Owner: @Daniel Sanchez Quiros

Reviewers: 🟢@Álvaro Castro-Castilla 🟢@Petar Radovic 🟢@Gusto Bacvinka 🟢@Chris Lis 🟢@Antonio 🟢@Youngjoon Lee

Introduction

Nomos network bootstrapping is the process by which a new node discovers peers and synchronizes with the existing decentralized network. It ensures that a node can:

  1. Discover Peers – Find other active nodes in the network.
  2. Establish Connections – Securely connect to trusted peers.
  3. Negotiate (libp2p) Protocols - Ensure that other peers operate in the same protocols as the node needs.

Overview

The Nomos P2P network bootstrapping strategy relies on a designated subset of bootstrap nodes to facilitate secure and efficient node onboarding. These nodes serve as the initial entry points for new network participants.

Key Design Principles

Trusted Bootstrap Nodes

A curated set of publicly announced and highly available nodes ensures reliability during initial peer discovery. These nodes are configured with elevated connection limits to handle a high volume of incoming bootstrapping requests from new participants.

Node Configuration & Onboarding

New node operators must explicitly configure their instances with the addresses of bootstrap nodes. This configuration may be preloaded or dynamically fetched from a trusted source to minimize manual setup.

Network Integration

Upon initialization, the node establishes connections with the bootstrap nodes and begins participating in Nomos networking protocols. Through these connections, the node discovers additional peers, synchronizes with the network state, and engages in protocol-specific communication (e.g., consensus, block propagation).

Security & Decentralization Considerations

Trust Minimization: While bootstrap nodes provide initial connectivity, the network rapidly transitions to decentralized peer discovery to prevent over-reliance on any single entity.

Authenticated Announcements: The identities and addresses of bootstrap nodes are publicly verifiable to mitigate impersonation attacks. From the libp2p documentation:

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To authenticate each others’ peer IDs, peers encode their peer ID into a self-signed certificate, which they sign using their host’s private key.

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Dynamic Peer Management: After bootstrapping, nodes continuously refine their peer lists to maintain a resilient and distributed network topology.

This approach ensures rapid, secure, and scalable network participation while preserving the decentralized ethos of the Nomos protocol.

Protocol