Open-source hardware

I started reaching out to influencers in the privacy community and I know how much concern they have against non open-source stuff. They really like the idea of decentralization through home-run nodes, but totally against unknown commercial devices. Is it possible to publish the pNode as an open-source hardware?

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A pNode is just a standalone version of a vNode. If wanted anyone can market their own pNode.

There is already some conversation on this topic here here

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The foundation is giving away free nodes to influencers, but We cannot contact privacy advocates with a gift which could be malicious hardware, or they just simply not allowed to know what is inside.
I know this is not interesting to average crypto users, but if we want to see a wider adoption in the privacy community as well, the hardware must be open-source, just like Incognito.

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@raz you asked, we listened. the core team is working on open-sourcing the (physical) Node source code. most likely the source code will be released on github next week. cc @binh @Jamie @Peter @annie

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I like how fast this decision was. :slight_smile:

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@binh Is it available now? I just ordered a few pNodes and I would like to check the details.

Will pNodes be compatible with Ethereum 2.0?

will we be able to host our “home-made” pNodes with Stake Fund exactly like a pNode ?

Have you created a “home-made” node? Would you be able to create instructions for one? Or is it substantially too difficult? I’d love to see an executable app or set up.

Is it possible to just download and install the Ubuntu server software, set up the ssh, and run curl or is that simplifying it way too much?

I have made one but not for Incognito Purposes , i’m waiting for the team to release the code so i can use Funded Stake

Any computer can be converted into a node…
Would be as simple as getting a cheap old computer for around $100.
Installing Ubuntu server on it for free.
Running the same script you run on a VPS.

Down side is

  • VPS uptime
  • VPS scalability
  • VPS internet speeds
  • VPS will bot block outside access to your server
  • Opening your firewall for external connections can be dangerous. There are random bots that look for these

They should open Vnodes for staked funds but I think that helps the pnode sales

hey @raz, not sure if you were part of the early node design discussion mid last year on telegram, but the original roadmap was to ship node first and then a node pro version later.

this is a little outdated… but you can see the original specs 6 months ago here https://node.incognito.org/specs

node pro is similar to node, but it will power a number of other PoS networks like eth2, harmony, and maybe even lightning network. the idea is that we’ll have a tab in our current app, called blockchain store. it’s similar to an app store but instead of apps we’ll have blockchains. incognito is just one among these PoS blockchains.

you can tap on one, say eth2, from your phone to install onto/uninstall from your node. similarly, you can stake/pause/stop/etc too right from your phone.

under the hood, we were just gonna build a bunch of docker containers, one for each chain, similarly to how we package incognito today.

@binh went as far as built the initial prototype with eth2 last year (if i remembered correctly, we ran an implementation from prysmatic labs).

i think it’s a great idea because node pro could be a single interface – easy to use, plug and play, control from your phone – for multiple blockchains. we just 10x the mining/validating experience for node owners. all the earnings are confidential of course.

the reason we put node pro on hold because eth2 and many other PoS networks are not ready yet. i mean… looking back now compared to 6 months ago… there is some progress but there isn’t many PoS chains in production yet. we are just waiting for more PoS chains to come online to resume the node pro project.

i think the value proposition for these PoS chains is super clear. they don’t need to spend a lot of money & time & education to acquire validators for their chains. we already have 1,500 validators and growing. our current validators could be their validators. and the value for our current validators? more income for them from validating/mining these additional chains with zero additional cost – they will be using the same node device they have.

if this is something you’re interested in, would love to collaborate to bring node pro to the market when other PoS chains are ready for mass adoption. cc @andrey

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@duy Interesting, I didn’t know that. pNode pro looks badass, but the specs are similar to regular pNode’s. I aim to run these I just bought in the next decade, I hope 512 gb will be enough and eth 2.0 doesn’t make my pNodes unsupported.

We are running a Harmony validator on testnet and will join eth 2.0 too. The problem with other PoS is they store private keys on validators. (Incognito avoided this cleverly)

Our current development includes a self-hosted validator dashboard and a staking calculator community website for Harmony, I am something like a dev ambassador there.

Would love to help with these if I could.

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