Aleph.im Staking Go-Live (part 1): Core Channel Nodes

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Aleph.im

5 min readDec 8, 2020

We are very excited to announce the upcoming major network upgrade with the launch of node staking and incentivization program on aleph.im network. Only a few weeks left! Our CEO/tech lead Moshe and our team are relentlessly working to make it happen in December 2020 as promised in our roadmap.

In this article we cover requirements to operate core channel nodes, core channel nodes tokenomics and initial network architecture during this phase.

👉 Articles of the series: 1/ Core Channel Nodes and Node Operators, 2/ Stakers Tokenomics, 3/ Final Phase Explained, 4/ Launch Dates
👉 FAQ for Stakers and Node Operators

About Aleph.im

Aleph.im’s core mission is to help decentralized apps and protocols strip off the centralized parts of their stack, achieving a fully decentralized architecture. Our ecosystem achieves this by providing decentralized databases (including file storage), computation and a decentralized identification (DID) framework. You can think of aleph.im as a decentralized AWS or firebase.

Aleph.im Network Vision

We designed the project with the future in mind, via healthy strategic decisions benefiting all the stakeholders in the short and long term.

In this major upgrade, we tackle both the technical front with a lot of moving parts being stitched together and the economical front with the implementation of a crucial incentivization mechanism.

This major upgrade tackles both the technical and economical front

This is a step further in establishing aleph.im as a serious player in the blockchain space, as a compelling decentralized solution offering key services desperately needed in the DeFi space and the wider Web3 ecosystem.

Start Phase: Core Channel Nodes Only

Only core channel nodes will be launched during this start phase. All nodes are equal, share the same responsibilities and provide the same services. In this phase, core channel nodes will (i) stake and receive rewards, (ii) validate the network, (iii) control and manage the network, (iv) provide database and (v) file storage services.

The above schema illustrates the aleph.im network topology for the start phase. That’s why the resource nodes are greyed out; we will describe in another article. The cross-chain layer representation contains Solana because it is planned very soon on our roadmap. 😉

Requirements For Core Channel Nodes

Staked tokens requirements:

For a node to become a core channel node, a node operator must stake 200K tokens and stakers must stake minimum of 500K ALEPH tokens.

Any node can join the network but until it reaches the minimum of 500K ALEPH staked it does not reach the status of core channel node. Until reaching this status, this node has full access to the network and participates in validating, controlling and managing the network but does not receive any reward.

Hardware requirements:

32 GB ram minimum; 64 GB ram recommended
recent cpu with at least 4 cores
100 MB upload bandwidth minimum (ideally 1 GB)
4+ TB HDD or SSD (ideally with at least the system on an SSD)

If you want to become a node operator without having to manage the node yourself, we have partnered with NodeForge to provide a turnkey solution at an incredibly competitive price: hardware and maintenance of your node from $299.99 per month. Read their announcement.

Tokenomics For Node Operators

Core channel node operators will initially share a reward pool of 15K ALEPH tokens per day for running these nodes. This means that running a node early, when there are fewer participants, will earn more rewards.

Note that the daily reward rate will slowly go down with time to avoid running out of tokens and we may transfer tokens from other pools into the incentive pool in the future if needed.

Example: if there are 20 nodes, a node owner will earn approximately 25K tokens per node per month (15K/20x30). And if there are 25 nodes they will earn around 20K tokens per node per month (15K/25x30). Note: these are approximate figures, using 30 days per month as a calculation basis.

The above figures are for node operators who staked their 200K tokens mentioned previously in the requirements section. We will release tokenomics for the stakers that add the 500K+ tokens on top in a following article.

Node operators are incentivized to run as many nodes as possible. Because for each additional node they run, they get another share of the common node reward pool. If there are 20 nodes then a node owner will earn approximately 25K tokens per node per month (15K/20x30). If one of these node owners decides to run a second node, the reward per node will drop to 23.8K tokens per month (15K/21x30). So a total of 47.61K if owning 2 nodes.

Node operators are incentivized to run as many nodes as possible

What’s Next?

We will release further updates in the coming days and weeks so keep an eye on our Twitter and Medium blog!

These updates will include topics such as (i) network final phase, (ii) final tokenomics for node operators, (iii) final tokenomics for stakers and (iv) a tutorial on how to run an aleph.im core channel node. The tutorial will be published around a week before the staking goes live so that enough time is given for everyone to prepare themselves.

Thank you to all of you who have followed us and supported us. The following weeks will mark the start of a new epic chapter in the project lifetime. Many new nodes will join the network from all over the world, expanding our capacity and reaching higher levels of decentralization.

👇 Check out more of our articles below👇

Articles Of The Series

Core Channel Nodes and Node Operators (Dec 8, 2020)
Stakers Tokenomics (Dec 11, 2020)
Final Phase Explained (Dec 14, 2020)
Launch Dates (Dec 15, 2020)

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