Sentinel Introduces IBC-Based Oracle Module for Real-Time $P2P/USD Pricing

As decentralized infrastructure protocols evolve, Sentinel is once again extending the capabilities of the Cosmos ecosystem — this time by transforming interoperability itself into an oracle.

Sentinel’s new Oracle Module enables real-time asset pricing across blockchains using asynchronous interchain queries (AsyncICQ) via the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol.

This system allows Sentinel to query spot price data from Osmosis — the most advanced DEX in Cosmos — and use that information to determine fair, USD-denominated rates for bandwidth usage within the Sentinel network.

All of this is done on-chain, without reliance on centralized oracle providers.

The Context: Pricing the Decentralized Bandwidth Market in USD

In Sentinel’s ecosystem, dVPN application builders select the specific nodes that will power their application. Each builder establishes a contract with those nodes through the on-chain subscription module, locking $P2P tokens as collateral for bandwidth usage.

As time goes by, $P2P is deducted automatically from the contract balance between the application developer and the node operator.

Currently, these deductions are made at a static, pre-set token rate, meaning the same number of $P2P tokens are deducted regardless of the token’s current market value.

While simple, this mechanism lacks efficiency and fairness over time. To align incentives and reflect real-world market conditions, node rates should be denominated in USD, with the on-chain system dynamically determining the appropriate $P2P equivalent.

This shift requires a pricing oracle structure — but rather than depending on external providers, Sentinel leverages the Cosmos interoperability stack itself to perform this role.

Interoperability as an Oracle

The Sentinel Oracle Module transforms IBC into a secure, decentralized data transport layer for pricing information. Instead of trusting off-chain data aggregators, Sentinel queries liquidity pools directly on Osmosis — retrieving price data from on-chain markets that already secure billions in liquidity.

This design provides several key advantages:

• Native security: IBC packets are verified through consensus on both chains.
• Resilience: There are no off-chain aggregators or external price feeders.
• Transparency: All query requests, responses, and acknowledgments are on-chain and verifiable.

This design also introduces an alternative risk management model for DeFi protocols.

During black swan events — such as the October 11 flash crash, when several popular oracles suffered outages due to manipulation, DDOS attacks, or overload — protocols leveraging IBC-based price queries can continue to function reliably, grounded in fully on-chain liquidity data.

You can explore the Oracle Module’s implementation on GitHub:
Sentinel Hub — Oracle Module

Technical Architecture of the Oracle Module

The Oracle Module serves as Sentinel’s on-chain pricing infrastructure. It integrates deeply with the Cosmos SDK and uses AsyncICQ to communicate asynchronously with the Osmosis blockchain.

1. Asset Management

Each tracked asset pair (e.g., $P2P/USD) is represented by:

• Base Denomination: The token to be priced ($P2P).
• Quote Denomination: The reference currency (USD).
• Pool ID: Osmosis pool ID from which the spot price is queried.

Pool metadata and configuration are updated dynamically using AsyncICQ.
This ensures that pricing information is always derived from live, on-chain liquidity on Osmosis.

2. IBC-Based Price Query Flow

The Oracle Module sends regular IBC query packets to Osmosis to fetch the spot price for each tracked asset.

The process flow:

• Sentinel sends an interchain query packet every N blocks.
• The relayer delivers it to Osmosis endpoints such as:

/osmosis.protorev.v1beta1.Query/GetProtoRevPool /osmosis.poolmanager.v1beta1.Query/SpotPrice

• Osmosis responds with a spot price acknowledgment.
• Sentinel processes the response, validates it, and updates its local state.
• Governance proposals can modify the query frequency or add new asset pairs for tracking.

To enable this fully, Sentinel will soon submit a governance proposal on Osmosis to whitelist the required query endpoints.

You can view a prior related proposal here:
Osmosis Governance Proposal #466

3. Real-Time Price Conversion in Node Contracts

When a node operator sets a rate — for example, $1 per GB of bandwidth — the Oracle Module automatically converts this rate into the current $P2P equivalent using live Osmosis pricing data.

Example:

• Osmosis reports $P2P = $0.05
• Node rate = $1/GB
• Oracle converts to 20 $P2P per GB

This conversion happens on-chain, allowing:

• Application developers to pay in $P2P, but in USD-denominated value.
• Node operators to receive consistent compensation in dollar terms.
• Network-wide pricing standardization across all Sentinel-powered dVPN applications.

The Oracle Module will soon be available for public testing in the Sentinel v12 Testnet, marking the first on-chain integration of Osmosis spot pricing via IBC.

Governance & Technical Collaboration

To complete this integration, Sentinel’s engineering team is working closely with Osmosis core developers to expand the allowed queries list, which has not been updated since 2023.

The required endpoints are:

/osmosis.protorev.v1beta1.Query/GetProtoRevPool
/osmosis.poolmanager.v1beta1.Query/SpotPrice

Additionally, Sentinel identified that query responses currently return with height = 0, which isn’t a blocker but requires shorter IBC packet timeouts.

This has been flagged to both the Osmosis team and the Cosmos IBC repository for improvement.

Once these updates are approved, Sentinel will become one of the first Cosmos SDK chains to use IBC as a live oracle layer, rather than relying on off-chain data pipelines.

A New Standard for Cross-Chain Data Reliability

By using Osmosis as the canonical source of market prices, Sentinel is establishing a decentralized pricing infrastructure that is:

• Rooted in real on-chain liquidity,
• Secured by Cosmos consensus, and
• Resilient against manipulation or network outages.

This design demonstrates that interoperability itself can serve as the foundation for on-chain truth.

Through IBC, Sentinel extends the Cosmos SDK beyond token transfers — enabling a self-sustaining, verifiable, and decentralized pricing layer for the global bandwidth economy, powered by $P2P.

Using the IBC Protocol as an Oracle to Fetch $P2P Osmosis Price Feed Data was originally published in Sentinel on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Introducing The Meile dVPN application, the first desktop based dVPN application built on the Sentinel Cosmos based dVPN infrastructure . The Meile dVPN application is currently out on Linux and Mac, and allows for people from all over the world to access Sentinel’s distributed and decentralized global network of p2p bandwidth service providers.

The Meile dVPN application which has been built by the Math Nodes team, focuses not only on providing a secure cross-platform desktop application with a simple user-interface, but also focuses on onboarding users who are not familiar with the usage of cryptocurrencies as a payment mechanism. The Meile dVPN features in an-application fiat on-ramp in the form of a credit card payment gateway system (powered by Stripe), which allows for the easy purchase of dVPN tokens for payment of bandwidth.

Meile dVPN Download (OS X& Linux)

The latest version of the Meile dVPN can be found on the GitHub link below:

Release Meile v1.0.2 (S.E.T.I.) - OS X & Linux · MathNodes/meile-gui

Solar Labs will begin the testing of its own desktop based dVPN applications soon. Download the Solar Labs mobile dVPN applications today!

Solar dVPN Android and iOS Download Links

• SOLAR dVPN: Fast and Anonymous - Apps on Google Play
• ‎SOLAR dVPN: Secure & Fast

Quick Overview of the Progress of Sentinel’s dVPN Network on Cosmos

The Sentinel dVPN network on Sentinel’s own Cosmos based Hub has been experiencing rapid growth, not only in-terms of community based bandwidth providers but also in-terms of the number of dVPN applications being released on the network as well as the success in on-ramp payment gateway integration.

