It’s been over a year since several passionate crypto enthusiasts, DeFi degens, developers, and art aficionados came together and founded the Syncronauts DAO to build and govern decentralized solutions for an open and including web3 space.

Unfortunately, centralized NFT marketplaces were too powerful during that time, and solid alternatives were hard to find. So, the Syncronauts DAO decided to build a decentralized NFT marketplace for the community by the community, where people come together and make strong bonds without restrictions and where the future is shaped by the DAO’s consensus and not by a management team. A marketplace where the revenue stays within and gets shared with the web3 community. The idea for NeonRain was born, and since then, we’ve been working on it.

Today, We Proudly Announce That NeonRain’s MVP Is Live!

MVP what? MVP is a minimum viable product, and it basically means having a fully functioning marketplace with minimum features required to run successfully. In other words, start using NeonRain right now and expect many more awesome features to be added! But, looking at the features we’ve already built in, it’s more than an MVP:

• One home for all your NFTs
  Showcase all your NFTs on NeonRain, even those from other platforms
• Trade together
  List your NFTs for sale or auction them off with a 24-hour timer triggered upon the first bid
• Earn crypto by sharing your profile
  Receive 20% of the trading fees directly into your wallet whenever a referred user trades, fully automated and forever
• Viva la communication
  Follow users for future applications like activity feeds, and communicate directly on the marketplace
• NFT Collection Lists
  Use the CLEAR ranking system to quickly identify the authority of an NFT collection based on community consensus instead of centralized mechanisms
• Your Smart Contract, your rules
  Mint your NFTs on your own Smart Contract or import existing collections
• Multichain support
  NeonRain supports Ethereum, Arbitrum and Polygon right from the start; more blockchains to be added

NeonRain V2: Let’s Take a Look at the Future

You’ve read what we’ve already got in place, but what features have we planned next? So, without further delay, here we go:

Important Basics

• ERC-1155 and gas-optimized ERC-1155A support
• 3D model and iFrame NFT support

The Fancy Stuff

• Enhanced profile customizations and an about me page to be filled with rich information and youtube videos like making-ofs
• Activity feeds to receive real-time updates about the activities of people and projects you follow
• More communication features, for example, to engage with your NFT holders directly
• More visibility for creators to increase your sales, *ka-ching*
• Last but not least, features and improvements based on community feedback

Ready to Discover NeonRain?

You likely want to jump in and check neonrain.io, but where to start? Here are a few things you should do first:

1. Visit the website neonrain.io and bookmark it
2. Connect your wallet and set up your profile
3. Import your existing collection to NeonRain or drop a new one and enhance it with a beautiful description, logo, and banner
4. Update your link tree and include your NeonRain profile link
5. Share your NeonRain profile link in your social media channels
6. Earn crypto fully automated and forever

Give Us Feedback

As said in the beginning, NeonRain is built by the community for the community. Therefore, your feedback is essential to us, so please jump into our Discord server and let us know about your experience. What worked well, and what can we improve?

Also, don’t miss our customized virtual gallery on oncyber, provided by Art Unchained. We are looking forward to meeting you there.

Enter NeonRain, the community-owned, decentralized social NFT marketplace open for anyone and anything!

NeonRain MVP Live! was originally published in SYNC Network on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Get Ready for NeonRain’s Virtual Gallery

We are currently preparing NeonRain’s virtual gallery using the community’s favorite gallery provider oncyber to present all 30 winners of NeonRain’s Artist Contest, which has recently concluded. Have a look at the winners here:

NeonRain Artist Contest Winners Part 2/2

Delegate Your Winning NFT Artwork

If you’re one of the 30 winners, we’ll need your help to place your artwork in NeonRain’s gallery. The way oncyber works, you’ll need to allow us to display your NFT in the gallery with a so-called delegation. We’ve prepared a google doc to streamline the process and keep track of the current state. So, please follow these steps:

