Is Freeloaderz Worth Your Time?
If you’re not involved in the project, you may be wondering if Freeloaderz is all hype. I mean, so what? There are thousands of projects on Cardano. Why is everyone so excited about this one? Glad you asked. While there are many projects on Cardano, Freeloaderz is revolutionary and is possible only because of the decentralized design of Cardano itself. Freeloaderz came about when the network slowed to a crawl as Sundae Swap rolled out. Several stake pool operators got together and found a way to relieve some of the congestion by providing URL API access to their relay servers.
Cardano, because of its design, has thousands of technically inclined stake pool operators who are both motivated and empowered to improve the network. We’ve grown accustomed to this, but let’s not take it for granted. What happens when there’s a problem in Solana? Central command has to shut it down. Cardano has no central command. Yes, IOHK still controls many things as the network is still under development. That will change over time when we move into the governance phase. However right now, the decentralized nature of the platform gives the community a plethora of opportunities.
Freeloaderz was born because of the motivation of Chris from SANTO pool and Ryan from PANL to improve network efficiency. They pursued an idea, put in the hard work and attracted others to the project. Freeloaderz is starting to grow exponentially from a simple problem / solution scenario into a not-for-profit DAO that will benefit the community for years to come. But Freeloaderz is only possible in a decentralized environment like Cardano. This is a great example of why, although sometimes decentralized networks governance can feel inefficient, they allow innovation that is simply impossible in other places.
The Freeloaderz project has already grown exponentially from its humble beginnings. They already have more than 50 participating SPO relay nodes. They also have two proposals in Catalyst F8 for a load balancer and a token distribution mechanism. They are not sitting on their hands waiting for Catalyst funding, however. The team has developed a python transaction script for mass air drops, called FreeDropz which in preliminary testing reduces transaction fees by over 90%.
An even more exciting project is SmartClaimz which is a novel reward distribution that intends to be the premier web3 app for deploying and claiming tokens on the Cardano network. We have all grown very accustomed to the two transaction process for claiming tokens- send your ADA to x address and receive tokens in return. This system works, but requires two separate steps. SmartClaimz completes the entire process in one transaction. As a result it reduces fees, network congestion and transaction delays. The public test net for this project is set to commence May 1, 2022.
Freeloaderz is implementing a DAO and FLZ, a governance token, which will allow the project to prosper in the long term. There will be 500 million total tokens. They intend to offer a bounty program to incentivize participation in the project. There will also be rewards for participating stake pools and contributors.
Freeloaderz Roadmap for 2022
There is a lot going on with this project and they are only getting started. Some of the best minds in the Cardano community are already donating their time and talents to Freeloaderz. At last count 12 developers are building with this group. If you are interested in learning more, you can check out the Freeloaderz website or discord.