Syndicate Protocols

To start a new syndicate, any node announces their network address. The threshold for the threshold signature and syndicate size is set to one.

Miners that want to join the syndicate initiate their registration with the seed MSP and set their stratum end point to the MSP. At this point, the sole syndicate member acts like a centralised pool operator, with transparent share accounting.

To join the syndicate an MSP sends a JOIN request to one of the existing MSPs who forward the request to all MSPs on the network. From then on, the MSP can start forwarding shares from their miners to the syndicate. The new member does not become a member of the signing syndicate when it joins the syndicate. Instead, the new member’s hashrate is considered valid to join the syndicate membership according to the Membership protocol only after it has forwarded hashrate from its miners for 2000 blocks.

This discourages attacks by MSPs that join the network obtain signing priviliges in the syndicate without having any pending payouts for its miners awaiting the syndicate’s signature. The following object interaction diagram shows the protocol used.

When an MSP receives shares from its miners, it forwards them to all other MSPs in the syndicate. The ownership of these shares can be verified as explained in Verifiable Share Ownership section.

An MSP can leave the syndicate at any time. If the miners of an MSP have a pending DLC contract, they will be able to redeem their earnings by mining in co-operation with another MSP using the backup MSP approach discussed Backup MSPs section.

If an MSP fails or is unresponsive, the syndicate continues to operate as normal due to the robustness property of the threshold signing protocol used that allows for a third of the members to fail and still make progress. If more than a threshold number of syndicate members fail, the pool reaches end of life and all syndicate members along with miners can claim their outputs after the timeout expiry.