Last month, Lumoz announced the completion of a new round of strategic financing, with well-known traditional Mega Fund IDG and other capital participating in the investment, and it was only about a month since the completion of the Pre-A round of financing. Earlier, Lumoz revealed that it would sell nodes in the near future. At present, the sales volume has almost exceeded half, and the market response has been good. In the past few months, many high-quality projects have also carried out node sales. So why do many project parties with complete technical backgrounds have a special liking for node sales recently?

Node sales are popular, and the war is about to start

Node sales, a new token issuance model that can benefit many parties, are favored by many project parties and investors due to their flexibility, and have gradually become one of the popular financing methods on the market. For any decentralized network, a large number of nodes are needed to support it. Therefore, project parties can set a certain proportion of node token rewards (Node Rewards) in their Tokenmetric for node sales, and investors can obtain node token rewards by purchasing node mining.

So, how do we understand node sales? Let's start with the primary market and the secondary market, which we are more familiar with. The primary market is the primary channel for project parties to raise funds, and ordinary investors have almost no chance to participate in the primary market financing of high-quality projects. There is no threshold restriction in the secondary market, but the projects in the secondary market are often highly valued, which is a great test of investors' vision and investment research capabilities. Node sales can be simply understood as a 1.5-level market between the primary market and the secondary market. For project parties, the financing method of node sales is more flexible than that of the primary market, and for retail investors, they can participate in early investments at a lower valuation before the project is listed to obtain higher investment returns.

The influencing factors of node sales are similar to those of ordinary token sales. Therefore, when evaluating whether a project's node sales are worth participating in, in addition to the fundamental research of the project itself, you should also consider 1. The proportion of node token rewards 2. The release/redemption rules of node tokens 3. The release rules of other tokens, such as tokens used for ecological incentives, marketing, and most importantly - the release of team and investment institutions' shares.

Speaking with data: Some data references about Lumoz

Next, let's compare the current mainstream node sales projects in the market through data: Lumoz, Aethir, CARV and Sophon, and mainly explain why Lumoz stands out from the current node sales war from the perspective of expected returns.

Project Overview

• Lumoz: Focus on modular computing power layer &ZK-RaaS platform construction and technological innovation. Lumoz aims to simplify the use of ZK-Rollup and enhance universality, thereby promoting the large-scale deployment of application chains based on zkEVM. Developers can easily deploy their ZK-Rollup (zkEVM) on multiple chains. For miners, Lumoz is a multi-chain PoW protocol that supports mining on various public chains and generates zero-knowledge proofs for ZK-Rollups. The innovation of the modular computing power layer can be used to efficiently undertake idle computing power in the market, thereby providing modular computing power support for ZK-Rollups.

• Aethir: Scalable decentralized cloud infrastructure, building a GPU-based distributed computing infrastructure, breaking down barriers caused by hardware, and empowering AI and games.

• Sophon: A modular blockchain focused on the entertainment track based on zkSync. As a zkSync hyperchain leveraging the ZK Stack, Sophon is designed to be customized for any high-throughput application.

• CARV: The CARV protocol is a modular data layer that facilitates data exchange and value distribution between the gaming and AI fields. With the CARV protocol, everyone can now own, control, verify, and monetize their data, ensuring that privacy, ownership, and control remain firmly in the hands of individuals.

Basic data comparison

From the above node sales data panel, we can see that compared with the four mainstream projects, Lumoz and CARV are very generous in node token shares, both of which allocate 25% of their shares for node sales, while Aethir and Sophon's node tokens account for only 15% and 20% respectively. The most obvious impact on the price stability during the token release process is the release of the project team and the investment institution shares during the primary market financing.

From the perspective of token release rules, Lumoz's node tokens are linearly released in 36 months, and the investor shares of the two rounds of financing have a 6-month lock-up period and are released in 36 months; the team shares have a 12-month lock-up period and are released in 48 months. CARV's investor shares will be unlocked after 6 months of lock-up, and the team shares will be unlocked after 9 months of lock-up. Because its node token redemption period is 5 months, the node tokens will start to circulate earlier than the investor shares.

Aethir's team and investor shares have a 12-month lock-up period, but since 35% of the total GPU tokens are released simultaneously with the node tokens, the chips twice as many as the node tokens may bring inevitable inflationary pressure. In comparison, Lumoz and CARV, which have more generous node token distribution and more friendly release rules, may face a smaller inflation rate during the token unlocking process.

Expected rate of return and payback period analysis

Lumoz sales plan

• Node token reward distribution plan: By purchasing Lumoz zkVerifier node mining, you can get 25% of the total MOZ node token rewards

• Sales method:

• ETH payment, support Arbitrum network

• BTC payment, support Merlin Chain

• BNB/BTCB payment, supports BSC network

• USDT/USDC/ZKF (10% off) payment, supports Arbitrum, BSC and ZKFair Network

• Invitation mechanism for Lumoz node sales: Node buyers can get a discount by entering the invitation code at the time of purchase. The discount will not take effect immediately but will be refunded to the node buyer in the future. In addition, the inviter can also get a commission of up to 10%.

• Refund mechanism: 6 months after the Lumoz TGE, the refund window will open, and users can choose to return all produced tokens and NFTs and receive an unconditional refund of 80% of the payment amount.

Expected rate of return and payback period analysis for MOZ node token holders

The above is the specific plan for Lumoz node sales, with a maximum of 100,000 nodes and a total of 10 tiers. It can be seen that the price of zkVerifier nodes increases with the rounds, from 200USD in the first round to 704USD in the last round, and the node price increases by about 2.5 times. If all 100,000 nodes are sold, Lumoz will raise 40 million US dollars through node sales. For buyers of zkVerifier nodes, the total expected returns that can be obtained through mining include: sharing 40 million Lumoz Points (before TGE), 25% Lumoz tokens (after TGE), and airdrops of potential new Layer chains in the Lumoz ecosystem.

