We love our communities at Gala. Even as they have grown and multiplied, first from solely Gala Games into multiple entertainment genres with Gala Music and Gala Film, then branching out into industries beyond entertainment with the release of the developer friendly GalaChain SDK. This family will get bigger and bigger, but we’re still (and always) a family.
One of the most foundational groups in our community is the Gala Founder’s Node operator ecosystem. Since the very beginning, they have been there, powering our network in exchange for $GALA even before GalaChain existed. Today, the operators of this massive DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network) are behind one of the largest decentralized networks in the world.
As always, we want to thank our dedicated Founder’s Node operators for acting as the engine of our network. You are true pioneers who have believed in our web3 mission of empowerment through ownership, some of you since our earliest days. Thank you.
Understanding Gala Founder’s Nodes
At the core of our Gala Ecosystem lies the innovative and powerful Founder’s Nodes. These nodes are the backbone that supports and drives our entire network, playing a critical role in ensuring the smooth and efficient operation of our decentralized platform.
Think of a node as an intersection of data on a blockchain, or a joint. In the same way that a traffic intersection is governed and regulated by a traffic light, a blockchain intersection is regulated by a node.
The most fascinating thing about nodes in web3 is how they make decentralized networks possible, essentially turning operators’ home computers into agents (or employees) of the blockchain. By running a simple program in the background, operators can power the network, even with little to no understanding of how it’s working.
The distribution of data across a network of nodes is foundational to a decentralized ecosystem like Gala.
What Are Founder’s Nodes?
Founder’s Nodes are specialized servers operated by community members who have acquired a license to run them. These nodes are integral to the functioning of our GalaChain, contributing to various essential tasks such as securing the network and storing data. Think of them as the silent workhorses that keep our ecosystem thriving.
Incentives for Node Operators
Operating a Founder’s Node means collecting daily $GALA as it is generated. Node operators receive daily distributions of $GALA tokens, our ecosystem’s digital currency, for their contributions to the network. This reward mechanism not only incentivizes node operators but also ensures the continuous and sustainable operation of the network.
Distribution to Founder’s Node operators is one of the main ways that $GALA first enters into circulation. The amount of $GALA distributed to operators each day depends on the number of active operators and the current circulating supply of $GALA, using a dynamic halving model as described in the Ecosystem Blueprint.
Governance and Decentralization
Our vision for Gala is deeply rooted in the principles of decentralization. Founder’s Nodes play a crucial role in this vision by participating in governance through consensus voting. Node operators have the power to influence major decisions, such as the distribution of $GALA and other significant ecosystem developments. This participatory approach ensures that our community has a voice in shaping the future of the Gala Ecosystem.
Founder’s Nodes are the foundation upon which our Gala Ecosystem is built. They provide essential services, secure the network, and empower our community through governance participation. By running these nodes, our dedicated operators contribute to the resilience and growth of the GalaChain, helping us drive the decentralized revolution forward.
In light of the recent security incident which led to the unauthorized minting and sale of ~600 million $GALA tokens and a permanent locking of ~4.4 billion tokens, this proposal aims to formalize the burn of this ~4.4 billion $GALA tokens, as well as ~600m tokens from the central Gala Treasury, to ensure the stability and sustainability of the ecosystem.
Note: Due to the upgradable nature of the $GALA contract, the proposed changes will not necessitate swaps or relistings on exchanges, and can be executed with no disruption to all users of the $GALA token.
Objective
To upgrade the $GALA contract to include a definitive and irreversible burn of the same quantity of unauthorized tokens, or tokens determined by law enforcement to be illegitimately gained, and to enhance the security features of the contract to prevent future unauthorized access or breaches.
Proposal Details
1. Contract Upgrade
Develop and deploy a hotfix version of the $GALA contract that removes the illegitimate supply.
Develop and deploy a further upgraded version of the $GALA contract that locks in changes to better secure the contract and supply.
2. Token Burn
Permanently remove ~5 billion $GALA tokens from circulation by sending them to a burn address from which they cannot be retrieved.
Ensure that the burn process is transparent and verifiable by the community and external observers.
3. Timeline and Implementation
Immediately commence development of the upgraded contract upon approval of this proposal.
Schedule the contract upgrade and token burn to be completed within the next 72 hours.
Voting Details
Voting Period: The voting will be open for a period of 24 hours from the moment of the proposal announcement.
Eligibility: All Founders Node operators.
Majority Requirements: A simple majority of 51% of votes will be required to pass this proposal.
Vote Question
Should a $GALA contract upgrade be deployed for removal of unauthorized supply and enhancement of contract security, permanently removing ~5B $GALA from circulation via transparent burn in order to promote long-term ecosystem health?
Yes: I support the contract upgrade and $GALA burn for enhanced security and to promote ongoing ecosystem health.
No: I do not support the contract security upgrade and the burn of these illegitimate tokens from circulation.
Abstain: I choose to abstain from voting on this proposal.
