FIRST PUBLIC NODE IS LIVE!!!!
We are pleased to announce that we have launched our first public node! Just in time for the imminent parachain auctions, and this incredible engineering feat finally going live, we are now running a node inside the Kusama Network!
The challenge of creating an architecture that could live up to our standards has taken considerable time and effort. While we have been running dozens of test nodes for months now, as our vision coalesced, we realised the need for extensive research and development to be able to know which direction we would go in and what choices we would make. While we have been working on iterations of this node we tested multiple hosting services, had thorough philosophical ponderings, engaged in intense stress testing on multiple levels(following the Chaos Monkey methodology — Thanks Netflix!!), and refined our combined ideologies, thoughts, and ideas into a uniformed vision.
The process was long for the development of our Kusama node, but this extensive RnD was also needed for our future nodes on other networks. While we are wholly focused on servicing this specific node at the current moment, we absolutely plan on expanding and will have another announcement in the not too distant future on the next network we are targeting to provide node validation services for. The underlying framework and system that we have built is designed for scalability and flexibility. It was important to know we had all our bases covered, and that we were confident in our ability to expand volumes on the fly. We want the capacity to grow both vertically and horizontally very quickly if we needed to. As we proceeded through the preliminary design phase, we were able to address bottlenecks, create redundancies, and be able to fully trust the robustness and ruggedness of the framework we created.
So with this announcement, we need to gather enough KSM to be able to get into the active validator set. This will take the trust and support of many people. We’ve pooled a considerable amount of our combined economic resources to get this node up and running, and we’re hoping for the bridge to be gapped soon. Once we are firmly in the active validator set, we will have another update and announcement about our Kusama node. We are not simply planning on running nodes, getting stakers, and disappearing. We are in this for the long haul, and have every intention to fulfill our commitment to the larger community we service. Because we spent so much time finding the most efficient routes forward, we’ve been able to comfortably offer our stakers a 99% return on block rewards(our commission is only 1%). We are doing things differently than most validators which this allows us to be able to offer a preferential rate for token holders, as well as being able to claim being 100% powered by renewable green energy.
Finally, another announcement. As we’ve mentioned before, we are committed to produce significant educational content through our platform to help people make informed decisions. There will be a few videos coming explaining aspects of Kusama, how to nominate a validator, and this will be mirrored in written guide articles as well. So stay tuned for some educational materials!
With that, we want to put a huge thank you out to everyone who helped us on our journey! First thanks goes out to our friends and colleagues who were able to point us in the right direction and give advice on topics like hosting services as well as technical topics like the subtleties of virtualised containers and how they plan to confront a specific future scenario. Of course, we are nothing without community, so a big thank you goes out to the community and team members in the Plasm Network Discord, as well as the Kusama validator Discord/Riot chat room. Your tips, tricks, knowledge and opinions were of great value, and helped us be more efficient in the steps along our journey to get where we are now. An extra special thanks goes out to the people who write guides and provide answers to questions and generally are helpful in public digital/physical spaces. The countless hours that were saved by tapping into the combined human knowledge base the internet provides was absolutely essential in our quest. Indeed, this is one of the reasons why we are so driven to take on our challenge to be able to service and give back to the communities who have given us so much, and attempt to contribute in a meaningful way to the overall blockchain landscape.
With that, stay tuned for more news! It will begin to start flowing more rapidly now that we’ve gone live! Cheers!
-Collective Values Team
