What is a Dark Node?

Dark Nodes are the core of Republic Protocol. Dark Nodes coordinate with each other to process parts of the hidden order book, and reach consensus on orders that must be executed.

To do this, Dark Nodes must register with the Dark Node Registry, an Ethereum smart contract, by committing an amount of REN as a good behavior bond. The Dark Node Registry will periodically shuffle Dark Nodes into randomly sampled Dark Pools, where each pool runs a secure multi-party computation to process a designated shard of the hidden order book.

The result is a parallelized network, matching hidden orders that cannot be revealed to anyone — including the Dark Nodes themselves — unless a super-majority of the network is corrupted. As more Dark Nodes register, hidden orders will be more secure and the network will be able to match them faster.

Why are Dark Nodes being previewed?

At the heart of every decentralized network is the community behind it, and the security of Republic Protocol relies on a large number of people in our community running Dark Nodes. This preview allows our development team to get some early feedback on how to improve the process of installing and operating a Dark Node. The simpler it is, the more people will get involved, and the more secure and the more efficient Republic Protocol will become. Security has always been our top priority and we are committed to addressing it at every level of our project.

Previewing the Dark Nodes also provides us with an opportunity to run tests in an environment where we can provide one-on-one support for operators, and we can roll out updates quickly and predictably.