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An overview of costs associated with running a node on Pocket Network. |
There are two initial costs to becoming a Service Node:
- Minimum Node Stake
- Hardware (if chosen)
Pocket Network is neutral to the hardware utilized by Service Nodes, meaning that hardware can be a physical server that is run in a home or a local data center, or computing power can be purchased through popular cloud providers. The specs required for a Service Node’s hardware is dependent on the blockchain(s) that a Service Node chooses to support. For example, if a Service Node were to choose to support Ethereum, the server would need to have at least 1TB of storage (as of writing) to support an archival node for Ethereum.
The minimum stake at launch required to become a Service Node is 15,000 POKT. This minimum stake also allows Service Nodes to participate in PoS consensus. If a Service Node stake falls below the minimum amount through serving incorrect data or incorrect block validation, 20% of the minimum stake for that Service Node will be slashed and jailed. If a Service Node submits a fraudulent Relay batch, 100% of their stake will be slashed. The initial amount of POKT needed to stake as a Service Node is not dynamic, but can be raised or lowered by the Pocket DAO to ensure a stable barrier to entry.
Once the initial costs of a Service Node are covered, the only additional cost is electricity and bandwidth for providing the computing power to complete Relays. Marginal costs for Service Nodes are extremely low and increase linearly as work increases.
- Cloud providers
- Electricity
- Bandwidth
- Data center
Outside of the fixed costs associated with running a node, Service Node operators will also incur costs like electricity, data center fees, and bandwidth costs for physical hardware. Alternatively, if they opt for a cloud-hosted service, they'll be paying an all-in fee for hosting. Again, these marginal fees are low, but will play a factor in node profitability and total node counts.