This time around I’m going to refocus back on the Apollon project where I am a member of the management team.
If you want to know more about Apollon you can read about the project and the people behind it in my article — Apollon — Masternodes for the Masses.
But for the purposes of this article I am going to assume the reader is already familiar with the Apollon platform and project.
OK what’s this NodeVault thing all about then?
When Apollon released the Nodebuilder tool they did so without the one of the components they had been developing called the ‘Nodemonitor’. They did this to release the platform as soon as possible due to demand from their community and people who were excited to use the platform.
Since then people who follow me on Twitter, or follow the Apollon Twitter feed (https://twitter.com/apollonxap), will have noticed the team have been working on adding extra projects/coins to the platform at a furious rate. However during September the team decided it was time to also refocus efforts on putting in place a monitoring tool for the Apollon platform.
It was a member of the Apollon community (Jeian on Discord) who brought the potential solution to this challenge to the Apollon teams attention. Thanks Jeian!
The team took a look at the solution in question, loved it, and felt there was definitely an opportunity here to be explored to provide both parties exactly what they needed to move forwards.
Yeah great…. So who, or what, is it?….
As you have probably guessed by the title of this piece the solution was a mobile Masternode monitoring app - released only a few weeks previous called NodeVault.
Following discussions between the NodeVault and Apollon teams a way forward was identified to support the NodeVault app by allowing the app to utilise elements of the Apollon infrastructure and at the same time implement functionality within the NodeBuilder and NodeVault to make adding nodes to the monitoring tool as simple and efficient as possible for Apollon customers.
Wow! Sounds great. OK how do I get hold of it and use it?
OK, first off, you’ll need to sign up to the Apollon NodeBuilder software, register an account and setup your nodes on the platform — you can download the NodeBuilder here -https://apollon.one
Next, you’ll need to download the NodeVault app either on iOS or Android. The links to the relevant AppStore and Google Play stores pages are below:
AppStore — https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/nodevault-masternodes/id1434304882?mt=8
Google Play — https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nodevault
Adding your Apollon NodeBuilder nodes to the app is as simple as scanning a QR code. That is all there is to it! It’s that simple!
Within the NodeBuilder platform Apollon has added a new button to the Deployments page of the software:
QR code button within the Nodebuidler
Clicking this button will generate a QR code which, when scanned within the NodeVault app, will auto-add all NodeVault supported nodes to the app.
In addition when you deploy a brand new node a QR code will be generated at the end of the process to allow that specific node to be added.
Not all nodes hosted on Apollon are available in NodeVault but Nicolas (we’ll meet Nicolas in a moment), the NodeVault developer, will be adding the rest of the Apollon supported nodes as soon as humanly possible.
Using the scanner in the app is also very simple and intuitive.
Simply open the app and click the menu button on the top left of the screen. It will bring this side menu up:
NodeVault side menu
Once here all you do is click on ‘Link your Apollon Nodes’ and the QR scanner opens. Point this at the QR code from the NodeBuilder and Hey Presto! all your supported nodes are added just like magic…. well sort of…
Now I’ve added my nodes what do I get?
Once added and making sure you have push notifications switched on you will get alerts sent direct to your mobile device when certain states change on the node being monitored. These are when your node starts up, goes offline or when you receive a new reward on your Masternode.
In addition when you click on one of your monitored Masternodes you will be given key information such as Daily, Monthly and Yearly estimated rewards (note for most masternodes these change during block reward step changes). In addition you can also see when the node was last paid, last seen (or went offline) and how long it has been active as per the screenshot below:
And a final screen you can access within the app, within the currencies page, shows you all the supported coins on the app. Clicking on one of these will provide even more information on a specific currency such as price action, block rewards structure, number of nodes in the network and other key information:
Currency detail screen within NodeVault
If you’d like to see a video of the Apollon CEO (Chad Sichello) juggling a phone whilst demonstrating the app then please view the link below:
OK I think that’s probably enough of me prattling on about the app and what you can do with it. Next I’d like to introduce you the mind behind NodeVault — Nicolas Meienberger.
What is your name and how long have you been involved in the Cryptocurrency space?
My name is Nicolas and I’m currently living in Switzerland. I remember that I discovered cryptocurrencies during a talk at school in late 2012. At that time I didn’t give it much more attention. I really started to dig deeper, like many other people, during 2017. This is when I realized what the potential of Cryptocurrencies could be.
How did you get into Cryptocurrencies, Masternodes and why?
As a developer it’s always exciting to discover new technologies. I didn’t get involved as an « investor » but rather as an « experimenter ». I’ve developed several apps on the Bitcoin testnet, Ethereum smart contracts and even a homemade Bitcoin ATM (which isn’t working at all). I discovered Masternodes through a friend which was making good side revenues and I immediately wanted to learn more about them.
Tell us a bit more about NodeVault, why did you launch the service and why it’s different from the other monitoring services out there?
Nowadays, the main device for browsing the internet has become the mobile phone. Having a native mobile app for any service is always a better experience for the end-user. This is why I launched NodeVault. I want to give users the best experience possible to monitor their masternodes as easily as possible.
What is your role in the project and what is your background?
My role in the project is simply everything. I created NodeVault from A to Z with love and passion ! I’m a professional fullstack mobile developer since 3 years and I’m happy to collaborate with Apollon to push the project further !
Where do you think the Masternode market will be in 6 months, 12 months and in 24 months time?
Currently the Masternode market is not at a good place. It’s flooded everyday by scam coins with unbelievable ROIs and the bear market doesn’t help. But I really have trust in this technology and I’m convinced that it will explode in a near future. With all those services like Apollon and NodeVault it’s now so much easier to enter the Masternode world than it was 1 year ago. In the short term I hope to see the process of running a Masternode become even less painful . This will bring a lot of new investors since the passive income is really attractive. Trust me, we have some bright days ahead !
What does the future hold for NodeVault and what are your future plans to develop the service further?
I really want to push NodeVault way further in the future. I have tons of other ideas to implement like shared masternodes and in-app ssh commands. My objective is to totally hide the technical aspect of Masternodes to the user.
And there you go — I’m sure you can see just from reading the snippets above what a pleasure it is for the Apollon team to be working with NodeVault and Nicolas. His enthusiasm is infectious! If you want to find out more about the NodeVault platform or ask questions of Nicolas you can do so within his Discord channel at: https://discord.gg/jq3AxAP
For updates for when my next article lands or just general Masternodes updates, advice and guidance follow me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Ade_Redman
Until next time.
Happy noding!
Ade