1 — Growth of White-Label dVPN applications built on Sentinel

The growth of the Sentinel ecosystem depends on the aggregate revenue earned by node hosts which is directly correlated to the success of dVPN applications built on Sentinel.

One of the key vision’s of the Sentinel ecosystem is to be able to host a global network of autonomous dVPN applications which all share the same bandwidth resource pool. Application creators can decide whether to develop their own application based off of the Sentinel-CLI, or fork existing desktop and mobile applications.

Both the Solar Labs and Math Nodes team decided to build cross-platform mobile and desktop based applications based off of the Sentinel-CLI, taking up the role as pioneers by building applications that can be forked and repackaged by white-label application owners.

GitHub - sentinel-official/cli-client: The official Sentinel CLI client

The List of Mobile and Desktop Applications built on Sentinel Include:

iOS dVPN Application (w/on-ramp)-Solar Labs

Android dVPN Application (w/on-ramp)-Solar Labs

Mac dVPN Application (w/on-ramp)-Math Nodes (Solar Labs Soon)

Linux dVPN Application (w/on-ramp)-Math Nodes (Solar Labs Soon)

These applications can all now easily be forked by other teams and now function as base templates (for the time-being) for easy and fast application re-development and UI customization required for creating white-labelled dVPN applications.

2-Growth in Sentinel’s Community Powered p2p dVPN Node Network

The number of community based dVPN node hosts on the Sentinel network is now nearly 5000, as individuals from all over the world provide secure bandwidth from both residential and cloud IPs.

As the number of dVPN applications built on Sentinel as well as the number of overall users increases, bandwidth requirements will also increase and the infrastructure of the network must be able to handle demand surges for required bandwidth.

Refined and non-gameable node incentive structures are very important for a strong dVPN node network and there is a currently research and ongoing work in this areas which will be shared in further updates.

Another important aspect for the strength of the dVPN node network is the ease of hosting a dVPN node itself.

The HandyHost application makes it easy for users to host a dVPN node from a simple and engaging GUI which also provides statistics on consumption.

Download the Handyhost Application at

Releases · HandyOSS/HandyHost

With software based solutions such as HandyHost, and upcoming hardware based router solutions, the learning curve to provide network resource on Sentinel is poised to become significantly reduced and more user-friendly as compared to the process of resource provision on other decentralized p2p networks.

3-Increase in on-ramps and payment gateways to dVPN applications built on Sentinel

The Global VPN industry is estimated to be worth over $30B and services billions of users worldwide. The user payments in the conventional VPN industry are predominantly powered by banking or credit-card related payment gateways.

dVPN applications built on Sentinel, like most dApps, intend to penetrate the mainstream userbase outside of the overall crypto ecosystem. However, unlike most dApps, dVPN applications built on Sentinel have a focus on providing on-ramp fiat payment solutions. These on-ramp solutions preserve the integrity of decentralization while removing the challenge of facilitating crypto based payments for non-crypto users.

Simply explained, the on-ramp solutions allow for users to purchase dVPN tokens through traditional fiat payment channels. These dVPN tokens serve as ‘bandwidth credits’ for use of payment for bandwidth received from dVPN applications built on Sentinel.

Working On-Ramp Solutions in the Sentinel Ecosystem

dVPN applications built on Sentinel are currently integrated with 3 different fiat on-ramp gateways;

Apple Pay (Solar dVPN) — Credit Card based payment gateway

Google Play (Solar dVPN) — Credit Card based payment gateway

Stripe (Meile dVPN) — Credit Card based payment gateway

About the Math Nodes Team

MathNodes started as a dVPN provider for the Sentinel Network back in November 2021. With the launch of a terminal user interface, aptly named Meile (“for us” in Estonian) in early February 2022, MathNodes went on to develop a full software suite enabling users around the world to take advantage of decentralized VPN powered by the Sentinel Blockchain.

Launch of the First Desktop dVPN Application on Sentinel and an Overview of Sentinel’s Progress was originally published in Sentinel on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Notice: The dVPN Node Host Incentive Program will be live from the 20th of May 2019, 00:00:01 UTC to 20th of August 23:59:59 UTC. Rewards will be distributed at the beginning of each month (starting from July 1st).

As Sentinel comes closer to it’s swap from Ethereum to it’s upcoming Tendermint mainnet, the network will soon be monetized where node hosts can make money by charging for bandwidth consumption.

Announcing the dVPN Node Host Incentive Program

Individuals or organizations operating dVPN nodes on the Sentinel Ethereum Testnet will be incentivized for doing so in proportion to their bandwidth contribution.

This program is being conducted to:

1. Assimilate participants to the process of setting up a functional node that provides true utility to users all over the world
2. Make participants aware of the volume of traffic that the node services in order to
3. Identify potential validators who show their desire to support the Sentinel ecosystem by exhibiting a high level of participation in the live dVPN network
4. Gather more data in order to aid node hosts in constructing potential revenue models

The Sentinel Tendermint Mobile dVPN application and wallet is under development and a new desktop dVPN client will soon be released. Within the coming weeks Tendermint node hosts will also be eligible for the incentivization program.

The Sentinel dVPN Tendermint and Ethereum Testnets are both powered by nodes offering the OpenVPN protocol. The following protocols will be supported in upcoming releases:

1. WireGuard on Tendermint — for Desktops (Mac, Windows & Linux)
2. WireGuard on Tendermint — for Mobile (Android)
3. SOCKS5 on Tendermint — for public release after WireGuard
4. Ikev2 on ETH — iOS only — for public release this quarter

Download Sentinel Desktop and Mobile apps on th official Sentinel website

Participation (or) Rules of Engagement

Using the URL below, you can access the instructions to host a Sentinel dVPN Node — or an OpenVPN Exit Node on the Ethereum Network:

URL with instructions: https://github.com/sentinel-official/sentinel/tree/master/vpn-node-docker

1) dVPN nodes that contribute a bandwidth of 300GB or above within the month will receive $25 worth of SENT

Currently within the Ethereum testnet, each node must have it’s own ERC20 wallet address, in the near future one Tendermint wallet will have the ability to manage multiple nodes.

2) Top 20% of dVPN nodes that contribute bandwidth (or) nodes that contribute over 750GB per month (which ever is higher) will receive $50 worth of SENT

For example, assume there are 40 nodes in the network. Let’s say, of 40, only 10 nodes contributed over 1TB each. Since top 20% (of 40 nodes) would mean 8 nodes (20% of 40 = 8) and 10 nodes contributed over 1TB each, all 10 nodes will be eligible for this reward.

3) Nodes are required to be up for all days in a month except for a period of 24 hours throughout the month

This will enable the network to ensure sure there’s high availability at all times.

4) A maximum of 50 Node Hosts will be rewarded every month

Nodes are recommended to participate in the light client network to be able to provide large amounts of bandwidth to the users of the Sentinel dVPN Android application.

The option to participate is available in the command prompt when mounting the dVPN docker image.

