Mainnet Beta — Stabilization (Republic Protocol team only)

Initially, Mainnet will go through a stabilization period. During this period, Darknodes will only be operated by the Republic Protocol team. A total of 24 Darknodes will be run by the team, which is the equivalent of one full pod.

This serves two purposes:

A final opportunity for the software to be battle-tested for security and stability on Mainnet, and An opportunity for RenEx to approve the first KYC applications for traders.

These Darknodes will also form the foundational systemic requirements for the protocol to function, ensuring that as the network grows at least one full pod worth of nodes always exists regardless of profitability.

Mainnet Beta — Limited Participation

During this phase, the Darknode CLI (the tool used for deploying Darknode machines), and the Darknode Operator UI (the website used for registering Darknodes and withdrawing rewards), will monitor the total volume moving through Republic Protocol and calculate the expected rewards based on the number of currently registered Darknodes.

The Darknode CLI and Darknode Operator UI will discourage deployment of Darknodes unless there is sufficient volume available to ensure that Darknode rewards are profitable.

This serves two purposes:

It protects the public from losing money to machine operation costs during the early life of Republic Protocol as liquidity grows, and It reduces the likelihood of a “mass-deregistration” of Darknodes; which can cause degraded network performance and stability — impacting traders experience.

The factors that determine returns and Darknode operation feasibility are explained here.

In addition to said warning, we are excited to announce there will be a Network Stats page hosted on RenEx. This will provide an up to date stats on the exchange and will help traders and Darknode operators alike make informed decisions.

Please note that since RenEx is a dark pool all of the metrics will be lagging indicators, i.e. after the fact — as information is only revealed after the trade has been executed.

Mainnet — Full Access

Once the Republic Protocol team is confident that Mainnet Beta is operating smoothly, and that there is sufficient liquidity growing to support a large number of profitable Darknodes, the team will remove all limitations from the tools and Mainnet will move out of Beta. From this point on the only requirement to setup and run a Darknode will be the 100,000 REN bond.

The Republic Protocol team will continue to run a baseline of Darknodes to support the stability of the network.