Republic Protocol, the new decentralized ‘dark pool’ for cryptocurrency trading has been steadily building its infrastructure since its token generation event and has now informed they are in the process of getting ready for the release of the Republic Protocol Testnet, Federation Zero.
Republic has been preparing the installation procedure for Dark Nodes, running large-scale network tests, improving the order matching engine, and putting the finishing touches on its visualization website.
Now the Republic Protocol team is currently running a preview of the Dark Nodes. This will be the first opportunity for a select group of members from the community to get to experience a Dark Node, get familiar with the installation and operation process, and to give feedback on how Republic can streamline the experience.
What is a Dark Node?
Dark Nodes are the core of Republic Protocol. Dark Nodes coordinate with each other to process parts of the hidden order book and reach consensus on orders that must be executed.
To do this, Dark Nodes must register with the Dark Node Registry, an Ethereum smart contract, by committing an amount of REN as a good behavior bond. The Dark Node Registry will periodically shuffle Dark Nodes into randomly sampled Dark Pools, where each pool runs a secure multi-party computation to process a designated shard of the hidden order book.
The result is a parallelized network, matching hidden orders that cannot be revealed to anyone — including the Dark Nodes themselves — unless a super-majority of the network is corrupted. As more Dark Nodes register, hidden orders will be more secure and the network will be able to match them faster.
Why are Dark Nodes being previewed?
At the heart of every decentralized network is the community behind it, and the security of Republic Protocol relies on a large number of people in our community running Dark Nodes. This preview allows our development team to get some early feedback on how to improve the process of installing and operating a Dark Node. The simpler it is, the more people will get involved, and the more secure and the more efficient Republic Protocol will become. Security has always been our top priority and we are committed to addressing it at every level of our project.
Previewing the Dark Nodes also provides the Republic Protocol developers with an opportunity to run tests in an environment where they can provide one-on-one support for operators, and they can roll out updates quickly and predictably.
Loong Wang, CTO, Republic Protocol said:
“The community will now be able to access our visualization website, which shows how the Dark Node Registry has organized Dark Nodes into randomly sampled Dark Pools. It also shows the health of the network, and the flux of orders being opened and matched.”
“During this preview, Republic Protocol will run five of our own Dark Nodes to act as a bootstrap for the rest of the network. A very small group from the community has been selected to run their own Dark Nodes, with more to be added in the coming weeks. Once the preview is complete, we will be one step closer to the Federation Zero Testnet, which will be open to everyone!”
“Stay tuned for further tech updates to learn more about the progress of the Federation Zero Testnet, we are always looking for active and engaged members of our community to help preview the Dark Nodes.”
On February 3rd, 2018, Republic Protocol concluded its crowd sale, raising a total of 35,000 ETH from approximately 4.300 people. The company plans to officially live launch on the Ethereum mainnet in Q3 2018.