Sentinel is looking to scale as a network with service providers (node hosts) and consumers (users). We consider user adoption as key to growth of the network and is the primary reason for the project to reward high bandwidth contributors.

Rewards for the previous month will be distributed on 10th of every calendar month

Configuration required to host a dVPN Node

Below is the configuration required to run a dVPN Node on the Sentinel Network:

• CPU — 1 or 2 cores
• RAM — 2GB
• Storage — 10GB
• Bandwidth —preferably unmetered

Potential VPS Providers for hosting dVPN Nodes

a) Providers that accept BTC (are Unmetered and are affordable too)

• 1984 Hosting — https://www.1984hosting.com/
• Alex Host — https://alexhost.com/
• Abelo Host — https://abelohost.com/
• Trabia — https://www.trabia.com/
• VPS Server— https://www.vpsserver.com/plans/
• QHoster — https://www.qhoster.com/

If you are a data center/provider or are aware of any hosting providers that accept cryptocurrency for hosting nodes, do not hesitate to comment on this blog and join the Sentinel community chat on Telegram to announce the same.

b) Providers that accept fiat:

• Digital Ocean —https://digitalocean.com — Reliable with secure computing. Might have to take care of DMCA.
• Linode — https://linode.com —no restriction to contribute bandwidth — answer by support when asked if TOR Exit Node hosting was possible or not.
• OVH — https://www.ovh.com/ —ultra economic nodes if you have long term plans

Final points to note

• Max bonus is $60 worth of SENT per month per dVPN Node after contributing 1TB to the network
• All rewards will be paid in SENT

Update #1 — 19th May — Added instructions 3 & 4 before the start of the Node Host Incentive program

Update #2–21st June — Added time and timezone for start and end times of the Node Incentive program

Media

We support anyone that wants to accept SENT as a payment method, run the Sentinel Private Net for their organization or community or develop tooling for the Sentinel Network. For partnerships of any kind or media enquiries please email — support@sentinel.co

Join our Community!

• Participate in discussion in our Telegram community chat.
• Follow us on Twitter and join the Telegram Official Announcements Channel for regular development and network updates.
• Follow the Medium blog for detailed updates on releases and development progress.

About Sentinel Network

Sentinel Network is a network layer that enables a true p2p and decentralized applications and resources marketplace. Sentinel enables anyone to create Public and Private networks that provide access to both free and incentivized, and also payment method agnostic (pre-paid/escrow/post-paid) services (dApps) & distributed resources, enabling its clients to become both producers and consumers in the network.

Sentinel utilizes locking, staking and multi-sig directly from Tendermint core and Cosmos SDK and aims to fully eliminate the disadvantages of previous generation protocols, that couldn’t scale due to limitations of the blockchain they share with other dApps or that have an unsustainable economic model that reduces usability or access to the product they offer.

Follow us on Medium to stay up to date with the latest Sentinel announcements and developments.

View exchanges for trading SENT on the Sentinel website.

Follow Sentinel ONLY ON Official Social Media platforms:

Twitter | Telegram — Official Group | Telegram — Announcements only | Telegram Community Chats — Node Network Group, Chinese, Russian and Spanish

Sentinel — Announcing the dVPN Node Host Incentive Program was originally published in Sentinel on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Since the inception of Peer to Peer Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) in 1996, protecting the security and privacy of user data on the internet became an industry in itself. The need to prevent probing governments, hackers, and corrupt corporations from phishing for user data via internet connections became a reality - and VPN services provided the solution.

A VPN (virtual private network) offers its users the ability to remotely connect to a private network over a public connection. In recent years VPN services have also added 2-way anonymity for users into their protocols as standard practice. These two features in tandem have the ability to secure internet connections from external breaches, prevent hacking and malware, as well as hide users’ locations and unlock geo-restricted content. Imagine an impenetrable tunnel that connects your computer to the internet. Data which streams through that tunnel is visible only to your computer, and the computer or website you are logging on to. A VPN IS that tunnel.

What’s the Problem?

Along with protecting its users with anonymity and impenetrability, one of the strongest selling points of a VPN service is to act tactfully where there is imbalance in internet regulation laws.

Some examples are :

• To circumvent the ban of popular VOIP services by all Middle-Eastern governments.
• To circumvent “The Great Firewall of China.” A content blocking service launched by the Chinese Government
• To bypass Egypt’s OpenVPN ban
• To use/communicate via Telegram, a messaging app that’s banned in Russia

A history of internet regulation in China

As new technologies naturally integrate into our daily lives, lawmakers and legislators have written laws regulating internet use. While each country has different boundaries, the Chinese Government operates the most extensive Internet censorship regime in the world. Censorship began early, in 1996, after China passed two bills banning the transmission of “sensitive content.” China had only enjoyed two years without internet censorship.

From 2000 through 2010, China continued to pressure companies such as Google, MSN, Yahoo, and CISCO to implement its harsh censorship laws - even going as far as to divulge information and reveal identities of the people sourcing the sensitive content. This bullying led to the eventual exit of Google from China in 2011 along with Google Campus’s subsequent transfer to an uncensored site at Hong Kong.

China’s latest move in 2018 to block VPN services entirely has come as a complete surprise to the VPN industry. Most Chinese companies rely on VPN services to talk to their international counterparts; millions of academics used it to access educational research and content hosted on US websites. This move by the Chinese government threatens to impede the progress of the nation severely. China has implied that this move is permanent.

This stands in the way of China’s academics, engineers, and doctors - among many who rely on VPN services to get around this inconvenience. For years, VPNs have provided the white collar workforce along with the average consumer a portal to access and communicate freely.

Censorship Challenges

Adversities faced by the corporations and citizens alike

These restrictions online cause real problems for business owners:

• Constant monitoring of company traffic, including business secrets and delicate information by the government.
• Companies are forced to hire proofreaders to check content published and remove sensitive information.
• No means to communicate securely from Chinese mainland due to the blockage of VPNs.
• Auto-blocking of keywords by the ministry of telecom, thereby preventing SEO.

As bad as the government restrictions are for business, the most effected is the average Chinese user:

• The Government monitors citizen’s conversations (which only take place on allowed channels such as Weibo). Censors who monitors this data and quickly delete controversial data and keywords. A study conducted in 2011 reported this number at 16% of all conversations!
• China censors events that threaten the government such as the Urumqi riots of 2009 and the death of the Human rights activist Liu Xiaobo. China maintains no records of these events via regular channels.
• Discussion forums, which are entirely different from social media, are often shut down.
• Searching for banned keywords such as “the Great Firewall of China” may shut down your connection at anytime and prevent re-establishing the connection for several minutes.

The need for a viable solution to centralized VPN (cVPN)

Following the Chinese government’s precarious stance on VPNs, there is a considerable demand for a solution that cannot be shut down or blocked from a central point of control.

Solving this cascading issue in China is just one of the many benefits of the dVPN by Sentinel. The dVPN (decentralized VPN) much like a regular cVPN starts by offering anonymity and impenetrability. Furthermore, by implementing new blockchain technology, Sentinel does not have a central server that a government can target and block .The key feature that sets us apart is our decentralized “user-hosted nodes” which protect a secure and anonymous connection to the internet from anywhere in the world.

