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Sentinel's Sunday Morality Question:

If intelligence services have root access to your phone, is there any point in using a VPN?

Comment below 🎤👇

The Sentinel blockchain is back online after a scheduled upgrade and is producing blocks.

Please wait while usual functions return to normal for dVPN apps.

https://ping.pub/sentinel/block

Critical Sentinel Update:

Key Milestones Post update

- Subscription management commands (expecting within coming days)
- New Stats API release (expecting this week or next)

New Paradigm for Node Hosts - Introduction of Time Based Subscriptions

Now with the introduction of time based subscriptions, node hosts can now set standardized fixed prices for bandwidth offerings, allowing for node hosts to be able to manage their profit structure in a much stronger manner as compared to arbitrarily pricing bandwidth in terms of each GB consumed.

The introduction of time based subscriptions also makes it easier for white-label organizations to properly forsee and manage their infrastructure costs instead of costs being correlated to bandwidth consumption. It is important to note that centralized VPN applications generally create time-based subscription contracts with datacenters that offer unlimited bandwidth at fixed rates per IP.

EXAMPLE: Node A sets pricing for unlimited bandwidth usage at $7/Month. The dVPN application owner can add Node A to the digital on-chain subscription by locking enough DVPN to cover several months, and users can utilize Node A and any other Node included and pre-paid for in the digital subscription for an unlimited amount of bandwidth as long as the dVPN application owner is covering the costs of Node A.

The introduction of time based subscription will also bring price consolidation to the current node market, however will also require the creation of new service level agreement monitoring practices. A nodes ability to have enough specs in order to handle multiple concurrent sessions while offering a reasonable amount of bandwidth will have to monitored and assured in order for white-label application developers to confidently add a node to their on-chain digital subscription.

Bandwidth usage from the dVPN network on its Cosmos-based hub has hit an all-time-high of over 500 GB of data consumed within a 24 HR period.

The network is on track to cross consumption of 1 TB+ per day with more dVPN applications built on Sentinel launching soon.

Anyone can host a dVPN node and provide bandwidth to users of dVPN applications built on Sentinel.

http://map.sentinel.co

Dedicated stats page arriving soon, new network statistics APIs post-upgrade and new node version launch are in construction now.

With the Sentinel ecosystem off to a renewed start, community feedback is being highly prioritized and changes are being implemented quickly

The majority has represented their desire to see the unbonding period reduce from 28 to 14 days

Vote on Prop 31

https://mintscan.io/sentinel/proposals/31

With the approval of Proposal #31, the number of days required to remove DVPN token from staking with a validator (unbonding time) will reduce from 28 to 14 days.

This decrease in unbonding length follows a recent decrease in the network inflation rate.

https://twitter.com/SentinelVPN/status/1698227654477197644

ATOM VPN, a decentralized VPN application built on Sentinel will soon be released on iOS and Android.

This application allows for users to pay for a monthly subscription with $ATOM tokens through an IBC payment.

The application owner receives $ATOM as a payment for subscription services, while paying the community-based node host in the form of $DVPN tokens.

Users will be able to access all white-listed nodes hosted by the dVPN community (currently 1k+) with a single payment in the form of $ATOM.

With the latest upgrade, user experience is about to be revolutionized with instant session initialization speeds and 1-click connection and disconnection as opposed to the previously cumbersome process of locking tokens with individual nodes before establishing a connection.

Monthly dVPN subscription service will likely start at .5 ATOM.

Introducing Sentinel's Biggest dVPN protocol upgrade yet:

This protocol upgrade brings two critical changes:

1) Introduction of ‘Time Based Payments ’

2) Introduction of on-chain ‘Subscription Plans’

With this protocol upgrade, community hosted dVPN nodes are able to price their bandwidth services at a monthly rate (or any custom time period) for an unmetered amount of bandwidth usage (unlimited). dVPN applications can aggregate these nodes and upsell their services, essentially locking tokens with nodes and paying them in-order to add them to a ‘subscription plan’, while pricing unlimited access to a ‘subscription plan’ at a flat monthly rate for the end-user.

Instead of merely facilitating p2p transaction, dVPN applications built on Sentinel can now do exactly what centralized VPN applications do which is to pre-pay for bandwidth and then upsell the bandwidth to the user.

*Get Your dVPN Node Added to a Subscription Plan Today!*

To get your dVPN node added into a subscription plan and to get paid at a fixed cost monthly, first you will need to update your node’s hourly pricing configuration.

The first subscription plan launched on the network will be a plan that adds nodes which have a monthly rate of $5/hr.

Initially, multiple applications will share the same subscription plan and share the corresponding costs to pay nodes however as the total bandwidth consumption of the network increases, each application will begin to construct its own subscription plan based on demand.

Instructions:

In the node config file, the hourly price should be set to: 13000000udvpn

At this rate (with current market prices), a dVPN Node would earn roughly $5 per month in the form of $DVPN tokens.

*In future bandwidth protocol upgrade, the DVPN/USD rate will be relcalculated regularly with an oracle

https://medium.com/sentinel/introduction-of-on-chain-subscriptions-and-time-based-payments-sentinels-biggest-dvpn-protocol-a2b240199f18

First Subscription Plan on the Sentinel dVPN Network. Get your dVPN Node Added today! 📡

White-label applications such as Solar VPN, Meile dVPN, Based VPN and others will be using the new on-chain 'subscription plan' and will select nodes from the public list that will be added into the subscription.

