With more people than ever working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the market for Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) saw its largest ever increase of ~27% in 2020 according to a report by Global Industry Analysts, Inc. For privacy-conscious internet users, it’s clear that a good VPN is worth paying for.
For some, it’s even a bit more than that. A new project called SpiderVPN has taken a more decentralized approach to VPN services by offering users a VPN router which not only improves their own privacy, but also enables them to get paid for renting out their bandwidth in order to help other internet users get high-performance VPN service as well.
This unique value proposition has caught on fast, enabling the network of VPN routers to expand and continuously improve the performance of the VPN network as it does so. Now, the team behind SpiderVPN is preparing to launch a novel DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) that can be robust and resilient against the adversity often faced by privacy-focused organizations in the Digital Age.
Adding to that, we have learned that CEO Nathan Varty will be a recipient of a Web3 grant to support further development of the project. That serves as further proof that the decentralized VPN network and the new DAO governance model can play important roles in the advancement and adoption of decentralized protocols globally.
A New DAO Governance Model
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations are an innovative governance structure that enables communities to self-organize such that they can collectively own and manage resources without a centralized authority or hierarchy, whilst maintaining accountability, agility, and transparency in their decision-making processes.
There are several prominent DAOs in the cryptocurrency world today, including Maker, Aragon, and Decred. However, the concept is still quite nascent, and we are still learning about ways that DAO structures can be improved. In particular, there are some issues with today’s DAOs:
- Plutocracies: proof of stake-based systems give voting rights proportionally to tokens owned, enabling just one or a few “whales” to have significant influence over decision making.
- “Dark DAOs”: entities that use smart contracts and market manipulation to undermine trust in voting systems and eventually take control of them.
SpiderDAO is introducing a dual-governance model that addresses these issues. To cast a vote in the SpiderDAO governance system, users will need a high-performance SpiderConnect Router connected to the Spider Virtual Private Network, as well as some SPDR tokens staked. Each router gives its owner one vote in the network. Meanwhile, safeguards are in place to prevent individuals from hoarding routers in order to gain more voting rights, preventing the formation of plutocracies.
In addition to their voting rights, the SpiderConnect Routers will automatically be integrated with the decentralized SpiderVPN (dVPN) service, enabling owners to use the internet with anonymity and enhanced security, plus a host of other premium features including network monitoring, IP filtering / blocking, kill switch control, geo filtering for gamers, Deep Packet Inspection (DPI), and ad blocking techniques.
Meanwhile, funding for the SpiderDAO will be accumulated in SpiderVault, where it can be used for improving the greater Spider ecosystem as voted on by the DAO members. 2% of all proceeds generated by services of the DAO, such as SpiderVPN, will automatically go to the Vault.
Utility of the SPDR ERC-20 Token
On top of voting rights in the SpiderDAO governance system, SPDR tokens will also provide access to the SpiderDashboard, which has the following features:
- The SpiderMarket for buying and selling bandwidth
- The SpiderDAO governance system
- Hardware management
- VPN rewards
- Liquidity mining
- A wallet for sending and receiving tokens
- Access to more future products
60% of the SPDR token supply will initially be designated for liquidity mining. Users who stake LP tokens (liquidity provider tokens such as UNI-V2 on Uniswap and BAL on Balancer) in the SPDR/ETH and SPDR/USDC liquidity mining pools will thus be able to unlock more of the token supply the longer they remain active in the liquidity mining program.
Importantly, SpiderDAO is introducing a Liquidity as Utility (LAU) model which allows users to simultaneously participate both in liquidity mining and in the DAO governance, differentiating it from other liquidity mining programs which typically don’t allow for tokens to be staked elsewhere while in the liquidity mining pools.
The SPDR Token & Earning Rewards
While SpiderVPN continues to grow and more people earn revenue with their routers, the SPDR Token has also started out well. It was the first token ever on Polkastarter, a DEX built for cross-chain token pools and auctions, with a 200k SPDR Token Liquidity Pool on Polkastarter selling out in the first 20 seconds and a 500% price increase in the first day of trading.
Meanwhile, liquidity miners are earning an astonishing 800% APY (annual percentage yield) through the LAU model at the time of writing, which is sure to attract more attention in the coming months.
Strategic Sale Details
The SPDR Token Strategic Sale started on December 15th. Tokens are sold at a price of $0.02 USD, with a total available supply of 100,000,000 tokens.
