The name too could be improved upon
Agree. Not everyone (especially those outside of US) can get the idea it actually references to Badlands National Park.
Can Badlands be used as a testnet?
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I’m curious about this as well.
I really don’t care If Badlands exists as a subnet or as a separate chain. Either way it should serve a purpose. I think a testnet or ‘canary network’ would be beneficial.
Just following up. This is the kind of thing that makes me believe a separate badlands chain (or subnet if it can be isolated) would be beneficial for testing new technologies.
Hi y’all,
I just updated the summary to help differentiate between the proposals which are more baked and which those are still in more conceptual phases.
Fwiw, To see an example of a project which is more baked (and a model of how these proposals should look more like) check out the timeline thread on Increased Canister Storage: Increased Canister Storage - #13 by flyq
I think that I need to understand a little better.( NOTE: This project is entirely for community consideration and discussion. There are no people from DFINITY or any other orgs working on it (as far as we know).).
Dominic DFINITY founder tweets on July 31st, 2021, https://twitter.com/dominic_w/status/1421535126438223876
"MAJOR new Internet Computer blockchain advances coming, in likely order:
-
Service Nervous System (SNS) functionality for dapps
-
Bitcoin integration (Chain Key)
-
X.509 certificate authority (Chain Key)
-
Badlands subnet chains
-
Ethereum integration (Chain Key)"
My point is that when the founder of dfinity puts his weight in words, in my mind, dfinity would put their not-so-inconsiderable resources behind it.
Am I mistaken?
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How about Earth Internet?
Implement badlands concept as new subnet chain. If forking a new chain is the selected option, it will have to be forked many times in the future to add node machines with different capacities.
Yeah, I think this relates to part of my post under Tokenomics. The communication on Badlands (and Endorphin) lead to confusion. I hope after these proposals are thoroughly discussed the foundation can help communication a clear priority and a bigger roadmap so we can all get a clearer picture.
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There are certainly a lot of conflicting pros and cons here. From my perspective, taking part in the network as an amateur node provider and potentially reaping benefits from it as well is very appealing. Otherwise, the current node machines distinguish the internet computer from other blockchains and provide enough computing power to serve the web-speed apps we are currently seeing. I’d love to have more information on the type of smart contracts for which amateur node machines would be the better option and then also how the interoperability between the blockchains (badlands and main) has to play out.
On the other hand badlands could be a big step toward a more decentralised IC and it would allow people across the world and from different income groups to participate in the network without having to buy expensive equipment first. Hence, badlands could be a big democratisation step.
What could be improved from my standpoint is the proposed way in which amateur node providers should be verified (people parties). Seems a bit too analog to me and would bring a huge coordination effort with it potentially hindering the speed at which an amateur network would establish itself.
Would love to hear your thoughts on it!
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Without some type of Badlands participation on a large scale am unsure how the goal of ‘decentralizing the IC’ can ever occur.
Power centralizes …if u distribute power by increasing the number of participants you create the only real long term bulwark against your desired enemy … the centralization of power.
Is that the enemy you wish to fight or is it the one you want to emulate? The human condition is contagious folks…
From what I see the investing ecosystem is looking for the big demographic. They want B in front of the illion when it comes to eyeballs ( Worldcoin sign me up! )… if IC doesn’t implement Badlands … someone else most definitely will using comparable tech.
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I think the system can be decentralized without Raspberry Pis or other low-end hardware. Does decentralization require cheap hardware? If there are enough independent parties who can afford the high-end node hardware, then we can achieve the desired level of decentralization. If Dominic did not misspeak in his latest podcast appearance on Epicenter, there is currently a queue of ~4000 node operators waiting to get into the network. That sounds like it will be very decentralized, no Raspberry Pis or other low-end hardware needed.
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There probably are quite a few applications …
If memory serves there are about 4000 independent data centers in US/UK/Germany/China ….total.
Obviously you can have concentrations of nodes in any particular data center.
Why are we limiting our imagination to the thesis that end user devices are cheap and inferior? Why are we even bringing up Raspberry Pi?
The access point and the pipe is agnostic to everything but the math.
What if u set up an access point in the data center?(like we’ve been doing for the last 30 years in telephony)…
Oh ….might that change the end user device?
Why yes it most splendidly could.
Why are we treating the term decentralized like they did in the early part of the century? Aside from being the ‘marketing spice’ is it not about the distribution of power among many participants?
That is the endgame consistent with the philosophy that I hear articulated by folks that preach decentralization uber alles. So let’s go there.
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I cannot quite speak for the tweet you posted, but I think the reality is a composite of the following statements:
- Dom sees Badlands as important but wants this to be something the community does want. There is a reason he wrote in his medium post the following:
Everyone, please note: this is a technical pre-post for those interested in the Badlands concept, rather than a formal post announcing details of the project. There are several competing demands on the teams developing the Internet Computer ecosystem at the moment, including work currently underway to directly integrate the network with Ethereum and Bitcoin using “Chain Key” cryptography. Providing opportunities for amateur node providers remains an important objective, so I’m sharing this post today to provide an opportunity for community discussion.
- The Foundation has multiple complex inter-layer projects while also scaling the network and infrastructure so there is a high bar for tackling more complex projects.
I lean the same way, tbh.
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One possible solution for a more decentralized layer on the IC would be to simply work with and integrate one or more other p2p compute projects geared towards consumer hardware. This would provide developers alternative options for building apps with greater levels of decentralization or lower costs compared to only using IC canisters. Building on a different protocol would of course be different and possibly more complex than building an IC Canister.
Some Possible Candidate p2p Protocols:
Holochain: https://www.holochain.org
OrbitDB: https://orbitdb.org
GunDB: https://gun.eco
I think this is a good moment to take back this badlands proposal. At first place, will it also have to comply to DMCA ?
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Second obvious question: how will it survive ddos ? throught internet identity ? or a kind of “the power I consume, the power I host.” Somehting like the good old bitorrent communities…Lets talk about it !
Another issue: in some countries, you do not have a fixed IP (at least ipv4), so you cannot expose to the network. Is this easy to solve with IPv6 ?