• Open this Google doc: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oSR7s84B2-wSv_M2_V36VLUhyrhL4kBoThg0BuGnab0/edit?usp=sharing
• Search your name in col A and then add the wallet containing the winning NFT artwork in col B (if your NFT has been sold or transferred, the wallet of the current owner needs to be added)
• Check within a few hours if your delegation link has been added in col C or reach out to RockRuna if not
• Click the link in col C and confirm the delegation, which allows NeonRain to place your NFT in the gallery (make sure you are connected to oncyber with the same wallet as written in col B, else the link won’t work)

• NeonRain will confirm the delegation status in col D and update the status in col E once your artwork has been added to the gallery

If you run into problems or have questions about the artwork integration, please send a DM to RockRuna on Twitter. For questions about oncyber, we recommend checking out their comprehensive FAQ.

We plan to publish the gallery once all NFT artworks have been added.

Remember, the 6529 team will add the gallery to OM’s Alpha Zone district, which we’re super excited about, especially as it gives an excellent visibility boost to the artists. If you missed that, read the announcement here:

NeonRain Goes OM

At the same time, we’re also integrating the winning artworks into NeonRain’s front page. So, stay tuned for more news and follow us on Discord and Twitter.

NeonRain Artist Contest: oncyber Gallery Preparation was originally published in SYNC Network on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Let’s Celebrate the 30 Artist Contest Winners

We’re super excited to announce all the 30 winners of NeonRain’s Artist Contest. With that, the contest comes to an end but your art will live forever. All NFT artworks will be displayed in NeonRain’s virtual gallery which will be accessible within OM’s Metaverse. Some artworks will also be integrated on NeonRain’s website as part of the design. We’ll keep you posted in the coming week about the next steps.

10 Community Champion Winners

Based on community and Syncronauts DAO voting

The community voted in our Discord to determine the 20 community champions based on the most votes received. Next, the Syncronauts DAO voted for 10 of these 20 champions to become the community champion winners. They will be integrated on NeonRain’s website and displayed on NeonRain’s virtual gallery, which will be accessible in OM.

NeonRain Goes OM

NeonRain Gallery Winners

Based on Syncronauts DAO voting

After the Community Champion voting ended, the Syncronauts DAO took over a curation role and voted again to determine the top 20 from all over 360 sent-in artworks, that won a slot in NeonRain’s gallery. The top 5 of these 20 also received the Emerging Artist Bonus, which grants them both the placement in NeonRain’s gallery and the integration on NeonRain’s website.

5 Emerging Artist Bonus Winners

We decided to use Discord and Snapshot for these reasons: We voted in Discord first to get down to a smaller number because we can’t add all the ~360 artworks as voting option in Snapshot. Then, we vote in Snapshot as this enables the DAO members to use their voting power based on the amount of Genesis Syncronaut NFTs held.

15 NeonRain Gallery Winners

What Is the Syncronauts DAO?

Together, the Syncronauts DAO builds and governs NeonRain, the community-owned, decentralized social NFT marketplace open for anyone and anything.

• Everyone who owns at least one of the 777 Genesis Syncronaut NFTs is a DAO member
• 100% of the revenue generated by the marketplace goes to the DAO and the community
• DAO members propose and vote on upcoming features

Join the Syncronauts DAO today by getting your own Genesis Syncronaut NFT here:

• gem: https://www.gem.xyz/collection/genesis-syncronauts/
• OpenSea: https://opensea.io/collection/genesis-syncronauts
• LooksRare: https://looksrare.org/collections/0x505A12c23FdC8F80cA4a1A3000CD39636c927128

Stay tuned for more news and follow us on Discord and Twitter.

NeonRain Artist Contest Winners Part 2/2 was originally published in SYNC Network on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

It’s Time to Celebrate the First 10 Winners

Today we’re super excited to announce the first 10 winners of NeonRain’s Artist Contest. In a few days we’ll also announce the 20 winners of the virtual gallery slot, but first, let’s recap a bit. When we started this contest on May 20, we hoped to get at least 20 entries, and then the community hit us like a full steam space machine: over 360 artworks have been created for this contest; let that sync in!

