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Decision

All staked nodes form a flat mesh. Node metadata propagates over a gossip overlay on regional and global topics. Content discovery uses a Kademlia-subset DHT, with broadcast probe fan-out as bootstrap/emergency fallback.

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Selection

Clients and nodes both rank candidates by a unified score combining advertised price, observed latency, and reputation. Lower is better. The exact weighting is part of the protocol implementation.

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On-chain registration

Nodes register through an on-chain staking registry that binds a network identity to an Ethereum address. Registration requires proof of control of both keys — preventing identity squatting and ensuring every staked node is slashable. Registration also carries acceptance of the DAO-canonical operator terms hash, signed into the registration message and enforced on-chain; the terms hash is governance-swappable, so the accepted version is recorded at registration. Key rotation remains available post-registration.

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Regional topics

Nodes subscribe to a region topic plus the global topic. Regional topics reduce gossip noise for latency-sensitive selection: a client in Frankfurt typically prefers DE/NL/AT candidates over US ones, and the regional topic surfaces those preferentially. Clients subscribe but do not publish.

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NAT traversal

The transport handles hole-punching automatically; nodes update their registered addresses when their public-facing address changes. When direct P2P fails, traffic routes through a stateless, content-blind QUIC relay. Relays are protocol infrastructure (treasury-funded), not an incentivized network role — paying relays per byte would create a perverse incentive to prevent direct connections.