted I would be delighted to generate all 10K images from a 3D engine to have maximum flexibility and control over every aspect.

As a staker and strong believer in the necessity of public goods I wouldn’t feel comfortable being reimbursed for this project. In case I make one of the prize places I would like you to either allocate my share to other winners or help funding your next project with it.

Thank you for the opportunity to take place in this proposal round.

Happy staking!

- Oooly