At this point, we want to thank you all for participating, this shows how powerful the art community is, and we’re proud the be a part of it. For the Syncronauts DAO/NeonRain, it’s essential to support artists on all levels, provide them with tools to increase visibility and sales, and ultimately, allow them to do more of what they love in decentral and independent ways.

Your Artwork Will Be Seen by So Many Eyes

First, the community voted in our Discord to determine the 20 community champions based on the most votes received. Then, the Syncronauts DAO had to vote for 10 of these 20 champions to win this first part of the contest. Now all steps are done, and we’re happy to announce the 10 winners who will be integrated on NeonRain’s website AND displayed on NeonRain’s virtual gallery, which will be accessible in OM. If you don't know what OM means, well it’s breathtaking, so please read our recent announcement below.

NeonRain Goes OM

We Proudly Present You the First 10 Winners

Congratulations to all who participated, be proud of yourself! As always, stay tuned for more news and make sure to follow us on Discord and Twitter.

NeonRain Artist Contest Winners Part 1/2 was originally published in SYNC Network on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

NeonRain Gallery Nominations

To determine the winners of the 20 additional curated gallery slots, the Syncronauts DAO first voted for their favorites in Discord using the astronaut emoji. This voting has ended today. After excluding the community champions and counting all the votes, we have 22 entries that made it to the final Snapshot voting. 22 because there were several with the same amount of votes.

Now the DAO will vote again in Snapshot to determine the 20 gallery slot winners. The top 5 will also win the emerging artist bonus and get integrated on NeonRain’s website. The deadline is Thursday, June 30, at 10:00 am PST.

We decided to use Discord and Snapshot for these reasons: We voted in Discord first to get down to a smaller number because we can’t add all the ~360 artworks as voting option in Snapshot. Then, we vote in Snapshot as this enables the DAO members to use their voting power based on the amount of Genesis Syncronaut NFTs held.

We Proudly Present the 22 Nominated Artworks

Stay tuned for more news and follow us on Discord and Twitter.

NeonRain Artist Contest: Final Voting was originally published in SYNC Network on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Welcome to the Final Phase: The DAO Voting

Yesterday we announced the 20 artworks that made it into the final phase based on community voting. Therefore, we call them the community champions. In this last phase, the Syncronauts DAO will vote in two parts:

• DAO Voting Based on community champions
• DAO Voting for the curated gallery

When all the votes are cast, the winners will consist of 15 artworks that we will feature on both the NeonRain Marketplace and the virtual NeonRain OM Gallery. In addition, we’ll also have another 15 artworks that will be exclusively displayed in the gallery.

NeonRain Artist Contest Phase 2 Ended

Below we’ll inform you how exactly the DAO voting runs, but first, let’s answer a question for our new community members.

What Is the Syncronauts DAO?

Together, the Syncronauts DAO builds and governs NeonRain, the community-owned, decentralized social NFT marketplace open for anyone and anything.

• Everyone who owns at least one of the 777 Genesis Syncronaut NFTs is a DAO member
• 100% of the revenue generated by the marketplace goes to the DAO and the community
• DAO members propose and vote on upcoming features

Join the Syncronauts DAO today by getting your own Genesis Syncronaut NFT here:

• gem: https://www.gem.xyz/collection/genesis-syncronauts/
• OpenSea: https://opensea.io/collection/genesis-syncronauts
• LooksRare: https://looksrare.org/collections/0x505A12c23FdC8F80cA4a1A3000CD39636c927128

Let’s go back to how the Syncronauts DAO will run phase 3.

1) DAO Voting Based on Community Champions

The Syncronauts DAO will vote using Snapshot, an Ethereum-based voting platform. All 20 artworks from phase 2 are now up for voting. The 10 artworks with the most votes received after phase 3 ends will win the NeonRain website and gallery slots.

