Nym network operators voting on reward split

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Major developments happening for operators of the Nym network

The Nym network is run by operators all over the world who supply network routing services with unprecedented privacy features for ordinary users.

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Some major developments are in the works to support operators in providing the best quality of service for an increasing number of users of the NymVPN: voting for a new reward scheme, the implementation of Terms & Conditions for operators to ensure a no-logs policy, the release of a new diagnostics tooling, and upcoming harbourmaster updates.

If you are an operator, read on for how these changes will affect you. Or if you are simply interested in just how much is going on in the deepest depths of one of the most advanced privacy infrastructures in the world.

Reward split vote is live!

Recently, the operator community passed a vote on minimum profit margin, an initiative to prevent a “race to the bottom” of operator rewards and quality of service. Over the past week, a new vote has been ongoing to determine the reward split across network layers.

With the Nym network, user traffic passes through five layers to ensure strong protections: an entry gateway, three layers of mix nodes, and an exit gateway to the clearnet. The Nym reward algorithm currently rewards mix nodes, but not entry or exit gateways. To solve this and ensure gateways are rewarded for their work, a new reward scheme has been presented to the community for feedback.

The new reward scheme will ensure that all operators in the active set — whether acting as a mix node, entry gateway, or exit gateway — are rewarded for their work. Operators simply run a “Nym node” and may be selected for any layer at each epoch, with top performing, reliable nodes more likely to be selected as entry or exit gateways. All nodes also function as entry and exits for the simple, two-layer VPN mode.

But the question is, what share of rewards should each of these layers receive? Operating gateways, particularly exit gateways, may come with operational risks in some regions. Therefore, the community is currently voting on how much premium gateways should be receiving in compensation.

The Nym network is used in two different modes: as a high speed VPN with two layers, or as a powerful privacy mixnet with five layers. The vote therefore has two parts:

Part 1: Reward split for high-speed, 2-layer VPN

Part 2: Reward split for high-privacy, 5-layer mixnet

Establishing the right incentive for the community to operate enough exit gateways is crucial going forward in maintaining a reliable and viable privacy infrastructure!

• Read detailed more explanation here
• Watch the community call dedicated to this topic with Claudia Diaz (Nym Chief Scientist) and Igor Smirnov (Technical Delivery Lead)

Operator Terms & Conditions implemented

The Nym network and NymVPN app promise strong privacy to end-users, including a promise of no logs. In order to make good on that promise both technically and legally, operator Terms & Conditions are being rolled out, for operators to signal their agreement with this policy.

The latest release of the Nym node binaries allow operators to flag that they agree in a soft roll out, which will eventually be a requirement for being part of the network active set that services end-users.

Watch Nym CEO Harry Halpin explain operator Terms & Conditions

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Operator guides and tools

The quality of service by Nym operators has been growing exponentially over the past few months, thanks to close collaboration and troubleshooting between core community and the core dev team.

This collaboration has also led to a revamp of the Release Cycle, new test environments and the re-opening of the Testnet token faucet. This is all to give operators and people building tooling for the network to have a heads up on what’s coming down the pipeline.

A new, stable Sandbox testnet environment allows new operators to learn how to run a node before deploying to mainnet. And a new tool for self-diagnosing node health Node API Check CLI to complement the harbourmaster in helping operators assess their quality of service.

Finally, a diamond solution is on the horizon for those operators who have been struggling with the node blacklist over the past months...

• Join the Nym operator matrix chat
• Read the Operator Guide

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