Testnet Finney, 3 weeks, 3000 nodes — what next?
Today marks exactly 3 weeks since the launch of Nym v0.10.0 and the Finney testnet. So time for a little update on where things are at and what we are planning to do with the network next.
To our amazement at the time of writing this post, there were 3051 mixnodes in the network! That is a great achievement by any standard and kudos to our great community of supporters for getting us here. 💫
As a token of our appreciation we are rewarding everyone today, via our new smart contract.
What’s next — quality control
First of all — congratulations for setting up a Nym mixnode! As just said, you might look in the explorer to find a little present bonded to your node.
Now pay attention.
Not all of you are running fully functioning nodes. We have our ‘mystery shoppers’, testing the mixnet by sending measurement packets across the network, and this is what we have learnt so far:
INFO Test Report > Sent total of 6048 packets
INFO Test Report > Received total of 4101 packets
INFO Test Report > 30 nodes are invalid
INFO Test Report > 1079 mixnodes speak ONLY IPv4 (NO IPv6 connectivity)
INFO Test Report > 0 mixnodes speak ONLY IPv6 (NO IPv4 connectivity)
INFO Test Report > 451 mixnodes are totally unroutable!
INFO Test Report > 1504 mixnodes work fine!
INFO Test Report > 0 gateways speak ONLY IPv4 (NO IPv6 connectivity)
INFO Test Report > 0 gateways speak ONLY IPv6 (NO IPv4 connectivity)
INFO Test Report > 0 gateways are totally unroutable!
INFO Test Report > 2 gateways work fine!
The good news: we have surpassed 3000 nodes and counting!
Bad news: some nodes speak only IPv4, some only IPv6. Some are invalid and some nodes are unroutable. These can explain why the network is slow or is not working as good as the previous testnet which was capped at 1500 functioning nodes.
It is time to fix your node!
Over the next week, we aim to increase the quality of the network. Have in mind in the mainnet, nodes won’t be rewarded for mere presence in the network but for Quality of Service (QoS) and mixing capacity. The better the quality, the more packets the node mixes and the higher its rewards.
So if you need help fixing your node, now is the time to do so. If you have any questions on how to fix it, as always get in touch on telegram, re-read the docs, or post an issue by emailing support@nymte.ch.
And then what?
Next Thursday we will run the measurements again, but then only the fully functioning and routable nodes will be rewarded. The unroutable nodes however, will be soft removed from the network. That means if you don’t manage to fix your node by then, it won’t be rewarded because packets won’t be sent to it. Don’t worry, you won’t lose your existing HALs and you can always try to fix your node and join the network back again.
In the coming weeks, once the nodes are fixed, we will be running some tasks and test more functionalities of the network, delegated staking is one of them.
We understand running nodes might not be everyone’s forte, but that’s alright, as you can use your HALs to delegate to other nodes whom you believe are maintaining a high quality of operations, increase their rewards and get a share of it for yourself.
People, we are testing decentralised quality control! Let’s do this.
If you are as excited and want to spin a mixnode, check out the docs, or follow us on Twitter or join our Telegram for future news and updates.
