I asked this question on the dev-forum yesterday and I got a reply from David.
Is there a max_group time which nodes are allowed in the same group while being allowed to sign messages for quorum?
Answer:
YEs this is a key component here. A node starts at age 1. It stays in that group for 1 churn event. Then it is 2 and stays in next group for 2 churn events. This goes on all the way to an age of 255 (which no node will get to likely). So exponentially over time (defined by churn events) a node is moved from group to group. After age 10 this is every 1024 churn events etc. So age 30 it is there for 1073741824
churn events. if we imagine a churn event every 30 minutes then this is over 60000 years. Hope this helps.
So let’s see how this works out for new nodes:
- Start your Vault
- Get accepted in a group and get an address provided (let’s assume “AA01”) by the group with age 1.
- You need to route data and sign messages but they don’t count for quorum. Your influence is 0.
- If there’s a churn in a group you get a random new group assigned and need to do some POW to be accepted in the new group. If you do succeed in doing the POW you join the new group with age 2.
- You need to route and provide data in the new group. But after 2 churn events you are assigned to a new group. You need to do a little POW again to get accepted. If you succeed you move to this new group with an age of 3.
- After 4 churn events you are relocated again to a new group and get age 4.
- After 8 churn evens you are relocated again to get age 5.
- After 16 churn events you are relocated again to get age 6.
- After 32 churn events you are relocated again to get age 7.