Shutdown Chaosnet Darknode

Step by step on how to deregister

How do I shutdown (deregister) and then destroy my Darknode?

Chaosnet Darknode will be on a 7-Day Epoch Cycle. Full Registration can take up to 8 days Full Deregistration can take up to 3 weeks

When deregistering a Darknode, please go to the Command Center (CC) and click the DEREGISTER (top left) button on the CC.

  1. A request to deregister will commence at this time.

  2. You will need to wait a few minutes until your transaction clears via MetaMask.

  3. At that point the CC will show 'Deregistration Pending'

  4. Once complete, you will need to wait two (2) full epochs, prior to your Darknode being given permission to fully deregister (approximately 2 weeks). This is to prevent bad actors from simply absconding with their REN prior to it being slashed.

  5. After waiting for approximately 2 weeks, you go back to the CC webpage and click the REFUND button (top left) of Darknode page. To receive your 10K REN refund it will take another full Epoch (1 Week).

  6. Wait patiently and your 10K REN will then be refunded to you MetaMask wallet.

  7. At this point, you can Withdraw ETH (gas) from your Darknode via the CLI

    1. You can do so by inputting the below command in terminal

    darknode withdraw YOUR-DARKNODE-NAME --address RECEIVER-ETHEREUM-ADDRESS

  8. Once the ETH (gas) is received, you can Destroy the Darknode via command via CLI

    1. You can do so by inputting the below command in terminal

    darknode destroy YOUR-DARKNODE-NAME

WARNING: Before destroying a Darknode make sure you have deregistered it, and withdrawn all fees earned! You will not be able to destroy your darknode if it's not fully deregistered.

Why can it take three (3) weeks to fully shut down a Chaosnet Darknode?

Unlike “masternodes” in other projects, the Darknodes that collectively power Ren do a lot of compute and storing to keep the network running (i.e. running the secure multiparty computation).

This gives others in the network enough time to detect any potential malicious behavior that the Darknode got up to, and appropriately punish the Darknode for that bad behavior. Other staking networks have similar mechanisms; Ethereum is proposing a disbonding time of several months. If you'd like to know more on Epoch times, check out this material.

A few quick points

  • In general, not just in the case of Ren, we advise people against using funds that may need to be accessed quickly in any kind of bonding. It typically takes a long time to disbond since most projects will have similar needs to detect/punish cycles.

  • All bonds are sent to, stored, and controlled by, an Ethereum smart contract called the Darknode Registry. We have no control over the funds and we have no way to change the rules about bonding/disbonding. It is trustless and decentralized.

  • The bond can only be refunded by the Ethereum address that bonded the tokens in the first place.

  • You should try to avoid turning off your machine until de-registration has completed avoiding the risk of losing rewards earned (the Darknode CLI won't actually let you destroy the machine unless you’re doing it manually you should be fine).

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