How does the Sentinel dVPN work?

Going back to the analogy of tunnels; a dVPN creates tunnels between your computer and every node on the network. Based on consensus derived from a universal set of rules, every node on the network becomes responsible for assessing if the data that has passed through is unaltered.

Prepared for the most advanced cyber attacks, the Sentinel dVPN network can detect even the smallest alteration of the data from hackers or sense time delays by government re-routers. Other nodes in the network pick up these errors immediately and isolate or deny traffic from such nodes in the future.

Connecting via a proxy server solves the problem of speed and geographic freedom. To enable encryption, Sentinel uses a secure proxy protocol called SOCKS5. SOCKS5 uses the SSH and RSA based encryption protocols, to enable users to transfer data securely with authentication over a proxy server. This is much more secure when compared to earlier versions of SOCKS.

Although China has strong laws to prevent VPN’s from proliferating in their internet cyberspace, with 1.38 Billion people, it remains a sea of opportunity for investing into sanctioned alternatives to internet freedom.

First network of SOCKS5 Proxy Servers on the Blockchain

Although VPN users’ primary interest in VPN is privacy, a growing number of users have unique requirements in mind:

Speed

• To alleviate the speed drop of VPNs
• To access and maintain persistent connections to destinations on the clear and dark web

Freedom from geographic localization

• To be able to access region-specific content on various streaming services
• To be able to work on content using the same

Application specific access

• You may configure SOCKS5 proxies to route traffic of specifically one application or can be configured for the entire system
• Due to the support of protocols other than HTTP(S), SOCKS5 works with protocols like UDP and is fast during p2p UDP-based communication/file exchange.

Proxy Servers for speed and geographic independence

At the onset of VPN technology, users would connect and route their data via proxy servers. Users would maintain good speeds and their IP would be endemic to the location of the proxy server.

Advantages of a SOCKS5 based VPN over a regular VPN

• Speed due to dedicated tunnel and port. You may switch the message sending protocol in real-time for the same.
• Less interference from ISP’s and third parties.

SOCKS5 takes the advantages of using a proxy server and makes it better with encryption. Sentinel takes the advantages of using SOCKS5 proxy servers and makes it bulletproof by using the Ethereum blockchain and incentivize hosts.

How Sentinel takes SOCKS5 further?

Understanding the limitations

1. The main flaw in SOCKS5 encryption that it creates a single point of failure: the proxy server that you connect to may fail.
2. Another flaw in SOCKS5 encryption is that though the data isn’t visible, the volume of traffic is still visible to third parties.

Through its blockchain based solutions, Sentinel addresses both of these problems by using a distributed network over SOCKS5 authentication. This means that there is no single point of failure, no single node knows your IP, and each node has limited information about you and your encrypted traffic.

The Sentinel network implements multiple protocols to keep intruders and third-party snooping away. The simple fact that it functions as a distributed network severely deters hacking and snooping.

Advantages of Sentinel’s SOCKS5 VPN over regular VPN

• Blazing speed advantages of SOCKS5
• The trust-less, failure proof, distributed nature of blockchain technology
• Sentinel’s industry-leading, proven, encryption protocols
• Growing network of international SOCKS5 nodes

Potential stakeholders for the blockchain’s first SOCKS5 VPN

1. People who wish to torrent and use peer to peer file sharing securely
2. Users preferring speed & bandwidth primarily
3. People wishing to view their favorite content streaming services while traveling
4. People wishing to mask their actual location like whistle-blowers, journalists, activists and anyone that cares about privacy in general
5. Users wishing to keep their ISP’s and malicious websites away from snooping on their data

Conclusion

In an age of cyber attacks and hacker-influenced elections, China’s intricately constructed firewall is just an example of a feat of engineering which serves a regime of dis-empowerment. What services like Sentinel Security look to provide globally are solutions to power-hungry and lopsided struggles surrounding Internet censorship. Political shifts and some economic uncertainty have created a massive rise in demand for a solution that works. Sentinel’s dVPN coupled with SOCK5 technology, provides not only security and anonymity, but also delivers the speed and geographical sovereignty that will best serve the world.

About Sentinel

Sentinel employs a multi-chain architecture to secure data and exchange resources between people and applications — Legacy, Enterprise Apps, Mobile Apps, and dApps. Sentinel has developed the first working blockchain bandwidth resource monitoring and on-chain payment gateway mechanism.

Follow us on Medium to stay up to date with the latest Sentinel announcements and developments.

View exchanges for trading $SENT at the Sentinel website.

Check out and follow Sentinel’s official social media channels:

Twitter | Telegram — Official Group | Telegram — Announcements only

Breaking the Great Firewall of China: Sentinel dVPN and SOCKS5 was originally published in Sentinel on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Current State of Development

Over the last few months there has been a significant amount of progress both on the protocol and the networking side. Development focus areas include:

1. Tendermint Hub/Bandwidth Protocol
2. Networking protocols — OpenVPN, WireGuard and IKEv2
3. Desktop Client v2 with support for OpenVPN & WireGuard
4. iOS Application with ETH with support for IKEv2
5. Private Network functionality (Integration with Spider)

Continuing the Node Incentivization Program

Incentivization for the 5th month of the Node Incentivization Program has been distributed at this time with over 900K SENT to eligible node hosts who need to cover their hosting costs.

The Node Incentivization program will be continued until mainnet in order to continue to assimilate hosts to a potential economical model that will enable profitable provision of networking services.

During the node incentivization program, the Sentinel Network saw a peak of 100 nodes with an average bandwidth exchange of ~500GB on the network per day. These nodes were being hosted to provide maximum functionality and bandwidth throughput.

Output of Sentinel-Turing-1

Since the release of Sentinel-Turing-1, a total of 1.6M blocks (at the time of writing) have been generated with 39 validators participating within the network. The Sentinel-Turing-1 underwent a coordinated attack (by the Validators of the network and the core team), which resulted in the halt of the chain, as expected.

In addition, internal testing of the Turing-1 chain has revealed that the application logic required much more testing before launching a chain with the VPN & its transactions in place at the consensus level.

Announcing the release of Sentinel’s Turing-2

While Sentinel-Turing-1 focused on a version of governance and consensus that was quite similar to the Cosmos Network, Turing-2 will also feature a version that’s similar, but the key difference would be in the way transactions are handled.

Turing-2 will feature the Sentinel Network’s key utility in action, the dVPN application. This dVPN application on Tendermint will be supported by multiple protocols — OpenVPN, WireGuard and IKEv2. Each protocol works in a very similar way and other protocols in future can be in an efficient added in a plug-and-play manner reducing development efforts.

Currently the desktop app doesn’t support the Turing-1 testnet, but the client that’s being developed for Turing-2 will work not only with desktops and laptops, but also the Raspberry Pi with a command-line interface (CLI).

Turing-2 will also feature a version of the Private Net and more information on the Private Net will be detailed in an independent article.

Sentinel’s Turing-2 is expected to go live with the support of our Validators on November 27th, 1100 UTC. Additional details of the same will be released before the same. Interested people are requested to join the Sentinel Node Network Group and participate in the discussion or to know any additional information.

