Today we officially announce the release of our Darknodes to the public. From this point forward there will be no restrictions for the deployment of a Darknode, meaning anyone with 100K REN will be able to deploy a Darknode on Mainnet. While anyone can launch a Darknode, this does not guarantee profitability or the ability to cover operating costs. If current network activity does not cover the operating costs of running a Darknode, individuals will be notified through the Darknode Command Center prior to final deployment.

Darknode Participation Guidelines

We strongly encourage those who set up Darknodes to follow these guidelines such that we can maximize community participation and benefit.

Only run one (1) Darknode per participant.

Setup your Darknode using the default configurations and do not disable auto updates.

Assist in ongoing testing and provision of feedback for Darknode operation.

Notify the team if you are terminating a Darknode.

As a permissionless decentralized protocol, you are not bound by these guidelines but we’d like to reiterate that following these guidelines will greatly help the project’s progression and community involvement as we transition to an openly run network.

Darknode Deployment Instructions

Initially, we will only be supporting Darknode deployment on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Digital Ocean (DO). Our official set of instructions can be found on our ZenDesk. We will continue to bring support for other cloud providers, but we do not recommend running a Darknode on a personal computer due to the uptime and network requirements.

As mentioned in our previous blog post, the team will be providing direct support to our core community members first(Ren Ambassadors and Testnet Darknode Operators), ensuring they have the resources needed to assist the broader public with the Darknode onboarding procedure and troubleshooting.

These community members will assist with onboarding through our Telegram channel and have experience running testnet Darknodes, while supporting the team. We will prioritize this user base to ensure that the initial set of Darknodes are reliably operated and that valuable feedback can be obtained at an early stage.

Darknode Command Center

A screenshot of the Darknode Command Center working on Ethereum Mainnet.

Darknodes will be managed from a central hub aptly named the Darknode Command Center (DCC). The DCC provides a user-friendly interface allowing individuals to control all aspects of Darknode operation, from the withdrawal of funds to refilling your Darknode with ETH. While this is the first iteration of the DCC, its interface will be continuously improved over time to provide the best user experience possible. Please provide the team with feedback for any features that you would like to see.