What a start! Phase 1 showed a full week of activity as validators gathered to complete tasks and challenges to launch their nodes. The energy started to bubble as validators became familiar with the Agoric network and moved to socials to announce their excitement:“We are happy to participate in the @agoric #testnet along with @ChainflowPOS @Figment_io @DokiaCapital @iqlusioninc @kalpa_tech @01node @Nodeasy to enable more accessible, more secure and faster #DeFi.” – @Provalidator on March 24th.David Campbell, COO of Electric Coin Company, also jumped in on the fun sharing that “The Agoric team has a vast amount of experience making JavaScript provably secure. Applying this to blockchain tech makes perfect sense. This is why I’m pleased to participate in the Agoric incentivized testnet.” 

Phase 1: By the Numbers

Far more validators expressed interest than we had anticipated. We could only admit a fraction of the applications to the testnet, and the folks who joined in blew us away with their activity. Here’s what that looked like:

  • 6,300 community members applied

  • 501 of 596 Phase 1 tasks were completed

  • 43 tools were submitted for the challenge task

  • 142 of 150 participants set up validators

A quick snapshot of our testnetThe Agoric blockchain is based on Tendermint’s consensus mechanism and the Cosmos-SDK. Phase 1 showed that the technology is solid and the community of practice around it is well-established.

Building the Agoric Community

Early on in Phase 1, we saw countless participants offer help and support to those experiencing technical issues during the onboarding process. It was amazing to see the mix of experienced validators giving a hand to those with less history running nodes. Throughout the week we witnessed validators write and publish blog articles, social media posts, discord posts, and GitHub snippets, in a range of 5 different languages! At the end of the day, the community was fired up to reach a common goal: to get every validator up and running for Phase 2.We were also pleased to hear from participants. Many expressed pleasure with the resources: “I have to say that Agoric’s documentation has been impeccable, very direct and easy to understand,” wrote one dev. “Setting up the validator couldn’t have been easier,” wrote Alves Ventures in a Medium post. We love to hear it! We’ll continue to work hard in providing the most efficient documentation possible throughout the incentivized testnet.

Phase 1 Champions

Alchemydc for Best Node Deployment

A Terraform module for creating and managing Agoric infrastructure. This is a great tool to make the deployment and management of Agoric nodes to GCP much more efficient.Project Link: https://github.com/alchemydc/agoric-terraform

OranG3 for Best Monitoring Utility

Connecting with Netadata provides notifications to help operators monitor and stay up to date with the status of their nodes. Deployment is fast and ensures you won’t miss system-critical information.Project Link: https://orang3club.medium.com/agoric-netdata-3d81b9ba292d

Phase 1 Runners-Up

Asifhj’s Docker Deployment

This repo will help validators run Agoric in the docker container. A pre-built(dependencies and Agoric [email protected]) ubuntu docker image is available in the hub docker. A startup script is used to determine the environment to start from the beginning or resume from the existing setup.Project Link: https://github.com/asifhj/agoric_docker_deployment Project Link #2: https://hub.docker.com/repository/docker/asif/agoric_validator

Novy4’s AWS Cloud Deployment

This tool uses Terraform scripts to deploy a full Agoric node to your AWS account. The steps are easy and get you up and running in no time.Project link: https://github.com/novy4/agoric-tools.git

0xd18b’s Monitoring Dashboard

A tool that monitors the size and vitality of any Cosmos-derived network with a stylish UI to easily access features like Gini Coefficient, Total Stake, Outsider Disruptor, and more.Project Link: https://dashboard.validator0xd18b.net

Next Steps

Phase 2 which just finished up, was all about the infrastructure; it focused on testing the hardware, running network load, and performing maintenance tasks. We’ll have a full writeup of that in the coming weeks.Even if you’re not a participating validator in our incentivized testnet, you can still take a look under the hood and start building with us.

Thanks for reading. You can join the Agoric community on Twitter, Discord, Telegram, and LinkedIn, and subscribe to our monthly newsletter.