• Voting is now open and ends Monday, June 27, at 10:00 am PST
• Voting power is defined by the amount of Syncronauts held
• Each voter may spread voting power across any number of choices
• Each Syncronaut holder can vote here: https://snapshot.org/#/syncronauts.eth/proposal/0xb64a1708d5f675d2a35f642ac892b373de95d7de5f7396dbf6791de54608a74a

2) DAO Voting for the Curated Gallery

In this step, the DAO will be curating 20 additional artworks from ALL Artist Contest entries that will be displayed in NeonRain’s virtual gallery in OM. This also includes the emerging artist bonus, so the top 5 with the most votes will also be integrated on NeonRain’s website.

The Syncronauts members will first vote in Discord. Then the 20 winners will go to Snapshot. There we will vote again to determine the top 5 to be integrated on NeonRain’s website.

• Voting limited to Syncronauts in Discord is now open and ends Friday, June 24, at 10:00 am PST
• Syncronauts have to click the astronaut emoji to vote
• Snapshot voting will follow after the deadline above, we will do a separate announcement
• Snapshot voting also ends on Monday, June 27, at 10:00 am PST

For this part and the surprise moment, we had to prepare some steps:

• We’ve changed the #art-contest-voting channel in our Discord to be visible only for verified Syncronaut NFT holders
• Once the voting has ended, we’ll make this channel public again

That’s it, so stay tuned for more news and follow us on Discord and Twitter.

NeonRain Artist Contest Phase 3 Starts was originally published in SYNC Network on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Community Has Voted for Their Top 20

NeonRain’s community voting has ended, and we’ll announce the 20 artworks that made it to the last phase below. This week, the Syncronauts DAO will vote for 10 of those 20, plus 5 artworks from ALL entries to be integrated on NeonRain’s website and the NeonRain gallery in OM.

The Syncronauts DAO will also vote for additional 15 artworks from ALL entries to be added to NeonRain’s gallery in OM. So ultimately, we’ll have 15 artworks on NeonRain’s website AND the OM gallery and additional 15 artworks in NeonRain’s gallery in OM.

We’ll now prepare all the steps to run phase 3 and will announce once it has officially started. Meanwhile, please enjoy the top 20 artworks based on community voting (random order).

We are so grateful for all the incredible sent-in artworks, you are awesome! Stay tuned for more news tomorrow and make sure to follow us on Discord and Twitter.

NeonRain Artist Contest Phase 2 Ended was originally published in SYNC Network on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Artists, We’ve Got a Big Surprise for You

While the community is voting for their favorite artworks, we’ve connected with the incredible 6529 team, the creators of OM. OM is a decentralized open metaverse, a digital city where you can walk around and visit spectacular virtual galleries together with your friends.

Thanks to the OM team, NeonRain will open its first virtual gallery there, and we will display 30 of all sent-in artworks from NeonRain’s Artist Contest in this gallery.

Your Artwork in NeonRain’s Virtual Gallery

All 15 Artist Contest winners that will be displayed on NeonRain’s website will be shown in the gallery too. On top, the Syncronauts DAO will select 15 additional artworks from all entries, so a total of 30 artworks will be exhibited.

With this action, we’ll ensure that as many talented emerging artists as possible will get more visibility. We also decided to add 2 more slots to the “Emerging Artists Bonus”, so the DAO will select 5 instead of 3 artworks from all entries to be placed on NeonRain’s website.

Phase 1

• 3 weeks to create artwork and enter the contest (done)

Phase 2

• 1 week for the community to vote (deadline June 18, 23:59h pm PST)
• The 20 artworks with the most votes at the end of phase 2 will go to phase 3

Phase 3

• 1 week for the DAO to vote for 10 winners from phase 2
• Emerging Artist Bonus: the DAO will select 5 additional winners amongst all entries

Winners

• All 15 Artist Contest winners will be integrated on NeonRain’s website AND the gallery in OM
• The DAO will vote for 15 more artworks from all entries to be displayed in just the gallery

We are very grateful for all the participants and wish you good luck. Meanwhile, you’ll want to check out OM, so please have a look at this beautiful virtual city: https://oncyber.io/6529om. If you want to learn more about the project, please visit their website: https://6529.io/om.

