Finney testnet update #2: rewarding Quality of Service

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It has been a week since we began measuring and publishing the quality of the mixnodes. And as promised last week, we have just rewarded 10 HALs to the nodes that were fully functioning and 5 HALs to the nodes that support either IPv4 or IPv6 traffic.

In case you are curious how measurements were taken on nodes, this is the process:

1. Validators are asked for the list of all the nodes in the network.

2. Checking each node to see whether it is broken in an obvious way, such as address not having the port information.

3. Then we construct 2 sphinx packets per node and send them through the network such that one packet goes through the tested node AND IPv4 only nodes and the other packet goes through the tested node AND IPv6 only nodes. So it might go like this:

IPv4 node -> your node -> IPv4 node

or

IPv6 node-> your node -> IPv6 node

What is being tested here is if a node is capable of forwarding the packet further and its networking stack supports both IPv4 and IPv6.

4. Based on the results, the following lists are produced:

• malformed — nodes that failed to get parsed
• IPv6-only — nodes that failed to forward an IPv4 packet
• IPv4-only — nodes that failed to forward an IPv6 packet
• unroutable — nodes that failed to forward both packet
• working — nodes that forwarded both packets correctly

5. The working node operators are then rewarded 10 HALs, the ones that support either IPv4 or IPv6 traffic 5 HALs.

If you are part of the unroutable or malformed crowd, you still have time to fix your node.

Good news is that starting from tomorrow we will turn the daily measurements on, where we will send packets through the network a few times a day. So if a node happened to be off or unroutable during one measurement and then came back up again during the next, we will be able to capture that. The rewards will then be distributed every 24 hours based on the number of passed tests the node had that day.

Be aware — these HALS are more than just a symbolic token of our appreciation for your good work: in the coming weeks, we will change the minimum bond required to be selected as part of the network. If a node does not meet the minimum required bond, it won’t be included in the active set.

If you are starting to feel like running a mixnode is not your jam, worry not. Your efforts so far will not be in vain. Soon there will be ‘delegated staking’ that you can take part in.

Delegated staking will allow you to delegate stake to nodes that you believe are providing good Quality of Service. By delegating your stake, you will be vouching for good nodes, and earning a share of their ‘rewards’! The nodes that have stake delegated on them will earn more than the ones with the same amount of stake but not via delegation.