The Fortification Network Introduces Economic Incentives to Further Decentralize, Harden, and Scale Forta. 

Forta is a real-time detection network for security & operational monitoring of blockchain activity. As part of its mission to monitor all transactions and protect all assets in Web3, Forta is launching Fortification, an incentivized network to scale and stress-test Forta at high capacity. To participate in the Fortification Network follow the steps and apply on the Fortification site.

On April 25th 2022, Forta is launching Fortification: Forta’s incentivized network. Fortification will stress-test the decentralized Network at high capacity, encourage participation from around the world, and help the Forta community get ready to run the world’s first decentralized, real-time monitoring network. Over 50 active scan nodes, operated by Foundry, Sigma Prime, Node Capital and MixBytes, among others, have already entered Fortification by pre-registering.

The Forta Network has been operating for almost a year, scanning transactions in real-time across Ethereum and other EVM compatible networks. In November 2021, the Forta App and Explorer were made public and available for anyone in the world to use. Since then, over 1,000 developers have deployed detection bots to the network and new bots are added on a daily basis. Forta detection bots created by the community are currently monitoring all kinds of security and operational activities, including suspicious contracts funded by Tornado Cash withdrawals, reentrancy attacks, phishing attacks, instances of NFT sleepminting, protocol governance activity, multisig activity, cross-chain bridge deposits and withdrawals, large flash loans and swaps, among others.

For the past year, the Forta community has worked closely with blockchain developers, improving detection bot features, hardening scan nodes and progressively decentralizing. Now the Network is ready to be battle-tested, taking decentralization even further by inviting the world of node operators into the incentivized Fortification Network.

fortification Network

From day one, any developer was able to write and deploy a detection bot permissionlessly. However, until now, those detection bots were being run by scan nodes operated by trusted community members, such as Foundry, Sigma Prime, Mixbytes, and others. Now, the introduction of the FORT token creates cryptoeconomic incentives for the Forta Network to onboard new community members trustlessly, allowing further decentralization and scaling of the Network. 

Scan Nodes

A Forta Scan Node scans all transactions and block-by-block state changes on a specific blockchain for outlier transactions and threats. Scan Node operators run the detection bots that Forta’s work assigner directs to them, against each block of transactions. When the detection bots detect a specific condition or event, the Node emits alerts to subscribers notifying them of potential risks, which enables them to take action. To learn more about Scan Nodes, please read Forta Docs.

By participating in the Fortification Phase, node operators will learn how to effectively run nodes, help validate the network economics, harden security, improve network capacity and uptime, and make sure that they're ready to hit the ground running in operating core monitoring infrastructure for Web3.

The will run in two phases and each phase will have specific objectives. Node operators who compete in the Fortification phase, perform well, contribute to learnings and follow all the rules will be eligible to earn FORT Token rewards. While the Forta Network will be fully functional and the tokens will have immediate utility, all FORT tokens distributed during the Fortification Phase will be subject to technological transfer restrictions that only permit the token to be used within the Forta Network. Visit the Fortification site to learn more details about the Fortification Phase and the incentives for participating.

Participation Requirements

To participate in Fortification, please fill out the application form. Eligibility will be determined in the order of application and all node runners will be required to complete a standard KYC process and accept the terms of participation. Find a detailed explanation of the onboarding process on the Fortification site.

Participants will be collaborating with the Forta community to learn as much as possible about operating successfully in the network. We expect node operators to communicate with other participants throughout Fortification, including but not limited to:

- Joining Forta Discord
- Sharing logs, DevOps metrics and other data
- Providing qualitative and quantitative feedback about the network, products (eg. detection bots, Explorer) and Forta ecosystem
- Participating in workshops and technical AMAs

Technical Requirements

Node operators will need to run servers and databases to run a Forta Scan Node and participate. The following are the requirements for running a Forta Scan Node:

- 64-bit Linux distribution
- CPU with 4+ cores
- 16GB RAM
- Connection to Internet
- Docker v20.10+
- Recommended: Full node (any chain)

The Forta community is excited to work with the best node operators in the Web3 space to harden the Forta Network and help participants contribute to Forta’s mission and ecosystem. To participate in the Fortification phase follow the steps and apply on the Fortification site.

To receive updates about Forta, add your email to the subscription form at forta.org.