Media & Partnerships

We support anyone that wants to accept SENT as a payment method, run the Sentinel Private Net for their organization or community or develop tooling for the Sentinel Network. Please feel free to reach out to us on Twitter in case of any outreach/partnership inquiries.

Join our Community!

• Participate in discussion in our Telegram community chat.
• Follow us on Twitter and join the Telegram Official Announcements Channel for regular development and network updates.
• Follow the Medium blog for detailed updates on releases and development progress.

About Sentinel Network

Sentinel Network is a network layer that enables a true p2p and decentralized applications and resources marketplace. Sentinel enables anyone to create Public and Private networks that provide access to both free and incentivized, and also payment method agnostic (pre-paid/escrow/post-paid) services (dApps) & distributed resources, enabling its clients to become both producers and consumers in the network.

Sentinel utilizes locking, staking and multi-sig directly from Tendermint core and Cosmos SDK and aims to fully eliminate the disadvantages of previous generation protocols, that couldn’t scale due to limitations of the blockchain they share with other dApps or that have an unsustainable economic model that reduces usability or access to the product they offer.

Follow us on Medium to stay up to date with the latest Sentinel announcements and developments.

View exchanges for trading SENT on the Sentinel website.

Follow Sentinel ONLY ON Official Social Media platforms:

Twitter | Telegram — Official Group | Telegram — Announcements only | Telegram Community Chats — Node Network Group, Chinese, Russian and Spanish

Sentinel-Turing-2 — Announcement & extension of the Node Incentivization Program until Mainnet was originally published in Sentinel on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Sentinel Announces Ticker Change to $P2P: Building the Future of Decentralized Bandwidth

In a strategic move that redefines its mission, Sentinel has announced a ticker symbol change from $DVPN to $P2P, reflecting its evolution into “The Layer 1 for P2P Bandwidth.” This shift underscores the project’s expanded focus beyond decentralized VPNs to embrace a broader vision: creating a decentralized infrastructure for peer-to-peer bandwidth, serving both privacy and AI-driven data ecosystems.

Token Transition: Key Details for Holders

Sentinel’s shift to the $P2P ticker symbol is purely a branding update, with no impact on the underlying tokeneconomics or user experience. Here’s what token holders need to know:

• No Change in Token Supply:
  The total supply of P2P remains unchanged. This rebranding does not involve token minting or other forms of inflation.
• No Action Required:
  Wallets, exchanges, and decentralized platforms will automatically reflect the new ticker symbol. Holders do not need to swap, migrate, or take any steps to retain their tokens.
• Wallets & Exchanges: Interfaces will update to display P2P instead of DVPN.
• Price Trackers: Market data platforms will adjust ticker symbols and historical charts accordingly.
• Block Explorers & dApps: Tools like explorers, staking platforms, and integrations will transition to the new symbol over time.

What to Expect During the Transition

• Temporary inconsistencies may appear across platforms as updates roll out, but these are cosmetic and do not affect token functionality.

Why the Change? A New Era for $P2P

Sentinel’s rebranding aligns with its transition from a niche dVPN provider to a foundational blockchain layer for P2P bandwidth exchange. The $P2P token will now represent governance and utility across two critical domains:

1. Privacy Infrastructure: Continuing to power the world’s largest decentralized VPN network.
2. AI Data Layer: Enabling a marketplace for bandwidth providers to support AI workflows, including web scraping and real-time data acquisition.

Timing the Transformation: Enter Sentinel Scout

The announcement coincides with the imminent full launch of scout.sentinel.co, a platform poised to become the backbone of Sentinel’s AI ecosystem. Scout introduces a suite of tools designed to democratize and decentralize data acquisition for AI agents:

• MCP Server & API Framework: Enables seamless integration for AUI (Autonomous User Interface) agents, allowing direct communication with Sentinel’s P2P bandwidth network.
• N8N Templates: Pre-built workflows on the popular no-code/low-code platform N8N streamline agent development, eliminating the need for manual script configuration.
• Decentralized Data Scraping: A scalable, permissionless solution for AI agents to fetch and process web data without relying on centralized infrastructure, ensuring privacy, compliance, and global reach.

Overcoming Traditional Scraping Challenges

Sentinel Scout’s toolkit addresses critical pain points in conventional web scraping:

• Mobile IPs: Access to a distributed pool of IPs for evading detection and ensuring anonymity.
• Captcha Bypass: Advanced tools to handle anti-bot mechanisms.
• Geo-Targeted Scraping: Location-specific data retrieval for localized insights.
• JavaScript Rendering: Support for dynamic content-heavy websites.
• Customizable Data Filters: Developers can specify data tags, formats (JSON, CSV), and exclusion rules to tailor outputs for AI training.

The Sentinel Scout Workflow for AI Agents

When an AI agent lacks the data to answer a query or execute a task, Scout automates the following process:

1. Intelligent Link Discovery
   Scout’s AI-driven system identifies the most relevant web links for targeted data retrieval, prioritizing quality and context.
2. Efficient Data Extraction
   Data is downloaded in optimized formats (e.g., JSON, CSV) at scale, minimizing latency and computational overhead.
3. Adaptive Learning & Execution
   The agent trains on the newly acquired data, refining its model to deliver accurate, context-aware responses or perform tasks dynamically.

Bridging Decentralized Bandwidth and AI

By integrating Scout with its P2P bandwidth infrastructure, Sentinel creates a symbiotic ecosystem where:

• Bandwidth Providers earn $P2P by contributing resources to both privacy (dVPN) and AI use cases.
• AI Agents gain frictionless access to real-time, high-quality data, enhancing their utility and scalability.
• Developers can build decentralized applications (dApps) that leverage $P2P to pay for bandwidth services or innovate atop Scout’s APIs.

This strategic alignment positions Sentinel as a pivotal player at the intersection of decentralized infrastructure and AI, offering a unified narrative: $P2P is the fuel for peer-to-peer bandwidth, powering the next generation of privacy and artificial intelligence systems.

Sentinel is changing its ticker from $DVPN to $P2P with its AI Data Layer Launch was originally published in Sentinel on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

With this blog post, we aim to shed some light on the many moving parts of this robust and ever-evolving Network.

At the heart of the Sentinel Network lies its core offering — the tools and environment for developers to create resilient and secure VPN applications.

Sentinel doesn’t merely offer a single VPN solution. Instead, it provides a toolkit for anyone to create their own personalized VPN service.

Applications

Meile dVPN, which has had an outstanding debut, is now undergoing a comprehensive makeover. spearheaded by Mathodes, the decision has been made to revamp the UI to enhance the overall user experience across their app offerings, so users will soon see refreshed versions for Windows, Linux, MacOS, and Android.

Mathnodes Telegram: https://t.me/MathNodes
Meile dVPN Twitter: https://twitter.com/MeileDVPN
Website: meile.app — https://mathnodes.com/index.php/meile-dvpn-client-linux-os-x/

BasedVPN
A recent addition to the Sentinel Network, BasedVPN, a free VPN offering, is currently undergoing significant back-end development. After an initial setback, it has been accepted once again to be listed on the Apple App Store.

See our previous blog post that explores BasedVPN.

