Vipnode 2.0 Released

Progress Update #5

What is vipnode? Vipnode is an open source implementation of economic incentives for running Ethereum full nodes who serve light clients — a critical component of ETH2.0 sharding! More context here.

Vipnode has been approaching stability for a while now, so I quietly pushed out an official 2.0 release.

Give it a try or watch this quick 7-minute walk-through video:

Vipnode walkthrough video

What’s new?

Bugs have been ironed out (including a couple from the walkthrough video — see if you spot them), documentation has been polished, beta users’ feedback has been implemented. Overall, things are looking good.

Check out the demo pool dashboard: https://vipnode.org/status/

Vipnode Pool Dashboard

If you run an Ethereum full node on mainnet, get yourself on here and start earning some sweet Rinkeby-ETH!

What’s next?

As we plan towards v3.0, there are lots of paths we can take. It really depends on community interest and finding additional funding. Some ideas:

Add a web3 proxy feature to pools , so your vipnode pool can be a “mini-Infura.” Should be a reasonably small amount of work for a baseline implementation, and pretty cool. Use vipnode to run your own Infura cluster!

, so your vipnode pool can be a “mini-Infura.” Should be a reasonably small amount of work for a baseline implementation, and pretty cool. Use vipnode to run your own Infura cluster! Add vipnode support for Ultra-Light Clients, which is a feature recently merged into Geth courtesy of the Status-IM team. With any luck, this will require minimal changes to vipnode.

which is a feature recently merged into Geth courtesy of the Status-IM team. With any luck, this will require minimal changes to vipnode. Deploy a pool with mainnet payments so you can earn real money with the demo pool. Not super excited about the tax and legal liability with hosting this, but maybe it’s the right next step unless someone else wants to do it.

so you can earn real money with the demo pool. Not super excited about the tax and legal liability with hosting this, but maybe it’s the right next step unless someone else wants to do it. Implement trustless payments using peer-to-peer state channels or a side-chain or using some cutting edge ZK-SNARKs research. This is clearly something that will need to happen eventually, but it’s a big chunk of work that would require a lot more funding.

using peer-to-peer state channels or a side-chain or using some cutting edge ZK-SNARKs research. This is clearly something that will need to happen eventually, but it’s a big chunk of work that would require a lot more funding. Build a demo wallet with native vipnode integration to show how seamless it can be. I’m still working towards integration with Status and WallETH but ultimately it might be easier to just make a super-simple wallet to illustrate the potential. (More about Usability in the previous progress update.)

Would love to hear what’s important to you! Please direct some discussion here: https://github.com/vipnode/vipnode.org/issues/13

How can you help?