Almost 150,000 Pioneers installed t

Almost 150,000 Pioneers installed the node, and more than 50,000 of nodes are active on a daily basis. From those nodes, we identified that about 10,000 of them show an early indication that they will be nodes constantly on. From those 10,000, we identified about 3,000 nodes that also have correctly opened their network ports. While nodes with only Docker installation can validate transactions on the Testnet, Supernodes at the moment require specific ports open for network connection and will participate in the consensus algorithm of the blockchain. We hope we do not have to require open ports in future versions of the software through the employment of automated NAT-traversal techniques to run a supernode, but this is still needed at the moment. In addition, we’re aware that the ports of some nodes are inaccessible due to some of the internet providers in some locations, even though the ports were set up correctly. We’re trying to resolve this issue so that more nodes with correct open ports are reachable.One necessary but not sufficient metric that we consider in the Supernode selection is the consistency of availability and stability of their internet connection to the network. Therefore, we will first focus on selecting candidates for Supernodes, i.e. ones with the right ports open and staying active consistently, although both nodes and supernodes are very important in securing the network. These Supernode candidates will be invited to pass KYC within this week and in the following weeks on a rolling basis. KYC for nodes will come later. The next step in the node selection process is to test run the consensus algorithm on these Supernode candidates. Technically, this means we’ll swap the Docker container that currently can be activated on the node interface for the purpose of network statistics with a Docker container that runs the consensus algorithm. After the test run of the blockchain, we will provide more reports about the performance of these participating Supernode candidates and then will make the final selection. Right now, the candidacy of Supernodes does not guarantee the final selection as Supernodes on the Testnet, but it means the candidate provides the necessary stability and accessibility that Supernodes require and will help us test run the blockchain in the selection period.If you intend to be selected as a supernode candidate, we encourage you to update the Pi Node to the most recent version, which enables us to capture all the eligible candidates for Supernodes. Specifically, check your version at the bottom of the side menu in the node software. If you have 0.1.0, please update your node version by either clicking the update popup prompt in the interface or downloading the new version on node.minepi.com from you computer. The latest version is 0.2.0.