Nodes will receive $5 per month in dVPN which will be paid out every hour. In the future dVPN/USD price calculation will be readjusted every 1 hour using an on-chain oracle.

The node incentive program will still continue however the goal is for subscription plan earnings to be sufficient enough for dVPN nodes so that the program can be removed within the coming months as Sentinel becomes a revenue generating ecosystem.

Set your HOURLY pricing config in the config file in your dVPN node's folder to: 13000000udvpn hourly

1) What does getting added into a 'subscription plan' mean?

Nodes that are added into a time-based subscription plan will be paid based on monthly flat rates. The creator of the subscription plan (dVPN app owner) will lock tokens with each node 'added' into the plan. Payment from these tokens is deducted every 1 hour of successful up-time)

2) Why is this subscription plan paying dVPN nodes $5 per month?

Right now this subscription plan is more of a test or a proof of concept in the ecosystem to create the first working economic structure where nodes are easily aggregated and paid by an application owner. It is expected that we will see various tiers of nodes e.g $5 node bracket, $7 residential node bracket. In the coming months the ecosystem should work towards establishing the criteria for nodes to be priced at certain levels to make it easier for applications to find the nodes they require for their specific service offerings.

This subscription plan will be shared by multiple white-label applications and after sufficient optimization and testing, white-label applications will begin to create their own individual subscription plans overtime as their bandwidth usage increases exponentially from here on out.

Questions to be answered in the future with the support of the community:

1) Can 1 node be added to multiple subscription plans?

2) Can 1 subscription plan be shared by multiple white-label applications?

3) What could be some various pricing tiers of monthly subscription plans and what is the eligibility criteria for these tiers?

Community Development Update 20th September 2023.

New Stats Feature: We've finished creating new statistical tools. They are currently being added to our database and will be open for public use soon.

App Improvements: We've made significant enhancements to our apps. As a result, they connect better and work more efficiently. Updated versions of our BasedVPN and other Android apps coming soon will offer better performance and user experience.

New App Launches: We're releasing two more free VPN apps called Bagmisiz dVPN and Caishen dVPN. These focus on Turkish and Chinese speakers.

Download Milestone: BasedVPN has been downloaded over 10,000 times. We hope to see a combined total of 100,000 downloads for all three apps in the coming months.

“Why does Sentinel dVPN need multiple VPN apps?” - a question often asked on our community Telegram.

The VPN industry is an oligopoly, meaning a few entities own and control many of the apps you see and hear from. So it’s no surprise they are also closed source.

Sentinel isn’t just one stand-alone VPN app; it is an open-source, decentralized infrastructure for VPN applications. Anyone can take the code, see and verify it’s legit without false “100% no logs” promises, then build their own VPN.

Sentinel believes the more decentralized VPNs there are, the better it is for personal sovereignty online. The more geographic-specific VPNs, the better, the more culturally focused VPNs, the better.

Download one and try it out; a lot more are coming:

http://Sentinel.co/downloads

Weekly DVPN node 'tax' (revenue) generated has now gone into the 3 digit USD value and is increasing rapidly with the new subscription payments structure.

20% of all payments made to nodes from users or application owners is distributed to stakers.

https://dvpn.cc/revenue

This statistics page is a community-led effort by Meile dVPN which is a core Sentinel ecosystem contributor.

Checkout http://dvpn.cc/dashboard to see more statistics including the current node leaderboard (in terms of # of hours subscribed)

http://Docs.sentinel.co is now live!

This docs page provides a clear insight into the dVPN ecosystem for new community members.

Created and maintained by core ecosystem contributor 'Trinity' https://trinityvalidator.com.

The upcoming 'Sentinel Growth DAO' will incentivize community led initiatives such as this and encourage community members to contribute in other ways apart from purely technical aspects.

This Growth DAO will provide transparency on the process of community initiative funding.

The Sentinel ecosystem would like to reveal the Turkey focused #Bağımsız 🇹🇷 dVPN application. Bağımsız means 'independent' in Turkish and this application is managed by a Turkish team with a focus on providing unrestricted trustless internet access to millions of individuals in Turkey.

This application is extremely relevant given Turkish Internet regulations which have seen the blocking of critical information portals such as https://Twitter.com or http://Youtube.com at various points in the past.

This dVPN application will be launching on iOS and Android within the coming days of sufficient testing and will target user acquisition through the use of online-influencers and social media marketing. This will be the first dVPN application in the Sentinel ecosystem that will have targeted marketing campaigns.

The application will be free at first and will in the future transition to an AD based model along with a premium offering after attracting a sufficient userbase.

September saw 7,040 Sentinel $dVPN subscriptions globally.

The top 10 countries amounted to 5,778:

🇺🇸 - 3,378🥇
🇩🇪 - 494🥈
🇬🇧 - 364🥉
🇳🇱 - 325
🇸🇬 - 249
🇫🇮 - 215
🇨🇦 - 204
🇮🇹 - 190
🇦🇺 - 183
🇫🇷 - 176

Source: https://metabase.mathnodes.com/public/question/666fe1d2-b49c-4055-b2d4-12af4a9e6cca

Credit: @MathNodes

Meile dVPN v1.7.11 is officially available for Windows and OS X.

Features include:
🔐 OS X Intel Apple Certificate Signed
🐞 IBC Payment Bug Fix
✅ Minor improvements

Get it @ meile.app