POSTED ON by Pocket Network • 11 min read • Media

Pocket Network News | JAN 2022

Hello Pocketeers 👋 We bring to you this month’s newsletter with much excitement. Here is a breakdown of all things Pocket!

Pocket Network saw unprecedented scale in January, serving nearly 9.6 billion relays!

These apps requested 9,598,593,203 relays(up by 213%) which were served by 26,000+ Nodes(up by 44%) on the network in comparison to December’21.

Welcome to the future, welcome to decentralized infrastructure!

📈 Network Heartbeat 🩺

Throughout January, blockchain applications using the Pocket Gateway have driven a total of ~9.6B relays.

Not only were we able to sustain the historical rise last month to 5B relays but managed to drive nearly 10B  relays in a single month! This is the most relays that Pocket Network has had in a month, and we look forward to continuing the same spirit for the rest of the year.

At the time of writing this, there are 26,222  staked nodes in Pocket Network.

The below image shows the total number of successful relays per day, week, and month throughout the months of September, October and November.

Most Relays in NOVEMBER’21: 205,244,972 (November 9th)

Most Relays in DECEMBER’21: 218,193,075 (December 29th)

Most Relays in JANUARY’22: 357,662,344 (January 29th)

🧰 Developer Updates

Have you heard about Pocket Network 1.0 yet?

Big things are coming, and Pocket Network v1.0 is perhaps the biggest of them all!

Join the events below to learn more about Pocket’s vision for the future of web3 infrastructure:

Pocket Network v1.0 Spec Reveal

Last week Pocket Network revealed to the community v1 specs! The call was held on Discord/Twitter spaces and was met with great excitement and interest in the future of Pocket.

(For those that missed this call, the recording is below!)




Pocket Network v1.0 Utility Q&A

Sampled the future of Pocket Network’s economics and still fishing for more? 🎣 Join this Q&A with Andrew Nguyen, Protocol Lead, Pocket Network and BenVan, a long term community member.

https://discord.gg/aTNNF9nw?event=931647878353522698

Pocket Network v1.0 Persistence Q&A

Validate the state of the engine powering Pocket Network’s data storage needs by joining this Q&A with Luis Correa de León, CTO and Co-founder, Pocket Network and Irving Rivas, Communications Chief, Pocket Network

https://discord.gg/aTNNF9nw?event=931648127327424573

Pocket Network v1.0 Consensus Q&A

After digging into the hot stuff that is the v1.0 Consensus specification, join this Q&A with Andrew Nguyen, Protocol Lead, Pocket Network and Daniel Olshansky, Protocol Specialist, Pocket Network.

https://discord.gg/aTNNF9nw?event=931648352846753832

Pocket Network v1.0 P2P Q&A

If you read over the P2P structure and want to become a leader in v1.0 awareness, push “interested” on this Q&A with Hamza Ouaghad, Protocol Engineer, Pocket Network; Otto Vargas, Blockchain Engineer, Pocket Network and BenVan, Protocol Advisor, Pocket Network.

https://discord.gg/aTNNF9nw?event=931648576025681970

V2 of the POKT wallet launched!

No URL changes, so next time you visit our wallet be greeted by a slick new UI😎

Wallet URL – https://wallet.pokt.network/

Here are the key upgrades:

  1. Session security enhanced by introducing a “private key session passphrase”. It will be used to encrypt your Private key during the session and would be required to confirm transactions.
  2. The UI showing list of transactions is much cleaner now and clearly shows incoming/outgoing transactions.
  3. Better price prediction by considering transactions from all OTC desks. Done with the help of community member JAMSO exchange.
  4. Standalone new screen showing the transaction details for each transaction hash.

Learn how to properly store POKT by following this guide in Pocket’s documentation:

https://docs.pokt.network/home/buy-store-and-stake-pokt

Community-developed Ecosystem Tools

Node Pilot launches support for Harmony

Node Pilot this week delivered one of the most requested features by the Pocket community. It now supports Harmony blockchain!

Some of the key points to note:

  1. It can take many hours to sync the Harmony node so they advise to not shut down Node Pilot during that time.
  2. Because Harmony sessions are very heavy on nodes, Node Pilot recommends increasing the vCPU for all POKT nodes to 16. Please see the updated POKT nodes in the hardware recommendations:

https://docs.decentralizedauthority.com/hardware-recommendations

  1. Harmony nodes will say “Running” even if they are syncing. To learn if your node is synced, check the latest block-height at the Harmony Explorer.

Jump on this update to generate Harmony rewards with your Pocket nodes.

Pokt.tools launches as a rewards explorer

Now you can monitor the rewards your servicer node has generated month on month and for each transaction by going to pokt.tools and putting in your servicer address.

Governance Updates

There are no new proposals up for a vote as of writing (01/01/2022)

These proposals are under active discussion by community members:

PIP-10: wPOKT Multi-Sig Signer Selection

Passed ✅:

Full proposal here: https://forum.pokt.network/t/pip-10-wpokt-multi-sig-signer-selection

To operate the wPOKT bridge, Pocket protocol needs a Gnosis Safe 5/7 multi-sig that can mint wPOKT as needed to supply tokens to the liquidity bridges. The proposal invited volunteers to be a signer by responding to the proposal.

