Akash means “open space, sky” in ancient Sanskrit.



As a decentralized system, and the world’s first distributed peer-to-peer open cloud computing marketplace, our aim is to materialize the vision of an open cloud that’s as boundless and free as the sky. To this end, we’re leveraging a series of testnets to gather data, identify critical issues, and ensure our network’s scalability, security, and usability before we launch our mainnet.



These explorations will also enable us to understand our community dynamics and governance, and help us build a healthy and vital community for growth.



Results from Akash Testnet Alpha Founding Member Challenges



For our Testnet Alpha, we launched the Akash Founding Member Rewards Program for early contributors to Akash’s testnet and community. Of the 100,000,000 tokens that will ever be pre-mined at genesis, we allocated 2% (2,000,000 AKTs) to the Founding Member program. The program involved three progressively difficult challenges along with bonus challenges, and contributors joined from all over the world, including the U.S., Korea, Japan, China, Europe, India, and South America.



Each challenge had a corresponding reward, for a total of 3,500 Akash Tokens (AKT), with bonuses of up to 2,000 AKT. The challenges engaged contributors with Akash Supercloud, and taught them how to become compute providers and deploy applications on our open, permissionless, and secure marketplace for compute cycles, resulting in 1,802 deployments and 144 providers.

Incentivized Testnet Launch



Today, we’re excited to announce the launch of our Incentivized Testnet with The Akashian Challenge next Thursday, April 30th 2020.

Register for The Akashian Challenge

To incentivize participants in the Akashian Challenge, we’re allocating 3% (3,000,000 AKTs!) of the 100,000,000 tokens that will ever be pre-mined at genesis.



The Akashian Challenge focuses on a series of tasks that get progressively more difficult, and enable participants to explore different aspects of the platform, from performing user operations to node operations.



Our Testnet Beta and Akashian Challenge program is inspired by ecosystem projects from the community, such as Solana Tour de Sol, Cosmos Game of Stakes, and Kava Founder Rewards.



The Akashian Challenge

The Akashian Challenge will begin on Thursday, April 30th, 2020, and run for 8 weeks in three distinct phases:

Phase 1: Node Operations

Phase 2: Provider Operations

Phase 3: Developer Operations



Phase 1: The participants earn tokens by solving different challenges related to operating and validating the Akash Blockchain. The challenges will range from setting up Akash node to Governing the network.



Phase 2: Phase 2 involves setting up a secure, production-ready, and scalable Datacenter operation as a provider and/or validator on the Akash network. The goal of this phase is to test various adversarial conditions, identify security loopholes and scalability limits of the Akash network. Beyond setting up the operations, participants are incentivized to stress test the limits of the Akash Network.



Phase 3: Phase 3 incentives developers to build on the Akash network. Developers earn tokens by deploying applications. The most creative applications will be selected every fortnight by committee and public in a live-streamed ceremony.

Rewards

A total of 3 million AKT (3% of AKT) is allocated for rewards that include:

64 Finalist Rewards One-Off Challenges Phase Completion Top 5, 10, 20 Finalists Bi-Weekly Winners Bonus Challenges

*Rewards Calculator will be published next week

Registration

Registration: Submit the form here. Once the form is submitted, our team will review the information and integrate the information into a publicly viewable spreadsheet for tracking. KYC/AML: Complete KYC/AML here. Tax Documents: W-8 BEN or W9. Once your KYC application is approved, our team will send either a W-8 BEN for international participants or a W9 via HelloSign. Status: The status of your participation agreement will be tracked along with the other registration information. We will also notify you upon completion or rejection of any submitted participation agreements.

Important Dates

Registration Open: April 22, 2020

April 22, 2020 Rewards Details: April 28, 2020

April 28, 2020 Phase 1: April 30, 2020

Register for The Akashian Challenge

Don’t Miss Critical Updates on The Akashian Challenge



Join our Telegram to get the latest news, and you’ll get a special invite to the Testnet Beta and The Akashian Challenge AMA next week with our CEO Greg Osuri and Pylon Validator Jack Zampolin!