As the most important part of the return composition, here we only take out the MOZ node token reward to estimate the expected return of participating in the Lumoz node sale. At present, Lumoz has completed three rounds of financing, and in the third round of financing, Lumoz was valued at $300 million. Generally speaking, the market value of a project can reach 10 times the valuation of the previous round at the TGE, which is $3 billion for Lumoz, and the total value of 25% of the MOZ tokens is $750 million. However, considering the uncertainty of market sentiment and market fluctuations, as well as the influence of other uncontrollable factors, we conservatively estimate that based on a market value of $1 billion, the total value of 25% of the MOZ tokens is $250 million.

Further analysis of the cost shows that from tier1 to tier10, the node sales price increases by 15% in each round. If you participate in the purchase of tier 1, the cost of each node is $200; the cost of tier 3 is $265; the cost of tier 6 is $402; and the final cost of tier10 is $704. Here we only show the number of node tokens unlocked in the first 12 months, which is actually unlocked in 36 months.

The total supply of MOZ tokens is 10 billion

Estimated monthly token rewards: the cumulative value of rewards received by each node as of the current month

After the node sale is completed, the actual node mining income depends on the number of nodes online at the same time and the online time. As shown in the figure above, when there are 10,000 nodes online at the same time, each node can get 6,944 token rewards in the first month, and when there are 50,000 nodes online at the same time, the mining reward in the first month is reduced to 1,388 tokens. That is to say, the more nodes are online at the same time, the less token rewards each node can get.

The total time for all node rewards to be released is 36 months

Next, we can further estimate the yield of node mining. The table shows the expected monthly income that can be obtained in the first year of participating in node mining based on a valuation of 1 billion. Assuming that Xiao A, who is very lucky, successfully participates in the purchase of tier 1, his cost is 200U, then the green box in the above figure is the time for him to get back his investment. When the number of nodes online is 10,000, Xiao A's yield in just one month has reached 300%+, and in the third month it can reach 10 times the income ($2083). For Xiao B, who participated in the tier 6 node sales, the cost of purchasing a zkVerifier node is 402U, so Xiao B will also get back his investment in the first month and gain more than 150% of the profit. At the same time, within half a year, Xiao B can also get more than 10 times the profit ($4167) through node mining.

Compared with other projects, the payback period of XAI, which has set off this round of node sales, is about 4 months. CARV, which is most similar to Lumoz, although the value of the node tokens released in the first month is enough for tier 1 users to get back their investment, because the released veCARV tokens need to be redeemed into CARV before trading, if you want to redeem 1:1, you need to wait for a 150-day redemption period, so the payback period will also take at least 4-5 months.

In terms of airdrop rewards, buyers of zkVerifier nodes also have the opportunity to receive airdrop rewards from new chains supported by Lumoz, ecological partners (such as Merlin Chain, ZKFair), and investees. It is worth mentioning that the selling caused by token unlocking has caused the price expectations of both MERL and ZKF tokens to be almost at the bottom. With the reduction of selling pressure and the reversal of market sentiment, the expected airdrop rewards for Merlin and ZKFair, two high-quality projects with both technology, background and narrative, have made people look forward to Lumoz's node sales.

To get out, you must have strength and background

As a global distributed modular computing network, Lumoz is committed to providing advanced zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) services, supporting the development of Rollup networks, and providing powerful computing services for cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI). In response to the current challenge of high computing costs in the field of zero-knowledge computing, the Lumoz network has used its deep expertise in ZKP over the years to significantly improve computing efficiency through innovative optimization of circuits and algorithms. This effectively solves the high cost and low efficiency problems faced by Rollup projects and lowers the threshold for ordinary users to participate in the zero-knowledge computing market. On the other hand, Lumoz simultaneously launched a modular computing power layer to take over the excess computing power in the market and provide computing power support for its ZK-rollup.

At the same time, the zkVerifier node launched by Lumoz also brings unprecedented convenience to users. By simply running a lightweight node, users can easily perform ZK calculations and obtain corresponding rewards from the network. This innovative initiative will promote the widespread application of zero-knowledge computing technology and bring broader application prospects to the entire industry. Since 2022, Lumoz has supported more than 16 Rollup projects in the test network; achieved 20,002,146 transactions; the community size has reached 440,000 people; and from 2024, it will provide ZKP-related technical support for Merlin Chain (BTC L2), ZKFair (EVM L2), Orange Chain (BTC L2) and more than 20 upcoming new chains.

The hottest narrative, unique core technology and strong R&D capabilities have also made Lumoz favored by the capital market. In April, Lumoz just completed its Series A financing with a valuation of US$120 million, led by Polychain. In addition to OKX Venture, a top Crypto Native institution, other investors include traditional US dollar funds such as GGV and IDG Capital that have been active in the crypto market in recent years. Then at the end of May, Lumoz announced that it had completed a strategic round of financing with a valuation of US$300 million. The specific amount was not disclosed. The leading investors were IDG Blockchain, Gate Ventures, Blockchain Coinvestors and Xiayan Capital. The strong financing background undoubtedly adds a competitive edge to Lumoz's standing out in the node sales war.

Summary

Summer is coming, and we have also survived the "long" two-month bear market. At present, with the approval of ETH ETF and Trump's strong call for encryption, the market's expectations and consensus on the imminent return of the bull market are expected to reach a climax again. Based on experience, the market generally expects that the real climax of this round of bull market has not yet arrived, or at least it will reach the high point in March again. Driven by this optimistic sentiment, how can Lumoz, which has both topics, strength and background, not make people full of expectations?