From the earliest Bitcoin, to Litecoin, and early Ethereum, the hardware mining (computing power) at that time were all based on the PoW consensus mechanism, making miners the most "upstream" role in obtaining tokens.
In 2011, QuantumMechanic first proposed Proof of Stake (PoS) on the Bitcointalk forum, which replaced computing power with the amount of holdings, attracting the attention of many early participants. Subsequently, different blockchain teams developed various PoS mechanisms such as PoW+PoS hybrid consensus, DPoS, BFT+PoS, and gradually evolved into well-known projects like ETH 2.0, Cosmos, Solana, Sui, Aptos. Some builders of blockchain infrastructure have also shifted from PoW mining to mainly operating nodes based on PoS.
A more layman definition of node operators is individuals responsible for maintaining the integrity and correctness of the blockchain ledger. They are essentially creators of a new blockchain, and later, node operators are needed to maintain it.
Whether it is miners or node operators, they serve as providers of blockchain infrastructure, ensuring smooth block production on the network, and obtaining stable "coin-based" income.
The specific job responsibilities and processes of node operators are often surrounded by a layer of mystery. My personal understanding of the people engaged in node service providers is also relatively limited. In the current market environment, do newcomers still have opportunities to participate in node operation? Which chain offers more attractive returns/cost ratios? What are the associated risks? With these questions in mind, Odaily and MJ (pseudonym), a node service provider with years of experience, conducted an interview and summarized the content as follows:
Odaily: What abilities do you think are necessary to become a node service provider?
MJ: Firstly, your investment philosophy should focus on long-term value investment and not be influenced by short-term fluctuations. Secondly, you need to continuously improve your understanding of public chains, including their consensus mechanisms and technological updates (especially for new public chains). Finally, if you have technical skills, that would be great, but if not, try to find a team with technical expertise.
Cooperation of people.
Odaily: What hardware is needed for node deployment and what is the approximate cost?
MJ: Different projects have different requirements. Generally, detailed configuration requirements can be found on the official website of each project. I can briefly describe the cost and requirements of some well-known projects.
1. Bitcoin: Using professional mining machines, the starting cost is generally around $100,000 and is suitable for institutional operation.
2. Ethereum: The entry threshold is relatively easy. If you are setting up your own node, you need to stake at least 32 ETH. Alternatively, you can use Lido, which has a lower threshold. Corresponding returns will also decrease.
3. Solana, Avalanche: High hardware requirements, with monthly bandwidth costs exceeding $10,000.
4. Sui, Aptos: High hardware costs, fewer node numbers, with setup costs ranging from 10,000 to 50,000 RMB.
5. The new public chain (TFSC) we recently participated in the development network phase has a relatively low threshold. It can be set up with an 8-core 16G CPU, 16G memory, 500G hard drive, and 50M uplink and downlink bandwidth, with setup costs between $150-200.
Odaily: From what I understand, you have experience in setting up nodes for multiple public chains. What are the key factors you consider for the target public chain?
MJ: It is obvious that the core focus of everyone is income, but income is results-oriented and the level of income depends on your judgment of the project. Personally, I consider the following factors:
1. I believe that "without permission" refers to low entry barriers and thresholds for node setup.
