The Launch of Sentinel’s First Incentivized Bandwidth Mining Program on its Cosmos based Hub
Sentinel’s much awaited Incentivized Bandwidth Mining Program on its own native Cosmos based Hub is launching on the 1st of November at 12.00 UTC.
The incentive program is open to everyone in the Cosmos community and other crypto communities, anyone can participate by hosting a Sentinel dVPN Wireguard node on their Linux or Mac based system or virtual machine. Participants will have to meet certain eligibility criteria in various aspects such as node up-time and minimum bandwidth transferred in order to to receive rewards.
The process of generating network rewards in exchange for providing Bandwidth to Sentinel’s dVPN network is known as ‘Bandwidth Mining’.
This Incentivized Bandwidth Mining program is extremely significant as:
- It incentivizes the hosting of Sentinel’s first wireguard based dVPN node on its own Hub, ushering in the transition of node hosts on Sentinel’s ETH based network to completely transition to its Cosmos based network
- It increases the resiliency and total bandwidth offering of the Sentinel dVPN node network in coordination with the release of Sentinel’s first Cosmos based dVPN mobile applications
- It incentivizes the adoption of the first-ever interoperable dVPN payments, facilitated by the Cosmos IBC which allows for users to pay dVPN nodes in UST and ATOM in addition to storing these tokens in a Sentinel mobile/desktop wallet
- It incentivizes the hosting of more Handshake resolvers increasing the robustness of the HNS network, allowing for the proliferation of the leading decentralized DNS network
- It encourages the use and adoption of the HandyHost mining software which integrates the dVPN ecosystem with the Sia and Akash ecosystem by allowing users to provide their storage and compute resources to these respective networks
The Sentinel ecosystem is fortunate to have the support of the HandyHost team with the release of the HandyHost miner which allows users to setup a Sentinel dVPN node with just a few clicks in an easy to use interface.
This incentive program marks the transition of Sentinel’s Ethereum based dVPN network to its own native Cosmos based dVPN network which is exponentially more scalable and resilient as compared to its Ethereum based dVPN network. The existing Sentinel dVPN application (and Velocity dVPN 3rd party application) on the AppStore and PlayStore will soon be replaced by Cosmos based clients, marking an end to a beautiful journey of true utiltiy with these Ethereum based mobile applications crossing over 500k active installations.
First-Ever Interoperable Payments for a dVPN dAPP
dVPN applications built on Sentinel will be able to accept any token that is integrated with the Cosmos IBC protocol and this will soon include Bitcoin and Ethereum as well as stablecoins such as USDT when bridges are completely established. In addition to crypto payment gateways, 3rd parties are integrating payment gateways with the Sentinel dVPN protocol to allow for dVPNs built on Sentinel to be able to accept fiat payment channels.
Participants in this incentive program should enable the acceptance of UST and ATOM for payment in-order to maximize rewards, and these participants will be creating history by being the first dVPN node hosts to accept interoperable payments.
Validators on sentinel hub should be enabling ATOM, UST, OSMO for transaction fees on our blockchain, with the purpose of simplifying the user experience of consumers interacting with the dvpn applications.
Now with the Sentinel Hub being a part of the Cosmos IBC network, Sentinel wallets can now receive the Terra UST which has recently been integrated with IBC. The Cosmos Interoperability protocol is the most sophisticated by far in terms of its scalability and significant security.
In addition, this incentive program encourages the increase in participation of dVPN node hosts in tandem with the launch of Sentinel’s first dVPN mobile applications on both Android and iOS.
The Sentinel dVPN for Android (built on Cosmos) is now available on the Google Play Store in the link below!
The Structure of the Bandwidth Mining Program
The incentivized bandwidth mining program begins on the 1st of November and will continue indefinitely until further announcements.
Participants in the program will be hosting dVPN nodes that will power Sentinel’s upcoming iOS and Android dVPN applications as well as the existing CLI based desktop dVPN client which has been in operation for 6 months.
A daily rewards snapshot will be taken, to keep track of the eligibility criteria that is required to be met by node hosting participants. Rewards will be paid out on the 1st of every month.
A dedicated incentive program website will soon be launch where participants can track their performance in the program.
Eligibility Criteria:
- Minimum Up-Time Requirement — Participants will be required to maintain a minimum of 99% up-time during the daily snapshot to qualify for that specific snapshot, there will be 30 daily snapshots.
- Minimum Bandwidth Processed —Participants will be required to provide at least 1 GB of bandwidth total in the month to users of dVPNs built on the Sentinel. In addition the minimum length of the total dVPN sessions for the entire month must be at least 1 hour. These variables may be revised in the future after analyzing past rewards data.
- Enabling Handshake Resolver — The Handshake Resolver should generally be enabled by default and participants are required to keep the resolver live. Operating a Handshake Resolver increases the strength of the resiliency of Handshake’s overall decentralized DNS network.
- Reasonable Pricing for Bandwidth — Participants will be required to price their bandwidth provided between :
- 0.5 dvpn for 1 gb (500,000 udvpn )
- 1.5 dvpn for 1 gb (1,500,000 udvpn
(uDVPN is a sub-unit of DVPN, 1 DVPN= 1,000,000 uDVPN)
Given DVPN’s price volatility, this pricing range will be updated next month. In the initial stages of the network, 0.05$ per GB should ideally be the maximum price to boostrap the network.
*Not mandatory but strongly recommended for a potential special reward
- Enabling Multi-Currency Payment for ATOM, UST, OSMO and all other IBC compatible chains (for now only availabl in CLI)
Reward Pool Size:
The Reward Pool for this program distributes rewards once per month on the 1st of each month.
The 1st pool will begin at $25,000 for the month of November, and if its successful it will progressively scale based on demand for each month afterwards.
The pool’s monthly payout amount will be of a fixed size, and it will be shared proportionally by all nodes which are eligible for the program.
The pool will be able to target and incentivize a specific amount of nodes by varying its size as needed, thus maximizing efficiency for the observed network usage.
The amount of rewards earned per user is inversely correlated with the number of participants, so high rewards should incentivize the community to participate in a situation where there is less participation, like at the start of the program.
While the payouts are made on a monthly basis, the monitoring of node performance is done on a daily basis.
Additional Rewards Categories:
Bandwidth Miner Performance Reward:
1st Place — Highest amount of bandwidth transferred within the Month receives 10,000 DVPN
2nd Place — 2nd Highest amount of bandwidth transferred within the Month receives 6,000 DVPN
3rd Place — 3rd Highest amount of bandwidth transferred within the Month receives 4,000 DVPN
The additional 22 nodes in the top 25 nodes (in terms of bandwidth transferred) will receive a reward of $20 worth of DVPN for their performance.
dVPN Node Download and System Requirements Information (Only download from official links):
Official Download Links for the HandyHost Application (Linux/Mac) :
The Official Github Download link to the Linux and Mac Handyhost Application:
Official Video Setup Guide for the HandyHost Application (Linux/Mac):
Official Download Links for the Sentinel dVPN Docker Image (Linux/Mac) :
The official Github Download Link to the Linux and Mac Docker Image of the Sentinel dVPN Wireguard Node:
The official documentation for the setup of the dVPN Docker Image using CLI (ONLY FOR EXPERIENCED USERS)