BasedVPN Website: basedapps.co.uk

GooglePlay: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.uk.basedapps.vpn

APK Download Link: https://files.basedapps.co.uk/app-release-1-0-0.apk

Bagimsiz VPN
Set to debut this October, Bagimsiz VPN is particularly tailored for a Turkish audience. It is the first geography-centric VPN to launch on the Sentinel Network.

“Bağımsız” is a Turkish word that means ‘Freedom’.

Users will have the choice between the Turkish language or English within the app settings.

Caishen VPN
Also launching in October is the Caishen VPN. Designed specifically for Chinese users.

Caishen is a Chinese mythological figure which has a number of meanings.

Stats API

The stats API task is completed, and the database has fully synced. The stats page is a priority right now for development and release, which will be followed by pages centered around node metrics and node leaderboards.

The VPN development and Stats API update have been made possible by the latest chain update that enabled timed-based subscriptions to be purchased on the blockchain.

Subscriptions are currently active; right now, four applications are sharing the same subscription account, and nodes are being added to the subscription for one day every time the user requests a specific node.

The next step is to decide on how to properly implement an economic structure that is both sustainable and globally competitive against existing VPN providers

Sentinel Growth DAO

The Sentinel Growth DAO has been established from prop #35; 240,000,000 $dVPN tokens have been put under the management of the DAO. Their first action was to set up a validator on the Sentinel Network and set the commission to 100% to compound the treasury to maximum effect.

Looking forward, the DAO wants to fund community initiatives and the development of potential VPNs to bring in users and, ultimately, higher revenues to the Sentinel Network.

Their socials can be found here:
Telegram: https://t.me/SentinelGrowthDAO
X/Twitter : https://twitter.com/dVPNDAO

About Sentinel

Sentinel is the first scalable framework allowing for dVPNs to utilize shared resources, reducing the overall network carbon footprint. The goal of the Sentinel ecosystem is to decentralize the VPN industry and introduce the ‘dVPN’ to the mainstream consumer.

Sentinel Network Update: 26 September 2023 was originally published in Sentinel on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

20 June 2023 — SOLAR Labs and Meile dVPN have announced their alliance in a significant leap forward within the decentralized Virtual Private Network (dVPN) space. This newly formed coalition aims to align all code commits of the Sentinel codebase onto one unified Github repository.

The Sentinel Network is an integral part of the thriving Cosmos ecosystem and is one of the most active blockchains in terms of transactions and code commits. However, due to the decentralized nature of Sentinel, these commits are often dispersed across several GitHub repositories from contributors.

Recognizing this fragmentation as an opportunity for growth, SOLAR Labs and Meile dVPN, two leading contributors to the Sentinel Network, have decided to tackle this challenge. Together, they will align all the commits to the Sentinel codebase on Sentinel’s dedicated GitHub repository, to create a more manageable and efficient development environment for contributors and users.

This alliance aims to produce a streamlined and cohesive product — The Sentinel White Label SDK. This software development kit aims to drastically simplify creating a personalized decentralized VPN (Virtual Private Network).

“The collaboration between SOLAR Labs and Meile dVPN will unify the dVPN white label structure and create a cohesion from which all future developers can derive their applications. The joint work can be seen as ‘the development for the advancement of the Sentinel Network and its partners.” FreQniK CEO Meile dVPN

This move takes inspiration from how the structure and guides are laid out in the Cosmos technical documentation site, ensuring that even as the Sentinel Network continues to evolve, it will maintain its structure and modularity in keeping with how Cosmos was designed to be used.

By aligning the Sentinel codebase, SOLAR Labs and Meile dVPN aim to lower the entry barriers for those wishing to create their own decentralized VPN, creating a framework that can easily be built upon.

Looking forward, there will be some significant enhancements to the Sentinel Network and its dVPN offerings. The upgrades include dedicated IPs for node selection, on-chain subscriptions using $dVPN, and other Cosmos-based IBC-enabled tokens. Importantly, this includes newly built SOLAR dVPN applications compatible with all platforms; a freshly redesigned stats page, and an interactive node explorer with a leaderboard, so users can see real-time network statistics that don’t affect or compromise individual privacy.

“We are establishing a fresh coalition to create tools others can use to develop on the Sentinel Network. Our objective is to ensure that dVPN is accessible not just to end-users but also to developers. Our all-new unified architecture will set a standard for the decentralized VPN industry.” Aleksandr Litreev CEO SOLAR Labs.

Many more developments will be announced on the Sentinel Network in the coming quarter, including a full revamp of the original Sentinel dVPN app.

In the meantime, here is a list of the currently available dVPNs that have been built on the Sentinel dVPN Network:

1. SOLAR LABS
2. DECENTR (Browser)
3. Meile dVPN

For more information about the Sentinel Network and its dVPN offerings, please visit https://sentinel.co

SOLAR Labs and Meile dVPN join forces to improve codebase and launch an easy-to-use tool kit on… was originally published in Sentinel on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Cosmos is at a Cross Roads Point.

After years of building the foundations of the interchain ecosystem, Cosmos is starting to successfully blossom from its single atomic point and genesis.
The world before Cosmos Genesis was nothing, and after, it was everything. In the words of Georges Lemaitre, it is the “The beginning of the world”. Just as Georges Lemaitre fathered the hypothesis of the primeval atom (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primeval_atom%22%20%5Co%20%22Primeval%20atom), leading to the success of modern day empiricism; we have Jae Kwon and all stakeholders to thank for fathering $ATOMs , after all it was Jae Kwon, who laid out the theory and modus operandi of the interchain vision.

Cosmos gave the toolset of creation to the interchain ecosystem out of love and supporting the ideals of FOSS, and thus Cosmos shall reap the rewards for sharing such virtue.
Those who call that ‘Cosmos Maximalism’ simply lack the virtue of gratefulness and fail to understand that stakeholders will have a naturally expected defense mechanism to protect techno-social assets like the Cosmos hub.

Cosmos built the infrastructure but did not build the incentive systems, expecting natural harmonic organization of the new realm as projects began to organize around the hub of genesis.
Like planets, these projects were simply attracted to the strongest force in the realm, and thus harmonized orbits around the hub, the center of the universe. Expecting gratitude and recognition from people using Cosmos-built tools might be naive, but the ideal still stands. All success of others is directly related to the proximity they have with the Cosmos Hub. The crypto ecosystem as a whole; has a short memory, narrow vision, and terrible attention span. Such issues of memory, vision, and attention span have led to a scarcity mindset within the ecosystem. This scarcity mindset has been created by a newly created rich class (Who have the means of abundance via the floats/capital they own but have not practiced abundance mindsets) whom are looking to damage what was built through years of hard work and sacrifice.

Cosmos lacks an official Constitution, let this be it. A living Constitution that speaks of the struggle, but also the long-term vision.

Those who have contributed to this piece of paper are long term supporters of Cosmos and have been a part of this online ethereal politic body well before the start of chain genesis. More than early Cosmos stakeholders, we are also early crypto adopters who understand that polarity creates value, and divisions sew later unions which create future bulwarks for the defense of the chain. This is thus an opportunity to solidify the vision laid out by Jae Kwon.

