Pocket Network News - AUG 2020
Pocket Network launched its mainnet protocol, onboarded world-class blockchain infrastructure providers, seeded the Pocket DAO, $POKT available to sell directly to apps and nodes, plus more!
Launch Updates:
Pocket Network launched its mainnet protocol on July 28th, 2020!
The mainnet protocol was bootstrapped by world-class blockchain infrastructure providers and staking service providers:
Rivet
Figment Networks
ChainFlow
Tuku Dev
Skillz
Simply VC
Everstake
Stakin
Pocket Network, Inc
These providers are running Ethereum full nodes in conjunction with instances of Pocket Core, which are currently serving our two native Pocket Network applications ( Pocket Wallet and the Pocket Block Explorer). By doing so, they are earning revenue (in $POKT) for running full nodes and servicing relays from applications.
You can browse through the random nodes around the world serving data for the block explorer through Pocket Network by following the directions in this tweet below:
We expect to onboard Ethereum applications very soon, starting with Saturn Network, a cross-chain DEX 🪐
In the spirit of progressive, sustainable decentralization we are continuing to roll out the mainnet launch. Earlier this week, we recently distributed POKT to the early genesis and incentivized testnet participants to unjail their nodes. At this point, any node operator can stake on behalf of their node(s) and start running nodes in Pocket Network mainnet.
While we are working on the development of Pocket Dashboard and Pocket Gateway, we are excited to begin onboarding Ethereum applications. We will soon be offering a guaranteed throughput of 1,000,000 relays per day to 100 apps for free during the duration of the campaign (minimum of one year, then we will revisit its effectiveness).
Join the waitlist 👇
For hardcore decentralists who do not wish to use the Gateway to deploy your application on Pocket Network, you have the freedom to connect directly to Ethereum via the Pocket Network protocol by using the other tools available such as the Web3 Provider and JS SDK.
Prior to the mainnet launch, we ran a best node competition after running a successful incentivized testnet program. We did this to ensure incentivized testnet participants would have the most hardened setups possible in preparation for mainnet while also still giving the opportunity for new entrants to run Pocket nodes. Between our load tests and the applications running on testnet, a total of 8,816,829 relays were served and a total of 26 independent nodes participated. Here’s a complete breakdown of the results 📊
Developer Updates:
The Pocket Core 0.5.0 release candidate made significant improvements and enhancements to the existing protocol. Pocket Core 0.5.0 is the version that mainnet runs!
These are some of those new features:
AAT now printing as JSON string and not bytes
Enhanced proof entropy and flush to disk
Removed all receipts to alleviate large state size
The full changelog can be found here.
Details on the next protocol candidate release Pocket Core 0.5.1 coming soon.
The developer portal has also received a massive facelift, as well as, has been restructured to reflect mainnet.
Economic and Governance Updates:
We’re excited to announce that we are able to sell POKT directly to application developers and node operators. At launch, the price of each POKT is $0.08 USD.
If you are either an application interested in paying for infrastructure access and saving on developer costs or a node operator interested in providing infrastructure access and generating additional revenue, email us at sales@pokt.network to design a plan that works for you and purchase the amount of POKT required to get the ball rolling.
The Pocket Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) launch roadmap has also made significant strides towards progressive decentralization!
So far, the Pocket DAO has been seeded with its first initial voter set consisting of:
Skillz
MetaCartel Ventures
Blockwall
Saturn Network
Pocket Network, Inc (PNI)
The constitution was approved by the 5 members of the Pocket DAO. You can actually see that moment in our online Discord community!
After the constitution was approved, the Pocket DAO voted on the first Parameter Update Proposal (PUP).
The Pocket DAO is now in the “Growing the Seed” phase of the launch roadmap. From here, the initial members of the DAO can champion others and onboard them to the Pocket DAO. In this phase, there is a cap of up to 50 voters. If you want to join the Pocket DAO and be one of the first protocol politicians, find a champion who will vouch for you!
Jack Laing, Governance Lead of PNI, recently published the Lean Governance Thesis.
In the Lean Governance Thesis, Jack explains how we use the modular Lean Trias Politica to future-proof Pocket Network’s governance by balancing flexibility (optionality of future governance designs) with legitimacy (conformity of new governance designs to the established accepted ruleset). To understand the strategic philosophy driving the design of our DAO, our Constitution, and the Pocket Network Foundation (PNF), check it out here.
News:
Staking Rewards recently covered us in their State of Stake series, which curates news, research, updates, and events within the Proof-of-Stake ecosystem. Check it out the most recent report Stake of Stake 26!
Community support on Twitter came out in droves! Thank you to everyone who wished us well and congratulated us on reaching this important milestone. Here are some of those tweets:
Behind the Scenes:
Both application and node business development continues in the background with promising leads showing interest. Expect to hear some announcements, soon!
Connect with Pocket:
🦜 Follow Pocket on Twitter at @POKTnetwork
💬 Chat with the Pocket team and community in Discord
🏗️ Get started with running a node or deploying an app