504 Nodes from 147 Independent Providers

Day by day, step by step, our mission of sustainable decentralization and reliable infra for blockchain applications advances. We are happy to announce that we have locked in accounts that will be included in the genesis file for Pocket Network’s mainnet release July 28th. We are even happier to announce that we have a little over 500 registered accounts from nearly 150 individuals, with setups varying from individual users, to bare metal professional providers, to multi-cloud setups across the globe. Some early participants at genesis include the likes of: Infrastructure Providers

• Figment Networks
• DappNode
• Rivet
• Simply VC
• ChainFlow
• Everstake
• Stakin
• Skillz

Funds

• Monday Capital
• Borderless Capital
• 11–11 Ventures
• ZeePrime Capital
• Atka Capital
• Decentral Park Capital
• Argonautic Ventures
• Blockwall Capital
• Eden Block Capital

Not to mention the great ecosystem participants that have been contributing in more ways than one such as Axia Labs, Arcadia Group, Metacartel, Blockspaces, Dabble Labs, Portis, Block Venture Coalition, Core X Labs, Unstoppable Ventures.And even more Applications, Blockchains, Nodes, and Ecosystem players that we are excited to announce in the near future!All this begs the question:Does this mean that Pocket is already the most decentralized infra provider available?Either way, this is only the beginning, and we look forward to continuing to grow this protocol to reach its fullest potential.Below we will highlight the results of our incentivized testnet, as well as the announcement of a 1 Week sprint to the top challenge for early node participants.

Incentivized Testnet Results

There were a total of 64 participants involved in incentivized testnet and that followed through each step to be included in the genesis file.The 64 participants account for a total of 104 registered nodes at launch.With total awards allocated of 2.267 Million POKT.We will be sharing the reward allocations for our node participants in discord shortly after the release of this post in our #🔨incentivized-testnet channel in discord, and make ourselves available for Q&A regarding the reasoning.We greatly appreciate everyone’s involvement in working through multiple upgrade cycles, fixing bugs, and general community helpfulness, but the work is not done!That is why we are excited to explain the next initiative for node operators.

1 Week — Best Node Service Competition

Because all of the earmarked rewards for incentivized testnet were not used, we will be reallocating the resources to further initiatives to strengthen the network.We want to ensure that every incentivized testnet participant has the most hardened setups possible in preparation for mainnet while still giving the opportunity for new entrants to run Pocket nodes. As such, we will be launching a week-long contest where nodes must run Pocket Nodes to support our testnet applications. We have our block explorer and wallet both running on testnet, which means there are applications running 24/7 on the Pocket blockchain. This serves as a permanent load test, and we will be sending our own planned (and surprise!) load tests to see how much throughput the community can handle (there may be some other unexpected events happening).We came to this from noticing that a small set of incentivized testnet participants’ quality of service was not quite the standard we intend to hold, and want to provide more opportunities and incentives for individuals to level up. Amongst these types of initiatives, we are continually leveling up our own documentation to provide clear paths to world-class setups, while also constantly onboarding into the network trusted service providers that have been doing this for years and can lead by example.This is also an “in the wild” test for us. We will be simulating the environment of mainnet in its full capacity, so you’ll need to be prepared for anything that may happen.For this reason, starting 8AM EDT on Monday, July 13th and ending 8AM EDT on Monday, July 20th we will be running a competition for best node service.This gives you the entire weekend to get your nodes set up beforehand.

Here are the competition & reward details:

Start: 8AM EDT, Monday July 13th.Finish: 8AM EDT, Monday July 20th.

1. 150,000 POKT — to the single node who proves the most successful relays that week.
2. 100,000 POKT — to the single node who proves the second most successful relays that week.
3. 50,000 POKT — to the single node who proves the third most successful relays that week.
4. 15,000 POKT — to each node who achieves at least a 95% success rate on Pocket relays from our load tests (minimum 1 million relays served)

Important Notes:

1. It DOES NOT matter the point in which you start your node throughout the week, so long as it happens within the given window. But, we recommend you have your node setup by 8am ET on Monday to maximize the amount of relays your node will receive.
2. Only nodes with domains and non-self signed certificates will be accepted
3. This is a fresh and separate competition from the previous incentivized testnet campaign. But, everyone is eligible for rewards so long as they have a node up in that timeframe. This means that if you already have a node running on testnet, and you continue to run it throughout this competition, it will be considered as a part of the competition.
4. We will also send load tests throughout the network to increase the amount of relays you’re serving. If you’re confident in your setup, we encourage you to send your own load tests using POKT from the faucet and our SDK as well.
5. We will be publicly posting the winning addresses after the contest. The winners will need to go through some simple verifications to prove you own the winning addresses.

Verification:At the end of the week we will download all of the chain state after the allotted time period and will present the addresses who served the highest amount of successful relays.We will present the winning address’ in the #🎖Best-Nodes-Competition discord channel that will be created in THE SPECIAL EVENT ZONE.IT IS YOUR JOB TO REACH OUT TO US TO CLAIM YOUR REWARDS. You’ll need to prove that you own the address simply by sending us POKT to a predetermined address owned by the Pocket team.Reward Issuance:Since we have finalized our genesis file, we will not be able to include the address of the winner’s POKT at launch. We have strict use and transfer restrictions for ALL POKT holders when we launch to ensure we are legally compliant with the current best practices.Because of this, we will only send your winnings 105 days after we’ve launched the network (11/10/2020).Any questions?Reach out in the#🎖best-nodes-competition on Discord.Stay safe during these turbulent times and let’s keep shipping!