There is an unspoken narrative going around in the cosmos related discussion groups, that the cosmos hub must die or become weaker for the cosmos ecosystem to succeed (putting other projects into the spotlight), otherwise the ecosystem wouldn't be decentralized or multilateral (by which standards we don't know) we think this narrative is not backed by any good arguments, a truly multilateral ecosystem will have a multiplicative effect, strengthening each participant the more participants join, it won't have a subtractive effect, spreading value across every project that joins, believing in redistribution of value is negating the existence of network effects, and being very uneducated about the developments of bitcoin, ethereum and wider crypto ecosystem since inception.

There is no universe in which the Cosmos Ecosystem community succeeds if the Cosmos Hub fails. This would engrain a culture of predatory competition rather than symbiotic cooperation, thus leading to scarcity mindset becoming the norm. Simply put, the spokes on a wheel all collapse inward when the hub fails. Tech is not the only thing that matters, culture is what propels crypto projects forward.

Reality is too complex to be simplified in binary outcomes:
“Cosmos hub looses my chain wins.”
“If I capture value by weakening or front running the cosmos hub my coin wins.”
Those are very naive analyses, was value created or destroyed?
Some less naive investors will think something like this:

“oh wow, the cosmos ecosystem is the only ecosystem in which first movers cannot retain value, perverse incentive structures and a toxic infighting culture force participants into a negative-sum game“

Cryptocurrency communities eventually always develop some form of toxicity, it's a psychological coping mechanism caused by the huge boom and bust cycles and price swings, successful communities focus this energy outwards to spread awareness about their project, to attack the pain points of other ecosystems such as lack of decentralization or technical inferiority, the cosmos ecosystem community is the only place where the toxicity is pointed inwards.

Large ecosystem participants search for older assets with proven track records, clear monetary policy, long chart history, and an ambitious cypherpunk vision. Large wealth pools and syndicates search for less speculative investments that will benefit from large ecosystem movements. Nobody wants to speculate which assets will come on top as the mindset of scarcity continues to cannibalize the hub from within. Important ecosystem players who bring longevity to crypto assets prefer synergy and safety, not scarcity and cannibalization tactics which are quasi hostile takeover attempts. Such strategy does not create new value, it only moves value from one point to another. The net sum of value will not increase with such tactics.

Is it possible that an asset launched natively on the cosmos SDK and IBC ecosystem will grow to a larger market cap than ATOM?
Yes, the difference is it won't do so by attacking ATOM but rather focusing on its own use case, and if such a strong value proposition gets built on the cosmos ecosystem, ATOM holders will naturally benefit and a mutual synergistic relationship is desirable for both, LUNA showed the way with their “Project dawn” ecosystem fund.

Let Atom and the Cosmos Hub be that, a lindy memetic embryo which facilitates the entire memeplex of the whole interchain ecosystem. It is thus self-explanatory for all Cosmos stake holders as well as those building on the toolsets of the eco system such as the SDK and IBC, users shall not popularize social attacks that weaken the Cosmos Hub. We see your scarcity mindset simply put. It is immature to attack your father and mother, instead of working with gratitude which will strengthen the entire IBC realm.

ATOM cementing itself as the core of the interchain will create a far greater wave of wealth for the whole ecosystem than ATOM being displaced.

We thus ask allegiance to Cosmos SDK projects, may it come through outright vocal/memetic support or through treasury seeding.

Cosmos hub is now sitting at the round table like King Arthur did. There is no round table without King Arthur, There is no conception of the Big Bang without Georges Lemaitre, There is no Bitcoin without Satoshi Nakamoto.
At the same time there is no round table without Arthur knights, everybody is an equal stakeholder at the round table, this is amplified by the table roundness where everybody occupies the same position; but there is also the knowledge in all knights that it is thanks to King Arthur that the round table was formed, he is the most honorable within the honorable cause he started it all. There is no Atom, No online ethereal Cosmos without Jae Kwon.

Let us come together to strengthen the foundations of the Cosmos itself, in gratitude rather than in competition fueled by scarcity mindsets.

The interchain is not just an ecosystem where chains share some technical details like a bridge.
The interchain shall be an ecosystem where chains and DAOs share a common fate.

We propose the creation of an interchain bank, built upon and administered by the Cosmos Hub with a new and finer governance process and infrastructure, projects can airdrop part of their supply or deposit parts of their treasury to this common bank in a coordinated manner and get non-majority shares issued in return.
Protocol to protocol airdrops (coupled with delegators and LPS airdrops) will strengthen DAO’s and make all stakeholders more aligned.
Every project that participates shall benefit everyone else, by sharing success. May your allegiance to the greater good of the foundation of the Cosmos be shown with facts and not just words.

Such a strong interchain bank/dao backed by many assets shall be able to act as a king, a higher sovereign, issuing stablecoins against reserves, loaning funds to other DAOs, participate in infrastructure building (and much more), and overall increasing treasury for the greater good of the whole ecosystem.

Cosmos Hub shall become what nobody can fathom yet.
Cosmos Hub shall be the soul driving force which aligns incentives in the interchain ecosystem.
Common ownership is the best way.

Editorial: Round table the cosmos bank, a manifesto was originally published in Sentinel on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

There will be follow-up blogs covering various aspects of this upgrade in detail.

The Sentinel Hub v12 Testnet is launching in the coming days. This announcement covers the key changes to the Sentinel blockchain with this upgrade.

dVPN Explorer — https://www.mintscan.io/sentinel
dVPN Github — https://github.com/sentinel-official
dVPN Stats — https://stats.sentinel.co
dVPN Docs — https://docs.sentinel.co

Sentinel runs on its own blockchain built on the Cosmos SDK, and is powered by over 70 validators. The Sentinel blockchain has processed over 130 million transactions over the past 3 years, with the chain acting as the backbone for p2p dVPN infrastructure by providing an on-chain DHT structure for the communication between dVPN users and dVPN nodes in addition to other critical functions.

It is the goal of the Sentinel ecosystem to consistently innovate on the back-end in order to improve user experience.

One of the key features of this upgrade is Sentinel’s integration with dVPN/USD Osmosis price-feeds via the Cosmos IBC protocol in order to allow for dVPN nodes to denominate their bandwidth pricing in terms of $/unit of time. In Sentinel’s last major protocol upgrade, pricing in terms of $DVPN/unit of time was introduced and now further work has been done to create one of the first-ever implementations of a secure pricing oracle that uses an interoperability protocol.

hub/x/oracle at development · sentinel-official/hub

The upgrade to Sentinel Hub v12 is Sentinel’s biggest upgrade yet and includes several new features and upgrades that will make a significant impact for dVPN users, dVPN node hosts, and dVPN application creators.

Sentinel’s blockchain has provided secure dVPN connection to over 600k unique users and through over 6 dVPN applications built on Sentinel. The usage graph is trending upwards and Sentinel is set to cross 1 million unique users in 2025. Sentinel has custom modules for its p2p dVPN protocol written in GO at the chain consensus level, and changes to the dVPN protocol requires a complete chain upgrade.

This testnet is critical for dVPN application developers and node hosts to ensure that dVPN functionality is not disrupted once the upgrade is done and the dVPN bandwidth protocol is updated.

