Introduction to the Game of Domains
We have been preparing for the next installment of our incentivized staking contest for a while now and it’s finally time to detail the mechanics, the rewards and all the finer points of this next chapter in our journey to engage the community and test the robustness of our network. First, let’s have a very quick reminder of how our decoupled execution environments (domains) work.
Domains: A Lightning Refresher
You may be familiar with the process of farming on our incentivized testnet but are you aware that there is another way to participate as an operator? Farmers provide consensus to the network with the more space pledged, the stronger that consensus becomes - the harder it is for a bad actor to commandeer the chain for their own purposes.
That energy efficient consensus is leveraged by the domains that sit atop it to ensure consistency when ordering transactions. The transactions are then executed by operators and the chain state is maintained in a secure fashion. Operators stake an amount of tokens to provide a level of economic security to execution and a comprehensive suite of fraud proofs is used to identify and punish (slash) any operator who does not act in good faith.
Domains can be thought of as rollups that share the farmer-provided consensus. This means it’s possible to spin up and tear down domains as easily as submitting a transaction. If your project needs its own execution environment with its own token, why not use a domain and avoid the considerable overhead of bootstrapping a network of validators to secure consensus?
High-Level Goals
The Game of Domains has several overarching goals:
- Testing the staking design and workflows at both the protocol and the UX level in Astral.
- Testing multi-domain infrastructure including deployment and cross domain messaging.
- Promote transactions and on-chain activity with a builder outreach program.
- Stress test specific aspects of the staking protocol with targeted challenges.
Mechanics
Game of Domains will run on the Taurus testnet with no specific end date set. It will run until the team are happy that all the data they need has been collected. It is expected that issues will be found and resolved as the games unfold.
While the initiative will start on a single domain, more will be introduced as things progress. Operators will follow transactions so it will be the responsibility of participants to analyze where the activity is and setup where they believe the best opportunity can be found. Remember that the activity on the domains is likely to change throughout the contest as we have a number of initiatives as part of the Aurora Buildathon that will change the profile of where the transactions are coming from and where they are being executed.
Stage 0 – Winter is Coming (starting today 2025-02-20)
Operators are invited to sync their nodes. This will be a chance to get set up before the incentivized stages and provide an initial test of the Astral user experience (UX). MinStake will be 100 tAI3 which can be farmed on the Taurus testnet. If you are an experienced validator on other networks there is a form you can submit to reach out to the team to request MinStake. Applications will be evaluated individually on their relative merits.
Operators are free to register and invite nomination at any time before we hit stage 1. Note that another change since the first wars is that storage fee deposits have been introduced. You can read about these in great detail over on the Autonomys Academy but the TLDR is that an amount of an operator’s stake is reserved for storage fees when they register. This reserve is held and used to pay for the storage fees of bundles created by the operator of the nomination pool they create on registration. This is another new feature we need to test at scale but do not be alarmed when 20% of your operator stake is locked up in the background. Here is a great primer on the subject.
This is also the stage where operator uptime monitoring will be tested out to ensure it’s ready for what’s to come.
Once the scene has been set, we will start the competition proper…
Stage 1 – A Storm of Stakes
The start block for the contest is announced and the game is afoot. Remember that the goal here is for operators to maintain uptime and upgrade to any new releases as quickly as possible. Nominators should select operators they believe they will get the best return from.
A big change since the Stake Wars is that nominator limits have been removed. A limitation in the number of registrations it was possible to process on epoch transition has been resolved by our wonderful engineering team.
Further guidance on how to maximize efficiency and therefore rewards as an operator and nominator will be provided when we launch Stage 1.
Stage 2 – The Trials of Innovation
Once we are happy that there is stability on the staking processes, the trials will commence.
These are side quests that everyone is invited to take part in. The team will be providing more details closer to the time but the tasks will be designed to test particular facets of the changes we have made to domains since Stake Wars. Tasks will likely include the following:
- Test unlimited nominator count to identify any unforeseen limits.
- Test nominator slashing throughput.
- Test domain storage fees.
- Test the staking interface, provide feedback.
- Test cross-domain messaging (XDM).
- Test security of the Private EVM domain.
- Building out operator & nominator tooling.
It’s expected that the full list of specific tests will evolve so further stage 2 challenges will be announced as we home in on exactly what we need. Those who help us out here and provide feedback will not only earn additional rewards but contribute to getting domains into the greatest shape they can possibly be in.
