Declaration：This is a simple analysis about Pocket Network which I think as a promising project to complete the blockchain and web3 stack.I am not a blockchain developer and an native English speaker, so there might be some mistakes in this article. Some ideas and statistics come from others' research, you can find the references at the end of this article. Not financial advice. Thanks a lot.

——NPC_Leo

Introduction:

Pocket Network is a decentralized blockchain API service built for Web3 apps, relaying data to and from any blockchain through a network of decentralized nodes. The Pocket Network protocol validates all relayed data and proportionally rewards the participating nodes with POKT.

For those Dapps and Blockchain users who need the full data of chain, instead of deploying to a single service provider, paying fees for random outages and leaked data, you can tap into Pocket’s trustless API protocol and route requests to over 10,000 independent full nodes. Pocket Network is available for all major blockchain networks.

In short:

1. Pocket Network is a decentralized version of Infura not just for Ethereum but multi blockchains.
2. If you understand the Graph Network or other similar services, Pocket Network can be the up-layer of it. Pocket Network could offer the raw data and Graph will make it into the Subgraph. Of course dapps and data users can also use Pocket Network directly.

Fundamentals：

1. 10,263 nodes right now. Increased by 2,000 nodes in October, which is a significant growth.
2. 2,049 Dapps use cases now. ( Till 2021.11.13 )
3. 10 chains support. Ethereum\Harmony\Solana\Avalanche\Bsc\xDai\Fuse network\Polygon\Iotex\Ferrum Network
4. 100m relays per days ( ATH is 200m relays ), 30 days average is 100m, the number rapidly increased in October, The unmber of relay almost reach 10% of Infura.
5. 20m POKT as revenue. ( The staking number of demand side )

Network Economics:

The economics of Pocket Network is the most brilliant part of its design ( other parts are also great ), I will quote the economics overview below:

Pocket Network requires both developers and nodes to stake its native utility token, POKT, to participate in the network. Nodes earn rewards for fulfilling API requests for developers on a per request basis. POKT is permanently inflationary, but total supply will be capped through a burning mechanism put in place by the DAO, who controls the monetary policy. The final total supply of POKT will be dictated by the DAO.

It means if someone needs RPC service, he will buy some POKTs and staked them, but also he will be rewarded with POKT from system inflation. He can also sell his staked share to market when he no longer needs it. When his staked share is less than the minimum of system required（due to the inflation ) , he need to buy more tokens to stake. The supply of POKT token depends completely on the demand for new API requests and sessions serviced by the nodes. No increasing demand, No new token. The amount of POKT will grow over time until the DAO caps the inflation upon maturity. The Inflation and the Burn Mechanism make POKT max amount stable, thus the system will stay balanced.

The monetary policy detail is clear and the total supply amount is also calculable with the relays increasing. There are 3 different phases, the Bootstrapping Phase, the Growth Phase, and the Maturity Phase.

1. In Bootstrapping Phase, there is an initial token amount of 650m. 0.01 POKT per validated Relay will be rewarded to the nodes, and all nodes share the rewards.
2. In the Growth Phase ( now we are at this stage ), the system is inflationary，there are two ways to stop it: the milestone way and the DAO's management. Now the inflation ratio is about 10%. (2020-2021, it depends on how many Relays needed by users ). The total supply of POKT is 700m now.
3. In the Maturity Phase, the system will burn POKT to offset the inflation, just like EIP 1599 and will give more income to the DAO.

The most complicated part of the monetary policy is how to calculate the totally supply of the Growth phase , because it depends on the Relays increaing and Dao's adjustment, you can check here to predict it with different parameters.( I can't fully understand it :) )

The demand side economics:

Demand side economic means how much you should pay if you want to use the service. Just like the above statement, you need to buy some POKTs to stake and will also get some POKT reward when the system is in the inflation phase.

The cost mainly depends on how many relays you need and the price of POKT. you can accumulate it with 0.75 $ （ the OTC price recently ) and the chart above if you are an DAPP developer.

The supply side（ node ) economics :

Pocket uses Proof-of-Stake (PoS) to secure the state machine and falls under the umbrella of generalized mining or useful proofs of work, where inflation is directly tied to work validated by the network. At least 15,000 POKT needed to run a node and get the reward by "proof of relay". Now the cost is about 12500 $ and apy is 30% based on recent relay times ( 0.75$ per POKT , 10k nodes ,100m relays each day).

Numbers of POKT token :

Total supply ( 2021.11.12 ) :712m

Initail supply: 650m

Current Market cap :500m $

Max supply : the amount of POKT will grow over time until the DAO caps the inflation upon maturity.

FDV: depends on the max supply

Staked POKT: 250m ( 35% of total supply. ), 26m is staked by Dapps, the other is staked by nodes.

Fundraising Info :

Pre-seed :75.4 million tokens were sold for $754k ($0.01 POKT price)

Seed 33.2 million tokens were sold for $1.3 million ($0.04 POKT price)

Pre-seed and seed investors have a 1-year lockup from the date of their purchase. Extra lockup for already expired agreements:

*Mainnet + 6 months: 50% unlock

*Mainnet + 12 months: 100% unlock

(Mainnet has launched on 28th July 2020)

Mainnet sale

Two sales for 57.9 million tokens:

*7.9 million tokens were sold for $474k ($0.06 POKT price)

*50 million tokens are being sold for $4 million ($0.08 POKT price).

Tokens are locked and staked for 21 days.

Final Thoughts：

1. Pocket Network makes blockchain and web3 stack more decentralized, but it still competes with centralized services like Infura which provides a free solution.
2. If users and Dapps of alt-chain booming, Pocket Network will have a big market with few competitors.
3. The price of POKT is a little expensive ( 0.75$, recent OTC price ), 70X of pre-seed, 20X of seed and 10-15X of mainnet sale. But in this crazy market, who knows？
4. Pocket's response speed of relay is slower than Infura due to the decentralization. ( A friend who works in Infura told me, maybe you can verify it by yourself )
5. Promising products delivery, nice UI/UX and explicit docs.
6. Pocket Network use case increased rapidly after launch ( about 8 months), but it's hard to evaluate. If Pocket network can keep this pace, its performance will reach 50% of Infura within 3-5 months ( now is 10% )
7. The current P/S ratio is 27X （ Total supply POKT / Demand side staked POKT ) .not bad.

End

Twitter: @NPC_Leo

wechat: luowei677329

References