Checkout an article on the last significant chain upgrade:
https://medium.com/sentinel/introduction-of-on-chain-subscriptions-and-time-based-payments-sentinels-biggest-dvpn-protocol-a2b240199f18

Highlights of the Chain Upgrade’s Impact:

dVPN Users:
- Improved user experience with block time reducing to 3 seconds, potentially decreasing the time to connect to a node by 30% or more.
- Ability to choose a dollar denominated payment structure when subscribing directly to dVPN nodes
- Better user experience with the elimination of needing to initiate a subscription transaction before being able to connect to a node when directly subscribing to a node (not through a subscription plan created by a dVPN application creator)

dVPN Node Hosts:

Ability to set pricing in-terms of $/unit of time, where the price of dVPN/USD from Osmosis is queried via IBC to determine the # of dVPN for payment required based on a $ rate
- Completely new dVPN node health check system with an in-built queue system to re-check failed nodes to reduce the occurrence of errors.
- Completely new dVPN node architecture that does not require a docker image and can potentially be deployed on Windows and Mac as well

dVPN Application Developers:

- Ability to add dVPN nodes to a subscription contract based on their pricing in terms of $/unit of time — as compared to paying dVPN nodes in $DVPN denominated rates
- Ability to automatically renew subscription contracts with dVPN node hosts after the time period for the previous subscription has elapsed
- Ability to directly provide ‘free’ dVPN access without a payment making it easier for dVPN applications to provide free trial periods by integrating this logic

Cosmos SDK related updates for the Sentinel Hub

• Cosmos SDK Upgrade: Upgraded the Cosmos SDK version to v0.47.X for improved stability, performance, and compatibility with the latest ecosystem standards.
• CometBFT Upgrade: Updated the CometBFT version to the release (v0.37.X), ensuring enhanced consensus mechanisms and reliability.
• CosmWasm Upgrade: Updated the CosmWasm version to the release (v0.46.X), providing improved smart contract capabilities and better developer experience.
• IBC Upgrade: Upgraded the IBC protocol version to (v7.8.X) enhance interchain communication, ensuring compatibility with the latest standards and improving cross-chain interactions.
• Optimized Queries: Improved the efficiency of various queries across modules, reducing response times and enhancing overall performance.

Introduction of the Oracle Module

Oracle Module: Introduced a new module to manage asset price information, enabling seamless integration with other modules. Key features include:

• Asset Management: Each asset is defined by parameters such as: Base Denomination, Quote Denomination, and Pool ID: These fields are used for acquiring the spot price information from the Osmosis blockchain. The Pool ID information is also updated using the AsyncICQ module.
• Governance Control: Both asset information and the frequency of query requests can be updated through governance proposals by the community.
• IBC-Based Price Queries: The Sentinel blockchain uses Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) with the AsyncICQ module to query price information from the Osmosis blockchain:
• Sentinel sends query requests for asset prices to the Osmosis blockchain every N blocks.
• Relayers deliver query packets to Osmosis, which processes the request and sends a response as an acknowledgment.
• Sentinel processes the responses and updates the price information for specific assets in its state.

Real-Time Price Updates: The module ensures that market price fluctuations are reflected on Sentinel. For example:

• A node setting a price in USD (e.g., $1) can use Oracle to convert this to the settling denomination (e.g., $DVPN or $ATOM) based on real-time prices.

Changes for Users in the Protocol

• Subscription without locking — Previously, users were required to subscribe to a node by locking tokens or coins before creating hourly or gigabyte-based sessions (e.g., pay-as-you-go sessions). In the new version, this subscription step has been eliminated. Users can now start sessions directly with a node without prior subscription.
• Multiple Sessions: Users can create multiple sessions for a node at any time. During session creation, users specify the number of hours or gigabytes they wish to use, and the corresponding amount is locked as a deposit. At the end of the session, the deposit is used to pay the node, with any refunds for unused time or data automatically returned to the user.
• Single Transaction Efficiency: The new process reduces the previous two-step requirement to a single transaction, significantly decreasing session creation time. Users can now create an on-chain session within just one transaction, improving overall efficiency and user experience. Previously, users were limited to one active session at a time for a specific node (user-node pairs were unique). In the new version, users can create and maintain multiple active sessions simultaneously for the same node, offering greater flexibility in usage.
• Automatic subscription plan renewal for the user — Users can enable the renewal process by making a transaction. During renewal, the price information for the subscription plan is fetched from the Oracle module, ensuring real-time pricing. The corresponding amount is deducted from the user’s account and paid to the provider.

Changes for dVPN Nodes in the Protocol

• USD-Based Pricing: Nodes can now set pricing details exclusively in USD format (e.g., $1 per hour or per gigabyte). The settlement will be conducted in a specified cryptocurrency such as $DVPN, $ATOM, or other denominations, with conversion handled using Oracle module data.
• Free Pricing Option: Node operators can now opt to provide their services free of charge by not setting any pricing information.
• Removed Maximum Price Validation: The maximum price validation for node pricing has been removed, allowing greater flexibility for node operators to set their desired pricing.

Changes for dVPN Application Developers in the Protocol

- USD-Based Pricing: Providers can now create subscription plans where the pricing information is set exclusively in USD format (e.g., $5 per month).

• Free Subscription Plans: Providers now have the option to set the subscription plan price as free, allowing users to subscribe without any payment.
• Revenue Distribution: Upon a user’s subscription: A portion of the payment (e.g., 20%) is sent to the community pool. The remaining percentage is transferred to the provider’s address.
• New ‘Lease Module’: Providers can lease nodes for a specified number of hours (minimum 1 hour). The maximum duration is governed by a governance proposal, with a default of 720 hours. At any given time, only one active lease is allowed between a provider and a node pair. New leases cannot be created for a provider-node pair with an existing active lease. Leases are automatically marked as ended and removed from the blockchain state after the lease duration.
• Renewable Leases: Providers can opt for renewable leases. Upon renewal, if the hourly rate changes (e.g., from 10 $DVPN to 12 $DVPN), the updated rate is applied, and the required deposit is recalculated. Providers can end leases at any time, with refunds issued for unused hours. Providers can also toggle leases between renewable and non-renewable states.
• Automatic End-Conditions: Leases are automatically terminated if the node becomes inactive, ensuring providers are not charged unnecessarily. When a node associated with an active lease becomes inactive, that particular node is removed from all subscription plans created by the provider.

Introduction of the Session Module:

Separate Session Types: In the new version, sessions are categorized into two distinct types:

• Node-Based Sessions: Specifically for sessions created for nodes. At the end of these sessions, payments are made directly to the node based on the usage (e.g., hourly or gigabyte-based pricing).
• Subscription-Based Sessions: Specifically for sessions created as part of a subscription. These sessions do not involve any direct payments. Instead, they update the allocation of data or bandwidth as part of the subscription.

Previously, a single session type was used for both node-based and subscription-based sessions. This new categorization provides clarity and separates the handling logic for each type.

Automatic Session Inactivation:

Sessions will now become inactive under the following conditions:

• The node associated with the session becomes inactive.
• The subscription associated with the session becomes inactive.
• The node is removed from the subscription plan.

Launch of the Sentinel Hub v12 testnet, Sentinel Biggest Chain Upgrade Till Date was originally published in Sentinel on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.