Vipnode

Vipnode creates an economic incentive to run full nodes and serve light clients.

• Connect your light client to the Ethereum network instantly, with time-metered fees.
• Hosting a full node? Join a vipnode pool and earn money for every vipnode client your node serves.

Status: Stable testnet release, but future work is suspended. Participation payout is currently using Rinkeby money, subscribe to the newsletter for updates.

Quickstart

You'll need to use a terminal and the geth client for these examples.

Installing

1. Grab the latest binary release for your platform from here: https://github.com/vipnode/vipnode/releases

   Or run this one-liner for linux_amd64 to download and extract:

   curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/vipnode/vipnode/releases | grep -om1 "https://.*/vipnode-linux_amd64.tgz" | xargs curl -sL | tar vxz
   

2. Once you extract it, you'll have a vipnode directory. You can run the binary inside of it:

   $ tar xzf vipnode*.tgz
   $ tree vipnode/
   vipnode
   ├── LICENSE
   ├── README.md
   └── vipnode
   $ cd vipnode/
   $ ./vipnode --help
   

You can move the vipnode binary into your $PATH for convenience: sudo mv vipnode /usr/local/bin/.

While exploring, try using the -vv flag for extra verbose output.

How to connect as a light client

Clients pay a small fee per minute of being connected to a vipnode host. When you connect to a pool for the first time, you'll get a welcome message with instructions.

1. Run a local geth in light mode, something like: geth --syncmode=light --rpc --nodiscover --verbosity 7
2. vipnode agent -vv

It should automatically find the RPC and nodekey. If it doesn't, it will fail with a useful error message for how to provide those paths.

How to connect as a full node host

Hosts earn a small fee per minute of being connected to a vipnode client.

1. Run a local geth in full mode with lightserv enabled, something like: geth --lightserv=60 --rpc
2. vipnode agent -vv --payout=$(MYWALLET)

Advanced Details

For high-level design and details on running your own pool, check ADVANCED.md

License

MIT