[EPIC] Stable SWAP

[Eknir]

Description

A Stable SWAP serves as the backbone to enable the tit-for-tat bandwidth sharing mechanism of Swarm. By means of SWAP (the Swarm Accounting Protocol), nodes in the Swarm network keep track of how much bandwidth they use from their peers and how much bandwidth their peers are providing to them. When a peer, or the node itself, uses significantly more bandwidth than it provided (on the peer-connection), a blockchain payment (by means of the chequebook-contract) provides for settlement of this debt.

The SWAP package is modular and can be called from all protocols within Swarm. As such, it does not only allow for sharing of bandwidth but is the base-layer to all accounted-protocols within Swarm.

In order to launch an incentivized Swarm, we need a stable SWAP. With a stable SWAP, we communicate to Swarm users that we deem it safe to use Swarm with SWAP enabled, and we are giving them a guarantee that interacting with SWAP via Swarm is not expected to change in the foreseeable future. A stable SWAP, furthermore, is intuitive for the end-user to use and has documentation.

SWAP is the first leg of the incentive-strategy of Swarm. Ultimately, incentivization in Swarm must allow for a scalable, robust, secure and self-sustaining network.

Owner

• Rinke Hendriksen (@Eknir)
• Vojtech Simetka (@vojtechsimetka)
• Viktor Tron (@zelig)

Issues

See referenced user-stories below

Acceptance criteria

• Go-code, interaction with smart-contracts passed an external security audit.
• Smart-contracts passed an external security audit.
• Bug-bounty program live for 1 month without critical reported bugs
• Minimal requests for support during bug-bounty program (tests UX + documentation)