NeonRain Goes OM was originally published in SYNC Network on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Phase 2: Community Voting Starts Now!

Woooooooow!! We’re blown away and speechless! When we started the contest three weeks ago, we hoped to get at least 20 entries. Today we officially end phase 1 with… wait for it… unbelievable 365 sent-in artworks!

We’ve had to disqualify some artworks that clearly missed the requirements. We’ve tried to be as open as possible while also strict enough to be fair to those who followed the rules. Thanks for your understanding.

Now we’re officially in phase 2, the community voting. This phase runs for one week and ends on June 18, 11:59h pm PST. At the end of phase 2, the top 20 artworks with the most votes will get into phase 3 (see the post below for details).

NeonRain Artist Contest

Now Go Vote for Your Favorite Artworks

1. Join our Discord server discord.gg/sync
2. Visit the #art-contest-voting channel
3. Click the ☔-umbrella emoji below every artwork that you like

Share Your Top Favorite On Twitter

Once you’ve voted, please tweet your number one favorite with the hashtag #NeonRainContest. We recommend visiting the artist’s Twitter profile and retweeting a tweet containing the artwork. This way, you’ll also directly support the artist.

Let’s go vote!

P.S. if your artwork is not listed in the #art-contest-voting channel, we most likely had to disqualify you. If you have questions, please get in touch with us on Twitter (@Neonrain_io).

NeonRain Artist Contest Phase 2 was originally published in SYNC Network on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

But What About Inflation? A Deep Dive

If you’re familiar with defi, you know about high yield rates from staking or farming on various platforms. Those who have been in defi long enough, you’ve experienced how those returns can diminish or disappear almost overnight. Most staking tokens are built on hollow foundations of hype and rely on FOMO Ponzi scheme tactics, ultimately leading to collapse. This is where SYNC Network’s CryptoBonds differ from traditional yield farms. SYNC was built with three main principles: Security, Longevity, and Scalability while maintaining a high-yielding staking protocol. While some farms develop astronomical interest rates based on sketchy unsustainable mechanics, the CryptoBond smart contract acts like a humanless, greedless, and trustless autonomous central bank, constantly adjusting and correcting parameters to the underlying economy. A central bank’s primary purpose is to regulate interest rates to control inflation. When corruptible humans are removed from the decision-making process, it’s incredible how well this can function and is a testament to the still-stable Sync economy one and a half years later.

At first glance, from the untrained eye, a crypto investor might speed read over some of the tokenomics intricacies and conclude this will be a token with high inflation. Many do not fully understand words and phrases like elastic supply or dynamic demand-based interest rates because they are mistaking SYNC for being similar to other projects that use the same buzzwords. Let’s dive in and see what these terms mean and how the tokenomics behind SYNC Network and CryptoBonds work.

What Does “Elastic Supply” Mean?

Circulating supply is the number of tokens in circulation at a given time. An elastic supply means that an economy could both inflate and deflate.

SYNC tokens are needed to create every CryptoBond. When a user stakes, the tokens are burned from the total supply until the user chooses to mature the stake. This reduces the circulating supply. When a stake (CryptoBond) is matured, the original amount of SYNC tokens used to create the CryptoBond are reminted along with interest; this increases the circulating supply.

Why Is That Important?

The increase and decrease in circulating supply is the main driving factor for the Reward (interest) rate algorithm. As stakes are created, the available supply is reduced. This reduction correlates to the same reduction in the daily interest rates available for staking. As stakes mature, more tokens come into the market; thus, interest rates rise, creating a higher incentive to stake, thus reducing supply in an ever-lasting supply and demand cycle. The fluctuating rates allow for algorithmic self-balancing of the supply to demand of the currency. This model also maintains system inflation control with any scale of users—all done without a single human input, all trustless via the smart contract.

Let’s Reiterate: When the CryptoBond contract matures and mints more SYNC into the economy, the interest rate adjusts automatically so that the next buyer offsets that inflation when they are incentivized to stake and thus burn SYNC.

What Is Inflation, and How Can It Be Mitigated?

