PKT Network brings you the first bandwidth-hard blockchain protocol that’s been built to incentivize the growth of decentralized internet infrastructure. With the PKT Network, users will be able to become Internet Service Providers (ISP), creating a decentralized network that avoids the limits of traditional monopolized ISPs, improves security and privacy, and lowers costs.
To help achieve this roadmap, PKT introduces the Network Steward to provide funding to build-out the wider infrastructure via open-source technology and hardware deployment. Let’s have a look at how this works in a bit more detail:
What is the Network Steward?
To help fund development, rollout and adoption, PKT blockchain has a Network Steward built into the code. This is implemented into the underlying blockchain design as a wallet address that receives 20% of the PKT Cash (the network’s coin) from each new block.
So the Network Steward gets 20% of every block that is mined. These funds are available to be either granted out to to help developers finance the building of internet infrastructure and mesh network technology, or if the coins are not spent within 129,600 blocks (approximately 3 months) the coins are burned. The recipient of the Network Steward payout can be changed by a PoS vote, differentiating it from a finders fee or a pre-mine deal.
This is a unique way to fund development of the PKT ecosystem. The Network Steward team operates in full transparency and works hard to ensure that any new project proposals will not unfairly benefit any one participant. They use budgeted calls for projects and a fair and transparent mechanism to evaluate and fund project proposals.
Network Steward Voting
The Network Steward can be changed by way of a vote which is performed by marking a transaction output. Each vote metadata can contain two PKT addresses, one vote ‘for’ and ‘against’ a new Network Steward. When more than 50% of all coins are voting ‘against’ the current Network Steward, then an election event is triggered and whichever address has the most ‘for’ votes becomes the new Network Steward.
The current Network Steward has a policy of never funding a project which will be unfairly beneficial to anyone in the community over any other. Typically Network Steward funded projects are structured around open source software. The current Network Steward also provides a publicly documented process for how they evaluate projects. All projects, decisions, and transactions can be found in the network’s git repository.
The Network Steward evaluates all projects in the context of the highest value to the network for the lowest cost. All projects are funded with PKT and it is the developer’s responsibility to accept PKT Cash and achieve the milestones of the proposal in exchange. If the Network Steward does not deploy the coins in its wallet within 129,600 blocks (approximately 3 months), then the coins are burned. The Network Steward will never fund a project if it is deemed less beneficial to the PKT network than simply letting the coins burn and increasing the value of all other PKT.
The PKT Network makes use of blockchain technology to incentivize nodes to either become Edge Points or Cloud ISPs. Edge points can be run by individuals, businesses and communities that provide access to the PKT Network. A Cloud ISP is a hybrid between traditional ISPs and VPN providers. These Cloud ISPs act as brokers for Edge Points and handle the administration of providing internet services for their customers.
The Network Steward is used to fund development of the PKT Network. To date, the Network Steward has funded completed projects including the PKT Cash Block Explorer (http://explorer.pkt.cash), the PKT electrum wallet, the PKT graphical interface wallet, the PKT website (http://pkt.cash) and the PKT Network whitepaper (https://pkt.cash/PKT_Network_v1.0_2021.02.01.pdf). There are also numerous projects in progress including the MatterFi PKT wallet supporting BIP-47, AnodeVPN, which will enable free VPN services using PKT Network, the Tokenstrike project, which will enable anyone to create tokens and NFT’s within the PKT ecosystem, and the route server, which will connect the cjdns mesh networking protocol with the PKT Network.
There are many benefits to the future adoption of PKT – providing an internet that is free from censorship and making it more like the internet once was. The internet was always supposed to be open source, and these benefits have slowly been eroded for normal users who now find themselves having to pay high costs for access, and are limited in freedom by monopolizing ISPs. With the PKT Network, internet users move to a peer-to-peer model that financially incentivizes people who have internet access to share their internet. This kind of internet by the people for the people improves internet access and reduces costs for all users.
