Ether-powered initiative Status has reportedly made an incentivization program available, dedicated to node operators, throughout its decentralized peer-to-peer messaging protocol, Waku.

Specifically, Status reportedly revealed its intention to release the first stage of a program, aimed at incentivizing individuals to set up and operate nodes with the assistance from Waku – a private messenger built upon the Whisper protocol. 

The initiative reportedly shared the plan down its pipeline to make an offer of maximum $100 equivalent in its native token SNT available, to 100 individuals taking part in a program, lasting for a quarter of the year. 

The Status team reportedly carried out the forking of Whisper to create Waku two years ago. 

The protocol employs community owned as well as operated nodes to direct messages through the network, instead of utilizing the commonly used “traditional” client-server model, with the initiative spending resources on a peer-to-peer messaging service, built with a goal of being a worthy rival of top-tier establishments, nominally WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal.

“Using peer-to-peer networks for personal communication is the only reliable way to escape censorship, who will be running one of the nodes. Status has clearly put a lot of effort into this to make it technically viable so I’m curious to see where it goes.” Andrey Shevchenko – one of the node operators – reportedly remarked. 

Per the initiative, one of the main motivations that fueled the creation of the protocol was reportedly when Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently called for developers to take additional strides, regarding the innovations extending outside of the confines of standard boundaries existing in DeFi.