Introduction

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Operating River Components

River Stream Nodes are software components that are able to be run by anyone. River Protocol’s incentive structure supports River Stream Node operators as a first-class actor in the network. Operators, once registered and approved by the DAO , can run a Stream Node on River Chain and participate in block validation as well as reward distribution.

Given the open-source nature of River, the Foundation also encourages developers who would like to run instances of River Chain on a network of their choice connected to self-hosted River Stream Nodes. Though these nodes would not technically be connected to the River protocol node network that is deployed on Base Mainnet, developers may find value in experimenting with different rollup implementation features.

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Operator Onboarding Lifecycle

Operator and node onboarding to the network follow a multi-stage lifecycle that is designed to ensure the operator is fully prepared and meets requirements to run a node in mainnet.

Each of the following steps are described in detail in subsequent sections.

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Stream Node Configuration Modes

The below table outlines the current operator service level that is supported by the River Protocol. Supported configurations are outlined in subsequent sections.