We are seeking support to fund the ongoing Peers Program, which has already made significant steps in decentralizing the Astar network and fostering community engagement. Currently, the program supports 14 active members spanning regions such as South America, Africa, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
Achievements So Far:
The Peers Program has successfully onboarded 14 members across diverse geographical regions, including South America, Africa, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
These members operate archive nodes, playing a crucial role in decentralizing the network and maintaining blockchain history.
Reasons for Funding:
Decentralization through Archive Nodes:
The program empowers community members to run archive nodes, preserving blockchain history and enhancing network resilience.
Archive nodes serve as essential RPC endpoints, facilitating seamless interactions between users and the Astar blockchain via WebSocket and HTTP protocols.
Educational Value:
Participants benefit from hands-on learning experiences in node setup and maintenance.
The program serves as a foundational step for individuals interested in blockchain infrastructure, fostering technical expertise within the community.
Funding Request:
We are requesting 50,000 $ASTR to sustain and expand the Peers Program.
At the current price of $0.07 per $ASTR, this amounts to approximately $3,500.
Payments are currently set at $30 per person per month, for node operators with over 80% availability.
Funds will be managed jointly by me (Sequaja) and bLd through a proxy mechanism, ensuring transparent distribution for program incentives.
Wallet address for the Peers Program: Y4rPEERX1ucGe2nWpEqR8ACboThwtgGZDWZNZvzYeoGRTJC
Thank you for the wonderful proposal
I am also one of the supporters participating in and helping to build this program, so let me add a bit more information.
While there are various circumstances depending on the region, participants are diligently working on building nodes. Initially, there are costs involved in procuring items like Raspberry Pi, compact space, and mini PCs, but if you can keep a node operational for half a year, I believe it can be sufficiently supplemented (assuming a support fund of $30 per month).
Furthermore, on Discord, there is a dedicated channel for support, and there are documents for construction procedures and troubleshooting. So, while some knowledge of Linux is necessary, I think even beginners can achieve node operation.
I hope to support the operation of nodes in more regions and increase the distribution power.
Thanks you for the added information! And of course thank you for your help with the peers program. Your technical knowledge and answers are really helpful :).
I’m am one of the participants and it has been a lot of fun learning how to get a node up and running. I’m by no means an expert, but I was able to get hands on experience with the terminal and play around with Astar’s GitHub.
The team running it are super helpful and could get even a zero code knowledge user like me up and running.
And the discord channel is very friendly and supportive. Would love to see this expand to more node users.
I fully support this proposal and it is essential to improve the decentralization and the network resilence.
Could we have a component in the Astar SDK to allow dApp developers to easily add a RPC switch? Peers program nodes could be part of this list.
I also support this.
And as we had the occasion to discuss this with bLd, why not officially support Raspberry alternatives like those little Celeron N100 based micro computers ?
They are cheap, quite powerful for the price and only eat about 10-12W max I guess (theory, I have not measured that, the processor itself is 6W :))
@Sequaja
Totally in favor of the proposal! As a member who will soon join this mission to decentralize Astar data through the nodes, I strongly support it.
On the other hand, this proposal from GuiGou pleases me very much.
Astar provides binaries for x86_64 architectures, not just Raspberry Pi, and supports them. Therefore, you can run archive nodes on small PCs like those based on the N100. In fact, I run one at home with an Intel® Celeron® J4125 CPU. For instance, I have written several articles on this topic. Please refer to them:
Could we have a component in the Astar SDK to allow dApp developers to easily add a RPC switch?
It seems convenient for dApp developers, however I don’t fully understand your proposal yet.
At the moment, the Peer Program does not develop such convenient components, modules, or tools. By the way, the Peer Program only goes as far as building and running nodes according to the manual. Most members are beginners and are not developers.
I might have not been clear. By support I didn’t mean technical Aster support but rather program support.
This is just that the original program was Raspberry centered if I’m not wrong. I thought it would be nice to mention that this is not mandatory and that other low consumption devices are accepted as well.
Indeed, that’s correct. In fact, this program supports the N100 and other small computers as well. While Raspberry Pi was the initial trigger, I think it’s also worth mentioning this point moving forward.
@Sequaja
I believe it would be appropriate to add a supplementary explanation that the Peer Program includes those who use small machines with x86_64 architecture as well. What do you think?
I fully support the funding request for the Peers Program. This initiative has effectively decentralized the Astar network and engaged our community across diverse regions. By enabling 14 members to run archive nodes, it strengthens network resilience and provides valuable educational opportunities!
Thanks @svax974 for the question and @tksarah for answering it. Was not at home for some days, sorry for the delay. Agreeing with tksarah and talked to @bld that the program is only supporting mini PC with low consumption which are raspberry pis or n100 like you metnioned them, so its okay to use them. will add this to the docs aswell
As the 7-day minimum discussion period comes to an end, you can now open your Peers Program Funding proposal directly on https://astargov.com/.
If you need help creating your governance proposal for the vote, you can consult the official documentation or use this Treasury proposal as an example.
Hi Sequaja! Thank you very much for making this great proposal! Yes, I fully support this, and I am super glad that you already had 14 members onboarded, great job!
For the priority region, do you have any update? I mean, now you get more active members, is there any region that still need more nodes?
Hi, yes we are still looking for more memebrs in South America, West Asia & Africa!
If you have someone who wants to join you know you can introduce them in the discord aswell!