Let’s talk about traditional systems first before going into crypto economies. Standard inflation is defined as “the rate of increase in prices over a given period. Inflation is typically a broad measure, such as the overall increase in prices or the increase in the cost of living in a country.” We (the world population) are currently living through a point in history with very high inflation. Now, instead of looking at the effect of inflation from a vantage point of increasing prices, look at this in terms of the money and not the goods it can purchase.

When prices rise, the money you have cannot purchase the same amount of goods. You can look at this as prices went up but let us think of this as your money lost value (purchasing power). In a rapidly inflating economy, people are incentivized to spend their money as fast as possible on actual tangible goods and services before it is worth far less. When the supply of goods and services remains constant or decreases, compounded with the ability to borrow money at near 0%, this results in an out-of-balance economy where there are more dollars compared to the ratio of dollars in circulation to available goods for consumption. When this occurs, money rapidly loses value.

To fight this inflation, a central bank should raise lending rates to balance people’s demand to spend and increase their incentive to save money. When people save money, it comes out of circulation, lowering inflation. There are many ways inflation can be curbed: lower government spending, less consumer activity, higher taxes (controversial) — but they all share one thing in common: decreasing the circulating supply. This central banking model is used by most countries globally (this is a rudimentary explanation). In a healthy economic system, rates should rise and fall with money circulation and inflation, but this function of financial stability was abandoned decades ago.

How Does Traditional Inflation Relate to Cryptocurrency?

This is probably what you are asking yourself right now. This system was analyzed and scrutinized to fix it and maintain scalable economic sustainability. SYNC Network has built its tokenomics for longevity to always balance interest rates to inflation. Smart contract auto-balancing based on the supply and demand of the currency provides a scalable solution to mitigate inflation. The contract will raise interest rates forever into the future until somebody stakes and burns that SYNC. If that sounds like it will forever inflate, you underestimate how badly people want to make money. Investors flock in as the interest rates on CryptoBonds get higher, and once they secure those interest rates, they go down again.

The CryptoBond Smart Contract acts as an “automated central bank” pertaining to interest rates (a primary driver of inflation) except with many vital differences and upgrades to sustainability. Centralized banking and most staking cryptocurrency platforms derive their interest rates out of thin air. Rates were created because a few select individuals (central bankers, founders of crypto projects) say that’s what it should be.

Fed: “Make the rates X %.”

Reality Talking: “umm, but why? That makes no sense.”

Fed: “BECAUSE I SAID SO!!”

( obvious satire, but the truth isn’t too far off. Corruption is human.)

The SYNC CryptoBond Smart Contract relies on the real-time supply and demand of users’ interaction to calculate the correct interest rates. Autonomously balancing the liquid/circulating supply of sync on the market with the incentive to remove sync from circulation and stake it.

Anti-Inflation Mechanics?

The SYNC token supply can only inflate if stakes are matured (unstaked / claimed). If something can be unstaked, it means it has been locked for a minimum of 90 days, and the liquidity contained within has been at work for those 90 days facilitating DeFi trading.

Inflation occurs when new tokens come into existence from the maturing of stakes. This increase in supply over the original stake increases inflation. When this inflation occurs, the smart contract adjusts the interest rate to create a higher incentive to stake.

What Is the Current Inflation Rate of the SYNC Network Token?

SYNC Network launched the SYNC token and CryptoBond Smart Contract in September 2020. The original supply was set at 205 million tokens. After one and a half years, the current supply is about 156 million. Currently SYNC token is ~24% Deflationary from when we started the project. After hundreds of stakes have matured and hundreds are still staked and many more are being made daily, the theory of demand, the self-balancing economy, is no longer a theory and is a proven battle-tested model now. SYNC Network has survived the DeFi winter, and we’ve watched many projects come and go, yet the majority of CryptoBonds are in the green. The SYNC token has proven not to be inflationary by nature, and stay tuned for CryptoBonds V2!

For more information visit Syncnetwork.io

Security, Longevity & Scalability was originally published in SYNC Network on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.