We are seeing active and engaging discussions by the Pocket Network Community on the forums. Join the discussion and share your opinion. Your voice matters and will be heard. You can do so by clicking the hyperlinks of any of the proposals.

PEP-20: Market Making Reimbursement

Passed ✅:

Full proposal here: https://forum.pokt.network/t/pep-20-market-making-reimbursement/1751

This proposal, put forward by Pocket Network CEO Michael O’Rourke, talks about the expense incurred to provide liquidity for a successful POKT launch on the exchanges last week. The foundation directors deemed that two separate market makers were necessary to ensure a successful POKT market entry across multiple exchanges.

As part of doing these deals, the Pocket Network Foundation provided 11M $ from its own treasury to this effort. The Foundation is seeking reimbursement from the DAO for these tokens.

PIP-9: Consensus Rule Change – RC-0.8.0

Passed ✅:

Full proposal here: https://forum.pokt.network/t/pip-9-consensus-rule-change-rc-0-8-0/1351

The proposal suggests some very important improvements to the Pocket protocol:

  1. Non-custodial Operator address: Currently the private key where the node is running and the private key that has custody over staked POKT tokens are required to be the same. In cases where the community members are working with 3rd party service providers for running nodes, it means providing them full control of their funds. With this upgrade, the custody of the tokens and the rewards generated will remain with the wallet holder while the node can run independently, giving them full control of their POKT.
  2. Removal of Force-Unstake ‘Burn’: If any Pocket Network node falls below the minimum stake (due to slashing) the punishment is burning all of their staked funds. The proposal suggests that if the node falls below the minimum stake of 15,000 POKT, the node will automatically initiate a 21-day unstake. This is a more befitting response to the infraction committed by the node and will put community members at ease knowing their POKT will not be burnt.
  3. Non-Deterministic Invalid Evidence Fix: The evidence handling protocol in Tendermint is non-deterministic and occasionally causes invalid proposals. Historically, this symptom has caused blocks to be tens of minutes late. A patch would be released so there is true determinism in block production.
  4. Handling of ReplayAttack Error: Relay ReplayAttacks are stopped at the protocol level under the ProofTx verification. However, the protocol is specified to punish the attacker proportionally to the probabilistic replays. The functionality though being present in Pocket Core, it is not working as intended. A patch to be released which fixes this bug.

Other Community Updates

POKTpool

The pool had ~200 members when the year started. Now it is on it’s 14th Tranche, with ~1800 members(Up by 900%) with a spread of 22M+ tokens staked!

POKTpool is now doing a weekly digest too. You can read it here:

https://poktpooldigest.substack.com/

Poktopus

Long term community member and Poktopus chief Jinx has been talking about Pocket in the Web3 community.

Here is a podcast where he was invited by another long term community member Shahan. They talk about their personal journey leading up to their participation in Pocket Network today, crypto adoption and Pocket’s importance for the crypto space. Check it out here:

Youtube contributor Crypto Culture invites Jinx to talk about Pocket Network. Watch it here:




Launch of a New Fractional Staking Pool

Community member @salvator58 (Telegram) launched a Korea POKT pool this week. You can know more about the pool and join here:

https://t.me/+ro6-I2r9O5k4YTg1

Long-term community member Lex Moskovski put together a thread on twitter this week based on historical numbers and performance of Pocket Network and its blockchain data. Read it here:

📰 News

Pocket Network and Btok Airdrop Campaign

Pocket Network in collaboration with Btok exchange is organizing an Airdrop Campaign for the community members. $10,000 in POKT to be given away. In fact it is live right now:

What future do you want to live in?

Michael O’Rourke, Co-founder and CEO, Pocket Network answers this in the video with Okcoin. Find out here:

Pocket Network sponsors #ETHDenver 2022

Are you planning to BUIDL @EthereumDenver? RPC endpoints by Pocket Network can be your gateway to the multi-chain metaverse!

Pocket Network has been a regular sponsor of hackathons. Read more about Pocket and it’s similar past endorsements here:

https://www.blog.pokt.network/pocket-network-sponsors-ethdenver-2022/

Web3 Innovations replacing middlemen with middleware protocols

Cointelegraph takes us through the history of middleware protocols and how Web3 protocols are creating value.

On a middleware Web3 protocol, developers can stake the native token once for the equivalent network bandwidth for the lifetime of that stake. The longer applications are staked and using the network, the closer the cost approaches zero.

After several months, the service is basically free, and with staking-based tokenomics, there are no monthly costs such as with SaaS fees.

There are different protocols for different layers of middleware infrastructure. For instance, the RPC layer is with the Pocket Network, the indexing layer is with Graph, Akash has the cloud layer, the video transcoding layer is with Livepeer and Arweave, Filecoin and Storj have the storage layer.

Because they are at different parts of the decentralized Web3 developer stack, the protocols are complimentary.

