Tachyon(IPX) Bootstrap Program!

Published in

Tachyon Protocol

4 min readApr 4, 2020

When you start a computer, a bootstrap loads the kernel and starts the other services your computer needs to run correctly.

Likewise, the Tachyon network has a bootstrap phase. Tachyon’s bootstrap phase is limited to 500 nodes, and each node can stake between 20,000 and 1,000,000 IPX. Participants are allowed to run multiple nodes.

During the bootstrap phase, the Tachyon network is starting itself up by attracting node operators interested in running high-quality Tachyon nodes.

High-quality Tachyon nodes:

Are positioned near internet exchanges for low latency and high bandwidth.
Prioritize uptime and network conditions over computational performance.
Can run in the cloud or on bare metal.
Can be anywhere in the world

*Note: We are especially in need of node operators in South America and Africa

In order to recruit the best node operators and get the network up and running, we are doubling the staking payment for a period of six months from the usual 5% to 10%. The newly-added 5% comes from the Tachyon ecological construction.

Bootstrap is solely for the first 500 nodes. Priority will be given to VSYS supernodes, subnodes, and existing node operators. You can apply here.

Benefits of being a Bootstrap Phase Node Operator:

Stake at 10% for six months
$100–200 Cloud Compute Coupon (Depending on availability)
Invitation to exclusive workshops on:

1)Tachyon’s technology

2)Generating maximum revenue from your Tachyon nodes

3)Upcoming Tachyon products

Invitation to an exclusive Tachyon Bootstrap chat

You can check out the financials of our Bootstrap phase here. When looking at the financial model, please remember that you have two sources of income when running a provider node:

Staking

Your earnings from staking are calculated by your node’s share of Total Network Stake. Total Network Stake is calculated by adding together the amount of IPX staked across all nodes in the network. If you have 500,000 IPX staked and Total Network Stake is 200,000,000 IPX, you have .25% of the Total Network Stake, which means that you’ll earn .25% of the daily reward of 273,973 IPX. Your daily reward will be 684.9325 IPX.

When using the financial calculator, feel free to adjust the “Stake” variable to reflect the amount you’d like to stake.

2. Session Fees

Node operators choose the price they charge users for each 5MB block of traffic, which we call a “session.” Our financial calculator sets the session fee at 0.05 IPX. When running a node, you choose the session fee. Feel free to adjust that variable and see what it does to your earnings.

We discussed “Competitive Tachyon Nodes” above. What are you competing for? You’re competing for sessions. More users will want to connect to you and pay you for sessions if your node has:

a. Low Latency / ping times

Users won’t suffer interruptions to their service when gaming or making voice and video calls

b. High Bandwidth

Streaming video will work well for your users

c. Great peering

You’ll have low latency connections to many users from just one node.

d. High Stake Levels

Bandwidth, latency, and stake are used in the app’s algorithm to determine which nodes are chosen first.

You want your node to capture as many sessions as possible. When creating the model, we came to the conclusion that sane defaults for this setting were between 5000 and 50,000 sessions per day. In the model, we left it at 10,000. Adjust this number in the financial calculator based on how competitive you think you can make your node.

How Many Sessions can I earn?

There’s no ceiling to how many sessions you can serve in a day, but it’s unlikely that you’ll serve more than 2TB of traffic per day from a single very competitive node, which works out to around 400,000 sessions. Note that 400,000 sessions is an extreme high case and you’ll almost certainly serve much fewer than 400,000 sessions.

Selection for Tachyon’s Bootstrap program is a competitive process based on staking size, technical experience and how you contribute to grow the network. The factors for selection include:

Number of IPX you are staking
Number of nodes you are looking to run
IPX/VSYS wallet address
Describe your technical experience (Linux/Networking)
Describe your plan to advocate and grow the Tachyon network.
Geographic location you’d like to serve

The bootstrap phase is designed to be very low-risk for node operators. Staking requirements have been set lower than usual, and staking payouts will be 2x what they normally are to encourage people to join.