Incentive Node

Table of Contents

• Minimum requirements
• How do Rewards work?
• What is Collateral?
• How to setup your Incentive Node
• Observations & RPC

Before starting, read the docs about incentive nodes.

Minimum requirements

Nodes are rewarded accordingly to their performance. So something to be considered is running your node on a SSD, and with a stable internet. Right now (2017), the data files consume around 1GB of disk space.

How do Rewards work?

Reward incentives are basically a taxation on miners of PoW blocks, which are distributed to Vcash users who maintain an open incentive node. This tax scales till 40% of the mined reward (we have already achieved this percentage).

You can consider this a new form of reward. Incentives nodes are a simple, decentralized method of distributing coins to those who are helping to secure the network by running a full active Node.

What is Collateral?

Collateral is used to stop people from centralizing the system by owning too many nodes.

A quantity of 10000 XVC must be deposited to your wallet's default address in ONE transaction. This collateral must remain in your wallet to take part in the incentives, but can be withdrawn whenever you feel is necessary just like any other normal withdrawal.

How to setup your Incentive Node

1. Download the newest Vcash wallet/daemon from github or the vcash site

2. Turn off your wallet/daemon (if running). Then open config.dat in your Vcash data folder with a text editor, and change "proof-of-stake": "1" to "proof-of-stake": "0". This is necessary, because otherwise your single transaction will get broken up by staking (PoS).

3. Turn on your wallet/daemon (if not running). Then use the rpc command getinfo, and find the statement "port": XXXXX. Whatever port it returns, you want to open it (make sure incoming TCP connections to this port are allowed in your router/firewall). You can use a 3rd party website to perform a test on this port and watch if it is open to the internet or not.

4. Send ONE transaction of 10000 XVC to the default address.

5. Open your wallet, enter the getincentiveinfo rpc command, and you should see something like:

{
"walletaddress":xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,
"collateralrequired": 10000,
"collateralbalance": 10000,
"networkstatus": ok,
"votecandidate": true,
"votescore": -3359
}

Observations

If, after the getincentiveinfo rpc command, you see:

• "networkstatus": firewalled it means your port is not open to the internet. The wallet must be unlocked while waiting for votecandidate to become true. When it does become true you can lock it again for security reasons.

• "networkstatus": ok and "votecandidate": true CONGRATULATIONS! Your incentive node is active.

It can take up to 10 minutes to become an active Incentive Node, so just monitor your node with getincentiveinfo command once in a while. Don't expect rewards right away, just wait a few days and you will see rewards start showing up in your wallet.

For RPC commands, read the wiki!