Milestone 3

Node-operators are directly rewarded for contributing their storage space

Phase 1 - Postage stamp upgrade and incentives calibration (September 12th release)

Full reserve total size is correctly calculated and clients are able to consent on storage depth within neighbourhoods. This involves the update of the Postage Stamp smart contract so that we can release the value currently locked in the contract, paving the way for the rollout of the storage incentives roadmap.

Phase 2 - Smart Contracts to deploy (Staking & Schelling/Redistribution)

The new storage incentives implement a Schelling game based on reserve commitment. The storage incentives contract pays out the pot to a random neighbourhood choosing the winner node based on neighbourhood stake density. No slashing and no verification of claim. After staking and committing, applicants reveal their reserve commitments and the truth is selected in proportion to stake density. Winner is selected in proportion to stake and paid the pot.

Phase 3 - The Price Oracle smart contract (phases 2&3 October release to incentivised testnet)

The price oracle contract reacts to signals of changing supply and demand by setting the global price of storage (unit is chunk per block) accordingly.

Phase 4 - Reserve Commitment Verification I (December development, release TBD)

The winning claim is verified for retention, relevance, reserve utilisation rate, verified correctness of reserve commitment, requiring segment inclusion proof of a deterministically random chunk in RC for valid claim (proof of retention), requires postage stamp (proof of relevance), verify PO(stamp, anchor) > reported depth, reserve size estimation is based on inclusion proofed sample density (proof of reserve size). Calculated the reserve commitment (RC) hash (iteration over reserved chunks within storage depth and calculate a sample of n (128) chunks whose transformed data hash to the smallest integers). Slashing introduced - to prevent non-conformant proofs of reserve by slashing stake

Phase 5 - Reserve Commitment Verification II (January development, release TBD)

A secondary reserve commitment (RC2) is included in the winning claim and verified in the contract. RC2 is a similar 128-chunk sample of batch indexes to prevent content mining attack using valid stamps from self-owned batches