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Operating Towns Components

Towns Stream Nodes are software components that are able to be run by anyone. Towns Protocol’s incentive structure supports Towns Stream Node operators as a first-class actor in the network. Operators, once registered and approved by the DAO , can run a Stream Node on Towns Chain and participate in block validation as well as reward distribution. Given the open-source nature of Towns, the Foundation also encourages developers who would like to run instances of Towns Chain on a network of their choice connected to self-hosted Towns Stream Nodes. Though these nodes would not technically be connected to the Towns protocol node network that is deployed on Base Mainnet, developers may find value in experimenting with different rollup implementation features.

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Operator Onboarding Lifecycle

Operator and node onboarding to the network follow a multi-stage lifecycle that is designed to ensure the operator is fully prepared and meets requirements to run a node in mainnet. Each of the following steps are described in detail in subsequent sections.
1

Register operator in Testnet

2

DAO operator approval in Testnet

3

Register node in Testnet

4

Register operator in Mainnet

5

Achieve sufficient TOWNS token delegation

6

DAO operator approval in Mainnet

7

Register node in Mainnet

8

DAO operator activation in Mainnet

9

Participate in TOWNS rewards distribution epochs

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Stream Node Configuration Modes

The below table outlines the current operator service level that is supported by the Towns Protocol. Supported configurations are outlined in subsequent sections.
ConfigurationDescriptionNode RegistrationStream ReadsStream WritesSupport
Full nodeStream node running inside Towns node networkrequiredyesyessupported
Info modeStream node running in info mode, unattached to the network, for debug purposes only.nononosupported
Archival nodeStream node running outside Towns node network storing all stream events from Towns node networknoproxiedproxiednot yet supported