Expected Outcomes
Restoration of community trust and stabilization of the $GALA token supply and Node Reward schedule by reducing the total supply.
Strengthening of the $GALA ecosystem through enhanced security measures.
Conclusion
This proposal is crucial for the long-term viability and security of the Gala ecosystem. Community participation in the decision-making process is highly valued; all Founder’s Node operators are encouraged to vote and contribute to the discussion.
As a foundational pillar of the Gala ecosystem, our Founder’s Node operators have always played a crucial role in shaping the future of our platform. Traditionally, the decision-making process has involved simple proposal style votes, offering a binary choice on the direction of development within the Gala ecosystem.
The Vote
The voting opens at 2pm PT on April 12th and concludes at the same time on April 19th.
As you know, we opened GalaChain to external development with the release of the open-source GalaChain SDK earlier this year. The community’s response was nothing short of phenomenal, leading to the creation of invaluable resources by dedicated developers. Among these resources, various GalaChain explorer apps stand out as exemplary projects that not only enhance the ecosystem but also enrich our community.
The Reward
In recognition of these contributions, we’re dedicating this vote to decide which development team will be honored with a remarkable prize: Either 1 million $GALA or a prestigious Gala Founder’s Node license– Winner’s choice. This initiative is not just about rewarding innovation; it’s about celebrating the spirit of community and collaborative growth that defines Gala.
The Candidates
The spotlight is on the following GalaChain explorers, each a testament to the ingenuity and commitment of our community developers:
We encourage all Gala Founder’s Node operators to engage with these explorers and make an informed decision on which project truly deserves the accolade and the prize. Your vote is a powerful tool in shaping the ecosystem and recognizing the efforts that fuel our collective growth.
Gratitude and Anticipation
Our heartfelt thanks go to all GalaChain developers for their contributions and to our extraordinary community for their unwavering support. This vote marks a new chapter in our journey towards a more inclusive, innovative and decentralized future. Join us in celebrating the creativity and hard work that continue to propel the Gala ecosystem forward.
You may have recently heard rumors about how Gala Founder’s Nodes constitute a large portion of the decentralized internet and IPFS. It is true that our Founder’s Nodes make up nearly 30% of the most active stable peers in the IPFS Distributed Hash Table (DHT), but that is only the beginning of the story. The Gala Founder’s Node ecosystem, with almost 24,000 DHT servers online, represents a massive contribution to decentralized storage and computing, powering the largest share of any single network contributing to IPFS today!
In this blog, we’d like to shed some more light on how this fact was realized, involving a coincidental misconfiguration over a year ago that shed light on the actual portion of the decentralized internet that was powered by Gala nodes.
We think that this is an incredibly interesting story about the resilience and security of decentralized networks, and one that is especially relevant today as we prepare to onboard greater numbers than ever before to our sustainable and capable L1 blockchain, GalaChain. But first, let’s talk a little about IPFS and the role that Gala Founder’s Nodes play in supporting the very existence of the decentralized internet protocol known as the InterPlanetary File System.
We want our non-tech-genius followers to understand and appreciate the significance of this story, so we’ll try to keep it simple as we explain. But feel free to check out THIS ARTICLE from Probelab.io for a more in-depth approach with more charts and data.
What is IPFS?
The InterPlanetary File System is a web3 internet protocol that began in 2015, designed to decentralize and democratize ownership of content on the internet.
In simpler terms, it is a solution for the storing and sharing of files, a decentralized answer to cloud-style storage.
Instead of uploading files to specific servers, they’re broken into small chunks and scattered across many computers around the world. Each chunk gets a unique fingerprint called a CID, like a personalized code.
To access a file, all that is needed is its CID. A special network called the DHT (like a giant, decentralized phone book) helps users locate the computers with specific chunks. Finally, the chunks are downloaded from those computers and pieced back together.
The DHT is maintained by nodes from the various peer networks of IPFS, like expert operators who are able to quickly look up and retrieve encrypted data from IPFS. Think of Gala Founder’s Nodes as some of the best information operators in the game, with enough storage capacity and bandwidth to ensure that the most important files are always accessible, anywhere online.
Illuminating Mishap
In January of 2023, a slight misconfiguration of Gala Founder’s Nodes in IPFS’s libp2p resource manager caused Gala Founder’s Nodes to become unresponsive within the IPFS network for a short time. The downtime was only a matter of a couple hours, but the number of unresponsive nodes was so impactful on the total number of network nodes that more research into the issue was warranted by IPFS.
Because they knew (because of the misconfiguration) that the unresponsive Nodes during that time were in fact Gala Founder’s Nodes, IPFS was afforded a rare opportunity for what was essentially a snapshot showing the portion of Gala Founder’s Nodes from the entire pool of DHT server nodes.
In THIS ARTICLE from the IPFS blog, the unresponsive node mishap (pictured above) was described, along with the solution that was quickly implemented.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about this incident was that even with about 60% of its nodes unresponsive, the DHT was still able to deliver content as intended, keeping IPFS running, just a little slower than normal. This is a testament to the power of the decentralized internet, where software can be updated on the fly across multiple distributed node networks without negatively affecting the performance of IPFS.
