TLDR - SplinterStats is running a validator nodes. See a list of validator nodes here. Also find a summary of SplinterStats journey across 6 years.
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Looking back I find it hard to conceive it is approaching 7 years since Splinterlands (formerly Steem Monsters was launched).
In June 2017 I found my way to Steemit after running into a blockchain project which shortly after turned out to be a scam, the projects key figure head disappearing with a scandal, most of the users funds gone. Those that were recovered, some were taken without dispersing by large investors and others without clear records to dispense them to their owners with any equality.
Too often a repeated story, but it had the benefit of introducing me to the community that is now Hive, alongside some names which I still see around - @kenny-crane who I've maintained regular contact with over the years and @cryptomancer who provided assistance setting up my Validator API this week.
A year later in May 2018 I found Steem Monsters announcement posts and in June I signed up.
In September 2018, the kickstarter came.
Later on came the fundition seed promo and another Kickstarter in 2020. I still have several of the promo cards across various accounts:
Somewhere along the line, when I should have been studying my accounting degree, hobby programming became part of the story.
A Timeline:
Sep 8, 2019 Splinterlands Reward Cards Stats on GitHub.io -@yabapmatt might remember me being confused here sometime after this with the total printed and total existed figures in the API having timing issues - the strange things that come to mind.
Nov 18, 2019 Splinterlands cardsByLeagueCap
Sometime late 2019 early 2020 I started provided a Splinterlands botting service to a few people. Very rudimentary to the current day services which have become publicly accepted in Wild. Around this time I started sending messages to @mattclarke who has kept chatting 6 years later even though I probably send too many messages.
June 2020, @splinterstats account was created.
July 2020 (through May 2021) Mystery Potion Rewards posts started. I miss this gamification phase. Seems somewhat the predecessor of our current Glint Chests. We need some more Archmage Arius and Mighty Dricken's available by chance.
Dec 22, 2020 SplinterStats Season Report Cards first started.
Jul/Aug 2021 I started an effort to generate account history files for for Splinterlands transactions, prior to Splinterlands providing these at the click of the button. @moriarty95 will probably remember some discussion while he was looking for some info. There is probably room for some tax accounting tools (as I had in mind), though much of what I did is now redundant.
April 5, 2022 (through March 2023) I worked on an automated rental manager. I had this up and running with a few Roaring Twenties guild members, though in the end it was shelved with the announcement of rental listing fees and the already available Peakmonsters and Splex services available which offered similar and improving performance.
February 21, 2023 Card Usage Statistics Trial Run - Ranked Rewards Season 17 (Season 91)
This week we come to the launch of the SPS validator chain, part of the vision laid out close to four years ago with the announcement of SPS - the Splinterlands governance token.
@splinterstats node is currently hosted in Singapore, ran temporarily on an OVH VPS with 4 vCores, 4GB RAM and 80GB. This is the server I rented to run the testnet validator last month.
(OVH specifically allow in their TOS for proof of stake blockchain consensus validators)
The API is available at https://validator.splinterstats.net/. Click here to check the status and last validated block.
My plan is to monitor the system usage over the next couple weeks as the validators begin publicly validating blocks and upgrade to a higher tier VPS or dedicated hardware as required. Upgraded services will either be located in Singapore or Australia (preferenced). This may include running a separate API node to separate the validator node from the public API for security and reliability.
Please consider which 10 validators you will vote on. The list can be found here at https://splinterstats.net/validators.html or alternatively at TheSPSDAO.