VBL Proposal - 🧊 Iceberg Nodes 🧊 - December 2024 - Bifrost Polkadot Part

TL;DR

This proposal is to propose Iceberg Nodes to be added into the VBL (renewal) of:

• Bifrost Polkadot, for: vDOT, vGLMR, vBNC

Information

Name of node provider: Iceberg Nodes (or 🧊 Iceberg Nodes 🧊 as identity on-chain on most networks)

Brief Description on node provider: Iceberg Nodes provides secure non-custodial staking services on almost 35 different networks, in particular as validators on relaychains and collators on parachains of Polkadot and Kusama ecosystems. The team members are highly involved in community activities (offline and online events organization, speakers at events, managing communities), governance on-chain, and technical support to project teams during various phases of their roadmap.

Networks, number, and addresses of the nodes that want to join the Validator Boost List:

• Polkadot, n°1 validator:

  • Identity: "🧊 Iceberg Nodes 🧊/V4”, address: 15cow6Uoq1KtBvyvRetuX52M1DepVpfVmc8qrpqCWH9grHdq, Fee: 0-3% range depending on validator strategy, please note that it is set at 0% right now (we are providing our services to Bifrost with 0% fee)

• Moonbeam, n°1 collator (already included in the actual VBL):

  • Identity: "🧊 Iceberg Nodes 🧊", address: 0xCA98D4378393040408100f490bF98b03F5E7DeB7, Fee: fixed by the protocol.

• Bifrost, n°3 collator (already included in the actual VWL and as a result of Bifrost Kusama --> Bifrost Polkadot vBNC migration):

  • Identity: "🧊 Iceberg Nodes 🧊\C1", address: 14ices1G5qTmqhMfDVBECh4jotNDGTLu8fhE9YktWT3cLF2F, Fee: fixed by the protocol.
  • Identity: "🧊 Iceberg Nodes 🧊\C2", address: 139J8svWogi6Xbn4rfYnCBCwh7CQj6hRxmSaZQMhTGsB81s1, Fee: fixed by the protocol.
  • Identity: "🧊 Iceberg Nodes 🧊\C3", address: 15XY7oJ99hVscy5jS3zUh5M3H6sxfccovyTVCPt15DuXCRAF, Fee: fixed by the protocol.

Note: Due to a little issue that occurs on Subscan Explorer, sometimes our sub-identity is not displayed properly or not displayed at all on Polkadot and Kusama chains for the above addresses, but you can cross-check using another explorer or Polkadot JS.

Liquidity Contribution by VBL Applicant:

• Total token amount provided: 1000000 ASTR
  • Token amount provided to minting vToken: 1000000 ASTR
  • Plan to provide vToken liquidity:
    • Single token farming: 1000000 vASTR (on Astar Surge fueling the partnership between Bifrost and Astar)
    • LP Token - vToken: N.A.

Note: Liquidity contributions listed above must be intended as minimum amount. If we have availability, our target is to provide also more than those amounts. Anyway, any additional amount of tokens provided will be reported below this post, in this discussion on bifrost.subsquare.io.

Marketing - Informational support/contribution by VBL Applicant:

Iceberg Nodes is a co-founding member and/or admin in most Italian Telegram groups of the Italian community of Polkadot and Kusama ecosystems. The ecosystem is comprehensive of a series of Italian Telegram groups such as: Polkadot/Kusama Italia, Bifrost Italia, Astar & Shiden Italia, Moonbeam & Moonriver Italia, RMRK & Substrate NFT Italia, ChainX Italia, Acala & Karura Italia, Manta & Calamari Italia, Bit.Country & Pioneer Italia, KILT Italia, Totem Italia, OAK & Turing Italia, Aventus Italia, Pendulum & Amplitude Italia, Composable & Picasso Italia, Acurast Italia, etc.

Most of the groups above are “official groups” created by teams themselves and then assigned to us for managing and moderating.

Luca from Iceberg Nodes is active in the Italian community of Polkadot, and being the frontman was involved in tens of live video shows on YouTube, Spotify, Discord, etc., representing Polkadot. Michele from Iceberg Nodes is also helping with the Italian community sometimes, but he is mostly active in managing/helping people on international (official and unofficial) groups of the above projects.

Some of our previous initiatives supporting Bifrost:

• Administration of the Italian Telegram group of Bifrost (Bifrost Italia)
• One of the latest Bifrost Italia Community Live:
  • Announcement
  • Recording
• More than 10 different live video shows on YouTube as guest of most important Italian crypto influencers speaking about Polkadot with a concise focus on Bifrost liquid staking solution (more details on Luca Poggi’s X account: LucaPoggi7)
• Organized the offline event at Crypto Expò Milan (CEM) in which Christian was also supposed to participate, but due to an unexpected event, he was unable to attend and Luca Poggi, in addition to his part, spent some words also about Bifrost and its role in the ecosystem (Twitter Link)
• Organized the offline event at Blockchain Week Rome (BWR24), unfortunately again Christian cannot attend the event (Twitter Link)
• Iceberg Nodes x Bifrost Referral Program using the sample URL: https://bifrost.app/vstaking/vTOKEN?r=icebergnodes (where you can replace vTOKEN for any of Bifrost available vTokens)
• Tens of translations of most important Bifrost tweets via Polkadot Arena Twitter account (Polkadot Arena) and reposted on Bifrost Italia Telegram group
• Translation of some of Bifrost medium articles on Polkadot Arena Blog
• Already LSD liquidity providers due to our previous VBL applications

As BNC holders and one of the first Bifrost collators, our target is to continue to support Bifrost.

At the scope of this proposal, we can provide the following educational initiatives around Bifrost:

• Help in managing the Italian Telegram group of Bifrost (Bifrost Italia), Thomas is already there as supervisor.
• Recommend Bifrost among the various options as an alternative to native staking, during the various discussions in Telegram groups and Discord channels, in live videos, at IRL events and to any interested community member, in particular detailing how the platform works, the available stake/unstake methods, notes about the security and the various possible uses of vTokens.
• Organize live video-call on Bifrost Italia Telegram group (Bifrost Italia) about Bifrost and its services (the link to the recording will be included in the report).
• Any other initiative (optional) that will be carried out and of interest to Bifrost will be included in the report.

With such initiatives our main focus is to educate people about Bifrost's product and increase the Bifrost community and users!

Other:

• We will produce a final report coinciding with the next renewal proposal on bifrost.subsquare.io.
• We will do our best to ensure the nodes' performance. At the time of writing this proposal, we never had slashing on our Polkadot and Kusama validators, and on Moonbeam and Bifrost we are active since the beginning of the DPoS launch without a single round with 0 blocks produced or out of the active set, so 100% of rounds active (you can check on Subscan looking at the “Rewards” tab or any other monitoring tool for those chains).

Best Regards
🧊 Iceberg Nodes 🧊 Team