Read the complete article here:

https://cointelegraph.com/news/web3-innovations-are-replacing-middlemen-with-middleware-protocols

Pocket Network is the TCP/IP of Web3 Node Infrastructure

TokenInsight released an in-depth report on Pocket Network this week calling it the TCP/IP of Web3 node infrastructure and gives it a “Positive Outlook” BB rating.

They do an extensive deep-dive into all aspects of Pocket Network. The report starts with recognizing the macro of the situation: Pocket Network is a decentralized blockchain agnostic service providing relays among a sea of centralized competitors.

With decentralization, a core competitive advantage in a “booming market… which has relatively large demands and long-term necessities”, “Pocket Network will profit more from the future adoption of Web3” reads the report.

For those looking for a deeper look with an outside perspective, this nearly 20 page report covers everything from our history, details about Pocket’s core mechanics, as well as statistics like growth rates, size of our team, and even things like a thorough ecosystem analysis.

https://tokeninsight.com/en/report/2901

Configuring networks with Python Brownie

Codeforests.com shares the ultimate guide on how to configure networks with Python Brownie and how Pocket Network’s infrastructure can be integrated.

It also explains how to use Python Brownie to deploy smart contracts and interact with a live contract using python by loading from ABI file or a block explorer. Brownie provides a list of predefined network configurations and gives the flexibility to configure and work on your own customized networks including Pocket Network.

The article walks you through the installation process and then goes on to explain how the library works, how you can add new networks and how you can modify existing networks.

One can switch the network provider from Infura to Alchemy or Pocket Network directly from the command line.

Learn about the complete process here:

https://www.codeforests.com/2022/01/27/python-brownie-network-setup/

Pocket Network Gets Listed on Centralized Exchanges

Months of hard work by the POKT DAO appointed Exchange Committee on exchange listings, and they’ve delivered, with some back-to-back announcements to show for it. We are proud to announce that $POKT is now listed and tradable on these official exchanges:

These are official listings in-line with the passed DAO proposal – PEP-4

Lucky Red Pocket Envelope Airdrop

Pocket Network’s #redpokt airdrop campaign saw 18,000+ entries. Here are the winners:

@Dongyi2020 w/ 8,888 $POKT

@Yungweiyang w/ 1,888 $POKT

@Robbieeeee w/ 888 $POKT

23 winners w/ 188 $POKT

75 winners w/ 8 $POKT

Winners will be notified and POKT issued within 14 days. Pocket Network hopes to plan more competitions and airdrops throughout 2022, so keep a lookout on this space and on our social channels.

https://www.blog.pokt.network/lucky-red-pocket-envelope-airdrop-is-now-closed/

Researcher Xu Xiaopeng from Mint Ventures does a comprehensive run down on Pocket Network.

The report is split into 5 sections – key highlights, Basic information on the project, Business analysis, Risks and References / acknowledgements.

Read more here:

Pocket Network Investment Thesis by Decentral Park Research

Decentral Park released a Pocket Network Investment Thesis on how it is on the path to becoming the default data infrastructure platform in Web3.

The thesis talks about the growing number of apps in the ecosystem that will be needing the underlying blockchain data. Events where the node services go down because they are hosted on centralized cloud services clearly highlight the risk of single points of failure from both a redundancy and security standpoint. At the same time, the app developers don’t have the resources, expertise, or time to host their own full nodes.

Pocket Network is helping solve all these problems with a decentralized API protocol that services Web3 apps. Read more here:

https://decentralparkcapital.substack.com/p/pocket-network-investment-thesis

‘AWS for Web3’ Pocket Network shakes up the infrastructure of the internet.

An infrastructure middleware protocol that facilitates decentralized cloud computing and abundant bandwidth on full nodes interoperable with DApps across all 21+ blockchains, surpasses the milestone of 20,000 full nodes, answering a real and conceptual question around decentralization viability.

“Pocket is the First Mover, changing the game as the core infrastructure for the Web3 revolution” – Omar Ozden, CEO of RockTree Capital.

Read more here:

https://www.bloomberg.com/press-releases/2022-01-15/-aws-for-web3-pocket-network-shakes-up-infrastructure-of-the-internet

Crypto Infrastructure Firm Pocket Network Raises $10M

Pocket Network gets into a strategic partnership with Republic Capital, RockTree Capital, Arrington Capital, C2 Ventures, Eden Block, Zee Prime Captial, and others to expand adoption and node coverage, with a focus on the Asia-Pacific region.

This news has picked up traction across multiple publications, such as, but not limited to:

🐦 Wall of Tweets and Memes

https://twitter.com/BTCEX_exchange/status/1485873216703057920

https://twitter.com/Okcoin/status/1486027393634426880

https://twitter.com/mintventures2/status/1485837723927597058

https://twitter.com/POKTnetwork/status/1485618920748945411

https://twitter.com/Btok_official/status/1482988290479247361

https://twitter.com/ark_stream/status/1484182741352468489

https://twitter.com/7oClockCapital/status/1481827263960465409

https://twitter.com/gate_io/status/1481192991406579718

https://twitter.com/XTexchange/status/1481529613918654465

https://twitter.com/HuobiGlobal/status/1481215800576933889

https://twitter.com/POKTnetwork/status/1481456242635726850