Bitcoin startup Bitseed has announced it is open-sourcing the creation of its new plug-in node.

The company, which launched its first node in March, is asking contributors to help evolve its product by completing tasks and solving bounties in exchange for rewards.

Bitseed’s project is hosted on Assembly, a collaborative platform that tracks contributions to projects with coloured coins on the bitcoin blockchain.

John Light, co-founder at Bitseed, told CoinDesk:

“The Bitseed Assembly community is our way of trying to make open-source development sustainable, and to financially support the open-source software that runs on Bitseed. If a contributor completes a bounty they earn Assembly coins for that project.”

He continued: “When the project earns revenue, the revenue is distributed proportionally to all coin holders. Our current pledge to coin holders in the Bitseed Assembly community is to give them $1 for each Bitseed [node] sold.”

New developments

The bounties – which include improvements to software and hardware development, graphics design and marketing – proposed by Assembly community members are subject to approval by a Bitseed core team member.

The company says the new node, known as Bitseed v2, has already undergone a series of design improvements, including allowing operators to decide how many nodes their device will connect to.

The bitcoin startup revealed it is also venturing into the altcoin space, offering support for currencies on a “per coin basis”.

For example, if Bitseed receives an order for 100 nodes with litecoin support, it will begin to produce single units which can run the altcoin.

Alternatively, Bitseed is also seeking the support of developers from the altcoin community.

Light said that the purpose of this was to fund the integration. “If a developer helps us, there is no need for the up-front funds, but without a developer we would need to devote our own resources”, he said.

Declining nodes

The news comes amid concerns about the declining number of full bitcoin nodes.

Besides Bitseed, other initiatives have set out to boost the number of nodes across the world, including Fullnode.co – a non-profit project that lets bitcoin donors “spin up a full node” by tipping a wallet address. Currently, it has four up-and-running.

As an essential component of the network, bitcoin nodes broadcast messages in order to validate and relay transactions, but unlike bitcoin miners, who are rewarded for confirming transactions, node operators do not have any financial incentive.

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