Supernode 101: Earn Rewards Daily💎

Everything You Need to Be a Snapshot Block Producer (SBP)

LKK153

Published in

Vite Labs

3 min readJan 3, 2019

1) What is a Supernode?

Supernodes are unique to blockchains with a Delegated Proof of Stake (DPOS) consensus mechanism. Think of DPOS as a representative democracy, wherein the elected officials confirm the legitimacy of individual transactions and the overall public ledger.

By the way, during crypto winters, running SBPs is a great way to make use of your VITE coins😁

2) Why are Supernodes in Vite called Snapshot Block Producers?

Vite uses a variant of DPOS called Hierarchical Delegated Proof of Stake (HDPOS). This is due to our Block Lattice architecture which is a novel form of Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG). In HDPOS, there are multiple levels of consensus:

Local Consensus: Happens at the level of user accounts and smart contract accounts. Vite’s Block Lattice DAG ledger means that each user and smart contract has its own chain. Delegated Consensus Groups are hand-picked sets of full nodes who determine the state of smart contracts.
Global Consensus: Global Consensus happens at the Snapshot Chain level, through the Snapshot Consensus Group. The Snapshot Chain is an overall ledger of all chains at the Local Consensus level; though it does not store the whole ledger, it stores key information such as account balances and roots of Merkle Trees of smart contract states.

The relationship between Local Consensus and Global Consensus is captured in the following analogy: a company records its financial transactions (Local Consensus) and an auditor confirms that they are correct (Global Consensus). Supernodes are members of the Snapshot Consensus Group, from which the top 100 are eligible to become SBPs💪

Snapshot Block Producers (SBP) are the top 25 voting Supernodes within the Snapshot Consensus Group, who produce blocks for the Snapshot Chain. Vite invented the Snapshot Chain to mitigate well known security issues posed by DAG architecture.

3) Why should I become a Supernode / SBP?

To become an SBP, a node must:

Stake 1,000,000 VITE
Run a server and have necessary skills to maintain that server
Have community influence and be able to call for votes from VITE holders

The top 100 SBPs with the most votes will be allowed to produce blocks and receive mining rewards. The probability for a top~25 SBP to produce a block is 23/25, and the probability for a SBP placed in the 26th~100th range to produce a block is 2/75.

In total, the SBPs running over a full year will receive mining rewards worth 30 million VITE (roughly 3% of total supply). SBP rewards are divided into two categories:

Block-producing rewards: 50% of SBP rewards will be distributed based on the number of blocks created by each SBP as a percentage of total number of blocks created.
Staking and voting rewards: the other 50% will be distributed based on the amount staked and the amount of votes received by each SBP as a percentage of the total amount staked and the amount of votes received (by the top 100 SBPs).

4) How can I become a Supernode/SBP or full node?

1. Set up a full node. This takes 10 minutes maximum. full nodes keep the complete Vite ledger, vote for SBP’s and earn rewards unique to full nodes.

Check out the full node tutorial.

2. Set up a Supernode in order to become an SBP. Be ready to stake VITE through your wallet and start the process of getting votes!

Check out the SBP tutorial.

Recommended hardware requirements: