Spark Program | “Atlantic” Community Full Node

[knmo]

1. • One Year of network node operation for improvement on Transaction Propagation, Network Diversification and Redundancy as well as initiating the establishment of community bootnodes.
   • Network technology, hardware operations
2. • knmo (me)
   • Two-year vocational training program, consisting of one year of theoretical study in IT (application development/network technology) and a second year of practical training in systems electronics.
   • @NNCBN
3. • Boot nodes are required for the Nervos Network to operate. These nodes maintain connections to other reachable network nodes. When a new node initiates synchronization for the first time, it would not know where to find full nodes for synchronization without specified boot nodes.
   • These very boot nodes are currently operated primarily in data centers belonging to large corporations. These operators lack diversity and are subject to legal and economic influences.
4. • Transactions will be forwarded at high speed to other nodes via the node I operate.
   • I am an individual with access to high-speed intercontinental internet. I am based in West Africa, with low network latency to South America and Europe.
   • As a natural person—which I am—I, as an operator of a network node, achieve political and economic independence from large corporations and create redundancy through diversification.
5. • To promote diversity, I am considering a Tier 2/3 platform and will implement it accordingly, provided there are no roadblocks along the way. Edit: Qubes-OS will ensure security and flexibility. Template likely Arch Linux.
   • Less widely used systems can be advantageous and offer redundancy compared to the otherwise widely used standard systems. Any widely known security vulnerabilities may not exist on alternative, minimalist systems or may be further out of reach.

“Atlantic” Community Full Node

I operate a fully synchronized network node in a location that can have a significant impact on transaction propagation. The island in the Atlantic is connected to the undersea cable between Brazil and Portugal. Historically, many South American connections have routed through North America to Europe or Asia. Here is a point in Africa that connects the user-heavy Central European region with South America. Additionally, my network node serves than as an additional hub for connections from West Africa. My pings to both South Africa and Central Europe show a latency of only ~80 ms, and ~200 ms to Australia and Brazil. My network node represents a strategically well-positioned diversification of full nodes. I would operate it even without requesting financial support, but unfortunately, I cannot cover the costs of electricity, internet, and the hardware out of my own pocket.

Monthly Electricity $10

Monthly Internet $50

$60/month × 12 months = $720

Hardware, One-time initial payment $900

AMD Zen5, 16 GB RAM, 1TB SSD

For the following years, starting in 2027, I plan to move the equipment closer to the submarine cable/internet provider and upgrade the internet connection to a dedicated fiber-optic line. This should result in an additional latency reduction of ~20ms for all connections. In that case, the cost of renting the fiber-optic modem would also be added. However, I would communicate the costs for the following year again next year, provided this is realistically feasible.

This presents an opportunity for valuable network diversification without being a customer of cloud giants like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc. The provider-side tunneling over vast distances is remarkable: ~80ms to Cape Town and ~80ms to Frankfurt are good examples.

Adverse conditions or even outages at cloud giants (negative undertone, as centralization is not beneficial for various reasons) like Amazon are indeed rare, but they do occur—often with significant consequences—as the past has shown.

In the distant future, a network of community-operated, reliable boot nodes would be desirable. In the medium term, these could serve as an alternative to the necessarily hardcoded boot nodes, and in the long term, they could replace them or those can than serve solely as a redundancy measure in exceptional cases.

In the long term, it would also be conceivable to lease an ultra-fast DNS geolocation platform with smart geo records and monitoring through a highly specialized operator to address community boot nodes worldwide, once these have been implemented in larger numbers and with high diversification. Diversification could also be promoted in other ways, such as by operating alternative operating systems. A large portion of the current infrastructure most likely runs on Ubuntu or Debian. Diversity creates reliability through redundancy: less common alternatives such as BSD should also exist. Even if not currently necessary, there may be system-wide vulnerabilities that do not exist in other systems. Bootnode operators could also be @CKBA members, possibly with their own category, each responsible for a small part of the widespread global infrastructure.

I propose a quarterly payment for electricity and internet: $10 for electricity + $50 for internet = $60 × 3 months = $180 at the CKB-to-dollar exchange rate in effect at that time. So, the first payment, starting in October, covers the three months of October, November, and December.

I will provide updates on progress provided I receive approval to proceed and the one-time initial payment.

• First month, September 2026:

Preparation and planning of the hardware for the first year, which will serve as a test and feasibility study for potential subsequent year. Signing the internet service contract. System Software Installation. Node synchronization. Selection of the initial boot nodes: Santiago, South America (Google) / Cape Town, Africa (Amazon)

• Quarter 1: October–December 2026

• Quarter 2: January–March 2027

• Quarter 3: April–June 2027

• Quarter 4: July–September 2027

  Then: New application for operating costs for 2027–2028. If I were to move to get a more direct fiber-optic connection, I might submit a new application in the second year imcluding housing and, if necessary, adjusted internet fees.

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I myself have completed a two-year vocational training program, consisting of one year of theoretical study in IT (application development/network technology) and a second year of practical training in systems electronics. I have also been a long-time CKB-DAO investor and am personally interested in its success and widespread adoption.

I will document every step of the setup process to provide other network supporters with a simple, step-by-step guide to replicating my solution.

Availability can be checked at any time via https://nodes.CKB.dev. I will also provide weekly reports on data volumes, improvements made, and so on.

I will share key considerations for interested node operators. I will also establish a social media presence and will be available there to answer questions from interested parties.

Community Bootnode operators must be prepared to keep a system running continuously, including the initial full blockchain download, system updates, and performance monitoring.

@xingtianchunyan - Key details of the funding application have been updated: new hardware, quarterly payments for operating costs.

[janx]

@knmo

In the distant future, a network of community-operated, reliable boot nodes would be desirable. In the medium term, these could serve as an alternative to the necessarily hardcoded boot nodes, and in the long term, they could replace them or those can than serve solely as a redundancy measure in exceptional cases.

+1

To achieve this goal, we can start by defining guidelines and requirements for boot node operations, then gradually curate a list of community boot nodes.

[RetricSu]

love this kind of effort. It displays the uniqueness of the CKB community, compared to other blockchain community.

[knmo]

This brings VPN connections to mind. Countries where VPN providers typically do not offer outbound servers are preferable. These countries either have complex legal situations or are of very little interest to the average mass user. For the operation of a global infrastructure for transactions, these very locations are of paramount importance. For reasons already touched upon in my initial post. Theoretically conceivable scenarios, such as the legal prohibition of open, permission-free technology, must be countered before they take hold. Or, if already prohibited locally, the restoration of legal operation in the relevant region should be given high priority globally. The banning of disruptive technology is not a pipe dream but a reality. A hub in Somalia or North Korea, for example, is of greater importance than one in Canada. A global perspective must be maintained without calling for violations of the law. This is the tightrope walk that must be navigated. The Bootnode list can also reside on the blockchain itself. Where else would be a better place than the global distribution itself? Here, the chicken comes before the egg. We already have several years of successful operation; we are the Bitcoin generation. The world is growing closer together.

• Edit

This current issue clearly shows just how quickly a topic like this can become serious.

In June 2026, the U.S. government prohibited access to Anthropic’s new models (Fable 5 and Mythos 5) for certain users and for certain export purposes; Anthropic subsequently revoked access to these models.

Imagine if a government eager to crack down on crypto were to ban crypto software. Server providers like Amazon would likely include a clause in their terms of service, and providers operating under U.S. law could face problems overnight.

[xingtianchunyan]

Hi @knmo，

很高兴看到你对 Spark Program 感兴趣！以下是我在提交委员会审核前的一些个人看法，供你参考。这些是我的阅读感受，不代表委员会立场。

目前你的帖子内容让我难以判断这是否是一个正式的提案——缺少很多委员会评审所需的关键信息（团队简介、技术方案、执行计划、如何验证等）。

如果你愿意继续推进的话，我们刚刚更新了提案模板，欢迎你按照模板对当前帖子内容进行整理和优化。模板中对每个章节应该包含什么内容都有详细说明，可以帮助你更清晰、更完整地表达项目设计。

整理完成后 @我，我会尽快推进预审流程，并争取早日将提案递交委员会。

Best，
xingtianchunyan

[knmo]

The hardware I originally intended to use for this purpose is already too outdated, and I’ll be using it for other occasional tasks.

For continuous daily operation, I therefore suggest purchasing a new system.

The processor will be an energy-efficient AMD Ryzen. I’m not focusing on high clock speeds here, but rather on efficiency per unit of power consumption. I prefer AMD over Intel because AMD processors have been less affected by serious security vulnerabilities (Meltdown, Spectre) in the past. Zen 5 CPUs are immune to SRSO (“Return Stack Overflow”) attacks. Furthermore, the measures taken do not result in any measurable performance degradation. In addition, the system will feature very fast storage, PCIe and dual-channel RAM (2x8 GB).

These components have been carefully selected and will continue to perform reliably for years to come.

To offset the initial purchase costs, the housing fees will be covered by me personally, but electricity and internet must be funded.

Since the purchase of new hardware must be handled first, I propose a one-time payment of $900, followed by quarterly payments for electricity and internet: $10 for electricity + $50 for internet = $60 × 3 months = $180, converted to dollars at the CKB exchange rate at the time. So the second of five payments, starting in October, would cover the three months of October, November, and December. By that time, the node will already be up and running, once the hardware has been received and installed.

I plan to setup Qubes OS, provided there are no unexpected obstacles during its implementation. (Multi-Level Secure (MLS) system) If this is generally considered sensible and desirable, it would also allow for the separate, simultaneous execution of other Nervos-related applications (such as FNN).

I will document every step of the setup process to provide other network supporters with a simple, step-by-step guide to replicating my solution.

Availability can be checked at any time via https://nodes.CKB.dev. At the moment 627 are visible. I will also provide weekly reports on data volumes, improvements made, etc.

I will share key considerations for interested future node operators. I will also establish a social media presence and will be available there to answer questions from interested parties.

[zz_tovarishch]

Hi Knmo

The Spark committee noticed that you’ve been continuously updating this project, and we would be happy to help you get started in a suitable way. If you’re interested, you can use the latest template to submit a genuine Spark application.

Best,