Close – Epilogue: The Feast of Execution
Once we are happy that all changes to domains have been tested and any fixes deployed and retested we will close the contest by announcing the final block. This will give us a chance to reflect and take action on lessons learned.
The team will hold a community event to celebrate the journey we have been on and pick out our favorite happenings to highlight.
Rewards
Game of Domains has 0.3% of total token supply allocated to it as rewards. This is broken down as follows:
- 500,000 AI3 split between operators who are active and maintain high uptime.
- 500,000 AI3 split between active nominators.
- 1,000,000 AI3 allocated to builders who deploy applications and generate transactions on the network.
- 1,000,000 AI3 for bold adventurers who help us test certain aspects of domain performance in the Trials of Innovation.
For operators and nominators, the goal is to reward breadth of participation rather than depth. This means that having lots of tAI3 on Taurus does not automatically grant an advantage. Ultimately, Game of Domains has some goals to test and we will be working on ways to align incentives with the behavior we want to see rather than proportional to stake as in the original Stake Wars. More details on the exact mechanics will be released before the start of stage 1 though the rules may evolve as the testing plays out.
The full set of Trials of Innovation will not be known up-front. The plan is to run a points system during the games and calculate rewards based on effort after the event is over.
Game of Domains rewards will not be minted directly to wallets. Instead, there will be a claim process to receive them.
Finally, after the popularity of the verified farmer Discord role, we will be introducing verified Taurus operator and verified nominator roles too. Don’t forget to pick them up in the wallet sidekick on Astral!
Things to Note
Our overarching goal for Game of Domains is to test the latest updates to domains and their staking functionality. We anticipate that challenges will arise, things will break and unforeseen issues will come to light. We ask that you judge us on the transparency and fairness of our response to those events when they happen rather than the fact that they have occurred on our testnet.
Drawing everything together, here is some additional information and next steps if you want to take part in Game of Domains:
- All operator participants will need to sync their nodes from scratch on their chosen domain, this is likely to take a number of days so make sure you plan accordingly.
- An operator can only run on a single domain. You will need to pick which one you want to operate on. Or run multiple operators which will require
MinStakefor each registration.
- An operator can only run on a single domain. You will need to pick which one you want to operate on. Or run multiple operators which will require
- A word on domain liveness. A more comprehensive breakdown can be found in the original Stake Wars rules of engagement but the TLDR here is:
- Do not register your operator node until it has synced.
- If you expect your operator node will be down for a while (it happens), we ask that you deregister and reregister to avoid causing any liveness issues. This will be monitored manually but with larger stakes comes a larger responsibility.
- Please do give the original rules a read through as they all apply to Game of Domains.
- We will be tuning domains as we go so expect runtime upgrades to the network along the way. These should be seamless but upgrading operator software in a timely fashion will be essential.
- Progress on fraud proofs means, unlike the original Stake Wars, we are secure and anyone who brings us an exploit will be rewarded.
- A quick reminder about our dedicated Domain Hub channels in Discord. Drop by and say hello.
#operator-chat(operator chat and support)#staking-chat(everything else staking)
- We fully expect to see political campaigns from operator teams trying to attract farmers to nominate to their operators. But please, keep these activities in the Domain Hub channels. Repeated infractions will be penalized.
- Staking on Autonomys is different to a number of other proof of storage networks and is only necessary to participate in our execution environments. We’d like to make it crystal clear that farming on Autonomys does not require a user to own any tokens before getting up and running.
Join the Adventure!
The Game of Domains is your chance to become a vital part of the evolution of Autonomys. Whether you’re a seasoned operator, an ambitious nominator, or a daring builder, your contributions will shape the future of decentralized execution on our network. With exciting challenges, evolving gameplay, and substantial rewards, this is the perfect opportunity to prove your skills and make your mark.
Here’s how to get involved:
- Operators: Sync your nodes, secure your MinStake, and prepare for high-uptime performance and dynamic challenges.
- Nominators: Research and support operators to maximize your returns while contributing to the network’s security.
- Builders: Deploy dApps, generate transactions, and help push the limits of our domains.
- Adventurers: Take on Trials of Innovation and help us stress-test key network features.
Stay tuned for more details as the adventure unfolds! Be sure to follow the forum and join our Domain Hub channels on Discord for real-time updates, support, and strategy. We’ll announce the start block soon - don’t miss it!
Together, let’s make the Game of Domains an unforgettable milestone on our path to Mainnet Phase-2.
