📄️ Network tokenomics
The DATA token is an ERC-20 token used for project governance, to incentivize node operators on the Network, to delegate stake, and for payments and visibility on the Streamr Hub dApp. The token is native to the Ethereum mainnet and can currently be bridged to Polygon, BNB Chain, and Gnosis Chain - with further multichain support on the horizon. Staking and delegation happens on the Polygon network.
📄️ Stream Sponsorships
Stream Sponsorships are smart contracts for managing a stream of earnings distributed among a set of Operators. Those Operators run nodes which join the sponsored stream and help to relay the traffic inside it. Sponsors create and fund stream Sponsorships and staked Operators earn from them.
📄️ Network penalties
Node Operators promise to deliver, but what happens if they break that promise? Well, they will lose some of their staked DATA tokens in a process that’s commonly referred to as “slashing”. Delegators are also at risk of losing value if they delegate to unreliable Operators. Read more on the bigger picture of network incentives.
📄️ Node inspection
Operator's nodes contain an inspection routine which connects to a target operator's nodes and checks whether they are relaying data in a given stream to validate that the inspected node is doing the promised work. If the inspection fails, operators raise a flag to the Sponsorship smart contract. A number of random Operators are selected as reviewers. The reviewers then also inspect the flagged operator for the flagged stream(-partition), and based on their findings they vote via the smart contract on whether to kick (flag was valid) or not to kick (flag was invalid) the flagged operator. If the majority vote is to kick, the flagged operator is slashed.