Uncovering Gala’s Role
Because of the intrinsic encrypted security of decentralized networks, it can be difficult to draw specific information about where support is coming from. However, in this situation, the technicians at Interplanetary Shipyard were able to draw some interesting results from the data. They were even nice enough to share them with us when we asked for a quote in early February of 2024:
“Our latest numbers say that 5321 out of 20093 peers that appeared online the past week (have been online for 80% of time or more), have been Gala peers. That makes for more than 26% of the network. I’m sure there are more Gala peers in the network and that the IPFS network has more peers too, it’s just that these are the most stable ones.” – Yiannis Psaras, IPFS Shipyard
It’s worth noting that we have a lot more than 5321 Nodes running every day. This number is only the most active Nodes in the ecosystem, and it still makes up a MASSIVE portion of the total peers on the network. There are tens of thousands of other nodes running in the Founder’s Node Network as well, showing how much further we could flex together if we needed to.
Thanks to Probelab
We’d like to especially thank Yiannis Psaras (quoted above) and Dennis Trautwein from Probelab, who have assisted us with this data. Probelab is one of the largest contributors to IPFS Shipyard, a collection of open source projects created and maintained by members of the IPFS community.
Probelab is a Benchmarking and Optimization Team “on a mission to measure the performance of Web3.0 network protocols, benchmark protocols against target performance milestones and propose improvements to their core design principles.” (from the Probelab introduction)
These folks are heroes of the decentralized era whose work is always needed but rarely seen. Thank you so much for all your great work in web3’s foundations!
We’re downright proud that our Founder’s Nodes make up such a large portion of the DHT server nodes. Still we may be even prouder that when those Nodes were down, the decentralized internet kept right on going and didn’t miss a beat.
The decentralized Founder’s Node governance vote for Gala Games Founder’s Node operators happens this week.
Introduction
This proposal seeks to revise the current emission and halving schedule for $GALA, making it dependent on the totalSupply, with the goal of providing a more sustainable and stable ecosystem for Founder’s Nodes. By adapting the emission schedule in response to $GALA burn rates, we aim to mitigate the potential long-term impacts of reduced node rewards and ecosystem volatility.
Background
The existing minting schedule for $GALA follows an emission and halving model similar to that of Bitcoin, with emission halving every July 22nd. Although this approach has its merits, the long-term sustainability of the ecosystem may be threatened due to the diminishing rewards for Founder’s Nodes. Over time, the reduction in rewards may disincentivize node operators, creating potential risks for the ecosystem’s health and stability.
Proposal Details
Objective:
The primary goal of this proposal is to modify the current emission and halving schedule, making it dependent on the totalSupply of $GALA. This will create a more sustainable and stable ecosystem by maintaining a balance between $GALA burn and emission rates.
Revised Emission Schedule:
The new emission schedule will adjust the daily $GALA distribution based on the totalSupply taking into account burned GALA. To maintain algorithmic equilibrium and hedge against volatility, the emission schedule will adapt as follows:
For each $GALA burned, an equal amount of $GALA at the current emission rate will be added to the emission tranche. This means that during periods of high $GALA usage and burn, the current emission will continue for slightly longer.
In periods of low $GALA usage and burn, the halving will proceed as scheduled according to totalSupply.
This approach does not introduce additional tokens to the ecosystem but rather focuses on maintaining a more balanced and responsive $GALA distribution mechanism.
Benefits:
Sustainable node rewards: By adjusting the emission schedule based on totalSupply, the proposal ensures a more consistent reward system for Founder’s Nodes, motivating them to continue supporting the ecosystem.
Reduced volatility: The new emission schedule takes into account the dynamics of $GALA burn and usage, which helps in mitigating potential volatility in the ecosystem.
Ecosystem stability: A responsive and balanced $GALA distribution mechanism contributes to the overall stability and health of the ecosystem, benefiting all participants.
Conclusion
By adopting this proposal, we believe that the $GALA emission and halving schedule will become more responsive and adaptive to the ecosystem’s needs. This change will ensure a more sustainable and stable environment for Founder’s Nodes and other key ecosystem members. We encourage open discussion, feedback, and questions to facilitate a comprehensive understanding of the proposal and its implications.
If passed, it is expected that this will go into effect within the next 90 days.
Updated Note on Timing
After communications with the community during last week’s governance vote, we have elected to give a bit more time for review and questioning prior to the vote to make things clearer for people. This vote will begin Wednesday morning (Pacific) and continuing until the following Monday when it will close at 5pm PT. This way, there can be more discussion around this topic BEFORE voting begins.
Governance Vote Node Proposal
Should the emission of $GALA be revised to account for totalSupply?
Option 1.): Yes — Make the emission rate of $GALA based on totalSupply
Option 2.): No — The original date-based halving schedule should be maintained
Voting begins on Wednesday May 3rd and ends on Monday, May 8 at 5pm PT.
