Introducing SAO Beta Network

🎉 Thanks to the team’s tireless efforts, the SAO Network launch Beta Network on June 29th, 2023, which will function as a forerunner of the mainnet.

After three-month testing during SAO Testnet, the SAO Network is ready to launch its Beta Network, the prerequisite for the SAO Network Mainnet. In the past three months, SAO Network team has collected much feedback from the testnet participants, and successively put forward four proposals (all get approved) for network upgrades accordingly.

The SAO Beta Network will maintain most features of the SAO Testnet. For example,

• Storage Provider. Same as the testnet, invited participants can run storage nodes to handle data storage deals and data access requests on the Beta network. SAO Storage Node is compatible with the IPFS consensus protocol. It accepts storage deals assigned by SAO Network Consensus Node and provides data access services.
• Consensus Node. Invited participants can also run consensus nodes on the Beta network, recording the node info and stored-data info of the entire network. By running these nodes, participants are able to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the network’s performance, as well as contribute to its growth and development.
• Validator and Delegators Staking. The SAO Network is based on Tendermint which relies on a set of validators responsible for committing new blocks in the blockchain. Validators and their delegators earn rewards in the way of block provisions and transaction fees through execution of the SAO consensus protocol. Participants can become a validator or delegator on the Beta network the same way they did on the testnet.
• Governance. SAO Network is an open network which endows the community with great rights to manage the network. Participants could submit proposals on SAO Explorer (on-chain governance) to put forward their on-chain proposals in better running the network, such as community governance proposals, parameter change proposals and etc.

Meanwhile, the Beta network will also support more features:

• Data Availability. All data stored on the Beta network will eventually migrate to the mainnet. This means that Beta users will experience the full functionality of the network, as their data will be persistently stored on the mainnet. In contrast, the testnet is used for experiment and testing only.
• SAO SDKs. Beta Network offers a range of SDKs (software development kits) for developers to build their applications based on SAO Network and utilize the available toolings or solutions including SID(SAO DID), APIs and models through SAO SDKs.
• Pre-defined Data Model. Some pre-defined data models will save developers a lot of efforts in structuring and managing dApp data. For instance, the data models of Storverse, a demo dApp based on SAO Network developed by the team, is now open-source and available for all the developers to use to build their own dApps.
• New Storage Provider Reward Program. Along with the launch of SAO Beta Network, the team is excited to announce a brand new reward program to grant active participants “SAO Credit ”. In order to incentivize participation and promote the growth of our network, the team will implement a credits airdrop campaign that will provide major participants especially the Storage Providers with SAO Credits, which are needed for node staking and payment for data services on SAO Network.

How to run nodes in SAO Beta Network? check it out in Docs.

• New Explorer and Forum. For clients to better check the network status, the team has developed an upgraded version of SAO explorer at explorer.sao.network. And for more various off-chain governance proposal and discussion, we create a SAO Network Forum for community members to put forward their suggestions in better running the network.

🎉 To celebrate the launch of SAO Beta Network, the team will airdrop SAO Credit to the active participants in the testnet to enable them to fully experience the features on Beta Network! The team is planning further airdrop campaigns to involve more community members in the Beta Network. Stay tuned!

About SAO Network

SAO Network, developed by Hedra Labs, is a decentralized storage infrastructure for Web3. It offers a decentralized storage protocol based on Cosmos SDK and IPFS, facilitating the adoption of Web3 content storage and supporting various applications within the Web3 ecosystem.

For more about SAO Network,

• Contact: contact@sao.network
• Website: https://www.sao.network/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/SAONetwork
• Blog: https://medium.com/@saonetwork
• Discord: https://discord.gg/q58XsnQqQF
• Github: https://github.com/SaoNetwork
• Blockchain Explorer: https://explorer.sao.network/
• Forum: https://forum.sao.network/