For the past two years, MONADIC.US has been working with Aleo to help them launch their decentralized network for zero-knowledge applications. Last month (Sept. 2024), we successfully launched mainnet, and it’s been listed on Coinbase now for over two weeks. This is a huge success for everyone in the community who worked so hard to make it real.
Before the network launched, MONADIC.US decided to pursue becoming a core validator on Aleo’s network. We worked diligently to help them test their core validator server, snarkOS, and we built tools to enable them to pass the acceptance criteria for mainnet launch. We participated in all of the open-source Validator community meetings in which we were responsible for the thorough testing of Aleo’s network. These meetings were critical to the successful launch. Anyone wanting to become a validator had to show up and do the work. We did all we could do to make this effort a success.
During this pre-launch phase, we were responsible for testing sync times, validator connectivity, and transaction rate testiing. All of these tests were enabled by our tools, snarkOps.
In the months before launch, snarkOS nodes were constantly stalling and stopping sync. They could not download and process the blockchain. During high-transaction periods on the network, nodes would often only run for a few seconds before stalling. There was a critical threading issue inside of snarkOS.
Using snarkOps, MONADIC.US developers isolated the threading issue and created a fix. This one fix unlocked the full potential of snarkOS network synchronization, and nodes across the network could fully process the entire blockchain without crashing. We are very proud of this accomplishment.
To prepare for becoming a validator, we built out the physical infrastructure and we used snarkOps, the tools we developed in-house, to enable us to run a fault-tolerant, highly-available network validator node.
I’m particularly proud of our validator infrastructure because we are not dependent on any cloud provider. We won’t have to worry about constant fees and we’re not addicted to their services. We are autonomous.
To become a validator, one has to stake at least ten million Aleo tokens, and since Aleo Foundation holds all the tokens, the only way to get those tokens is to have them delegated to us. All of the other validators, except for the three run by Coinbase, had to have their tokens delegated to them from the Aleo Foundation, too. I believe our contributions demonstrated we are a trusted member of the Aleo community.
Thankfully, after seeing what our team brings to the table, Aleo agreed to our participation. Aleo delegated the required tokens to our validator address, and we are now one of the core validators of the Aleo community.
Seeing mainnet launch was amazing. We are grateful to Aleo and all of the other community validators who helped make this a success!
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