SafeStake

<h2 id="header-0">The Year In Review</h2>Time travels fast with another year end upon us. It is an understatement to say that 2023 was a challenging year for the entire crypto/web3/blockchain industry. The fundraising record hits the lowest figure in history. But, we are grateful to be starting to see the light of dawn after a long, dark night.In just the past month, the price of Bitcoin ($BTC), one of the biggest overall market indicators and influencers,  has significantly recovered from its ATL back at the beginning of 2023, recently breaking north of $43K. With more than ten leading industrial asset managers (including major players like Blackrock and ArkInvestment) submitting applications to the SEC for $BTC ETFs.  The future looks bright, and people appear eager to see the SEC grant at least some of the ETFs in early 2024. At SafeStake, we are excited for the forward momentum that the next bull run is expected to bring in the new year!2023 was also challengingfor SafeStake, however, the team stayed focused and was extremely productive. From a technical and product standpoint, the dev team achieved several major milestones, with the biggest being the successful delivery of the cutting-edge <a href="https://github.com/ParaState/SafeStakeOperator/tree/main" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">SafeStake Operator Node.</a>We are proud to say that this open source package is the first Ethereum validation client natively integrated with DVT (Distributed Validator Technology), and the only DVT solution that 1) is written in Rust; and 2) utilizes HotStuff (instead of iBFT/qBFT) for operator committee consensus. These key differences not only enhance the security and resilience of SafeStake but also contribute to its superior performance compared to other DVT platforms.Our <a href="https://explorer-testnet.safestake.xyz/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">public testnet</a> (Galileo) has been running stably on Goerli for the better part of a year, with more than 50 professional operators and staking service providers joining and participating in the permissionless network. Together, these professional operators will provide the foundation for SafeStake when it launches on Ethereum mainnet in February 2024. Finally, the smart contracts that power the SafeStake network were reviewed by the Nethermind team, with a <a href="https://github.com/peckshield/publications/blob/master/audit_reports/PeckShield-Audit-Report-SafeStake-v1.0.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">final audit</a> by PeckShield following. We are excited to say that all issues that were found (there were only 5 - none critical) have been resolved or mitigated, marking the final step in getting the smart contracts ready for prime time.From a marketing and business development standpoint, it was also a busy and productive year, with the team focusing on building relationships with key strategic partners and expanding brand awareness for SafeStake. As part of these efforts, we traveled to some exciting places and sponsored some amazing events. In July, the team was in Paris for EthCC 6, where SafeStake was a Silver sponsor.  In autumn, we sponsored and participated in several events, including Mainnet 2023 in NYC, followed by the Staking Rewards Staking Summit and EthStaker’s Staking Gathering in Istanbul. Our presence at these events combined with excellent marketing and communications has helped the SafeStake project get the recognition it deserves from both  peers and major players in the ETH staking industry.<h2 id="header-1">2024 OKRs</h2>In 2024, we expect that BTC will continue to lead the bullish momentum, especially with the anticipated approval of an ETF by the SEC in Q1. If this happens, Ethereum should finally catch up with the pace of BTC  sometime in Q3, assuming an ETH ETF also gains approval.Regarding Ethereum staking, our optimistic forecast (if an ETH ETF gets approved before Q3 2024) is that the staking ratio will reach 50% by the end of 2024. However, if an ETH ETF fails to gain SEC approval by Q3 2024, the forecast turns a bit more pessimistic, with the staking ratio reaching 50% by the end of 2025. With these things in mind, we are setting our 2024 OKRs (Objectives and Key Results)as follows:<ol><li>Short term OKRs (Q1/Q2 2024): Support 20-40 professional operators serving 2,000 - 3,000 mainnet Ethereum validators; Become one of the major DVT infra providers for the Lido DAO and its operators (Q2)</li><li>Mid term OKRs (Q3/Q4 2024): Support 60-100 professional operators serving 10,000 Ethereum mainnet validators (by end of 2024); Build a LST pool on top of the SafeStake DVT infra Launch the two tier staking features (Q3)</li><li>Long term OKRs (2025 and onward): Support 200-400 professional operators serving 50,000 to 100,000 mainnet validators. Researching for natively support <a href="https://www.gitbook.com/open/library/altlayer-1/altlayer-documentation" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Restaked Rollups</a> in the SafeStake Operator node.</li></ol><h2 id="header-2">How will we achieve these goals?</h2>The <a href="https://vote.safestake.xyz/#/proposal/0x68e5f259359a50829999665ab70259116c01a0cbe8cb6d85e65e9b283bef0799" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">$DVT Token Economics Governance vote</a> resulted in the decision to release the 26.56 million DVT currently in the Eco Treasury vault over time using a mechanism that operates on the game theory principle. These funds are currently stored in a Gnosis Safe <a href="https://etherscan.io/tx/0xa5956710bfb7449fd99eadaf742b1ab0a15a5110bc1fac2b0ff89298e14e6d37" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">multi-sigs vault</a> , with 3.6 million DVT currently allocated to the Incentive Program for User Acquisition. The team has also decided to allocate 10 million DVT for new fundraising purpose in the new year. Additionally, SafeStake is fortunate to have solid teams in dev, support, and marketing/business development.Our plans for the future success of SafeStake is logical and straightforward, based on the Occam’s razor principle and strategy that says all other things being equal, the simpler solution is better. Therefore, we will launch the SafeStake product on Ethereum mainnet and offer validators the most secure and resilient distributed validator (DVT) infrastructure available for mitigating single points of failure to maximize staking rewards and minimize penalties and slashing risks. SafeStake will be competitively priced at launch and into the future and we will expand our marketing efforts to increase awareness, while continuing to build relationships with key strategic partners.Then we will continue to improve the SafeStake product so it offers the most flexibility and accessibility for stakers and operators alike.We hope this sounds exciting to you because we cannot make it happen alone.  We need help from our valued community members and we thank each and every one of you for your loyalty and continued support. Now, we invite you to unite with us and join forces in a BIG way to achieve the goals we have set for the new year and beyond!!Stay tuned for AMAZING things happening at SafeStake!The SafeStake Team<a href="https://www.safestake.xyz/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Website</a> | <a href="https://medium.com/ethereum-on-steroids" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Blog</a> | <a href="https://twitter.com/SafeStakeDVT" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Twitter</a> | <a href="https://t.me/ParaState" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Telegram</a> | <a href="https://discord.com/invite/zFS3Mnfpwj" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Discord</a> | <a href="https://github.com/ParaState" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Github</a>

SafeStake Annual Review and 2024 OKR Outline

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