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# System prepended metadata

title: How to fund a Symbol project without an ICO

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# How to fund a Symbol project without an ICO
### Bootstrapping your project with Symbol Delegated Harvesting

With regulatory crackdowns happening around the globe, it has become more difficult for cryptocurrency projects to raise capital via token offerings, crowdfunding, and traditional means.

Delegated Staking, or Harvesting, can be a powerful tool to leverage existing resources in the network to fund community desired projects - all without the need to solicit any type of investment or manage a token distribution.

With default node settings, a node operator will earn 25% of the block rewards earned by those that delegate to it. This is currently an amount of ~44 XYM per block.
Right now someone that holds 100k XYM would have a fair harvest expectation of 3 blocks per month.
Here we used the 100k XYM harvester as an example of a *small shrimp* in the Symbol ecosystem. Each "small shrimp" can generate 132 XYM per month. At a current market price of $0.14 USD, this equates to $18.48 per month! - More than an Amazon Prime subscription!

As a community member, I would much prefer if the $18.48 I generate is being used for something good - something that will provide further value to the ecosystem.

Delegates pay the 25% fee to node operators regardless, so if you can provide a more compelling reason for them to delegate to your node instead of someone else's, you now have a funding model to bootstrap your Symbol project.

Assuming you already have some code on github and a source of info for the community to learn more about you (probably a website), the next steps are straight forward.

There is no minimum token requirement to host a node, and the hardware requirements are not excessive, making it very affordable to host a Symbol node long term.

Here are some resources to help you get started:

1. See how the Community Managers have applied this model: https:symbol.community
1. Host a node `>insert ultimate node guide here<`
2. Start attracting delegates. `>insert etiquette guide here<`

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>I could perhaps turn this into a long form opinion article elaborating on the regulatory environment and ways/ideas of maximizing value from existing network resources. 

Author: Leon
Editor: Oliver

Resources: 
Symbol Block Explorer: http://explorer.symbolblockchain.io/blocks/494107
