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# Who are we?

BitSpace is Norway's leading blockchain technology company and has been a strong supporter of Daniel Larimer’s vision since 2013. We were honored to be invited to the EOS launch party at Consensus New York 2017 and have advanced our focus on EOS since then.

In 2018 we have created events, presentations, hackathons and videos to spread awareness of EOS. In addition we are helping several companies transition to EOS, proactively building the community and forming partnerships to scale internationally.

BitSpace is an established blockchain innovation network with strong knowledge and extensive experience with DPoS technology through consulting work, hosting a DPoS chain for over 6 months, and being a block producer in BitShares. We have also been heavily involved in the BitShares and Steemit communities, holding BitShares presentations since 2015 and the first ever Steemit hackathon in 2016. We are currently testing and running an EOS node under the node name “bitspace” and we will continue to contribute to test network environments.

We are excited about the potential for EOS to enable mainstream decentralized applications and have established a BitSpace Block Producer for EOS to help secure the values and principles BitSpace was founded on: individual sovereignty and autonomy, voluntary association, as well as financial and political freedom.

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The BitSpace Team has expertise in various fields, including blockchain technology, programming, marketing, management, finance, compliance/legal and specialists within blockchain governance. Feel free to read more about the individual team members on the [Team section of our website.](https://bitspace.no/our-team/)

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_The first EOS meetup in Scandinavia at the Radisson Plaza in Oslo, Norway_

# BitSpace EOS Block Producer Roles

The EOS Block Producer Roles can be divided into three aspects: **Technical Services**, **Governance Services**, and **Community Services**. 

**Technical Services:** The main task of the BitSpace BP is to ensure the freedom of the EOS network through independent hosting of secure, high quality servers with high throughput, low latency and world-class uptime.

**Governance Services:** In addition to the technical services, BitSpace BP will execute on governance issues as the EOS blockchain and community comes to consensus on the constitution, parameters of operation, potential upgrades, and additional services.

**Community Services:** Finally, no blockchain lives in isolation from its community, and our efforts to collaborate on core infrastructure, educate the public and help entrepreneurs is vital to ensure a healthy and safe environment for EOS to prosper.

# BitSpace BP Technical Services

BitSpace has a great team of developers with experience working with Delegated Proof of Stake, having done a variety of consulting work for Steemit, BitShares in the last few years. The team includes Manuel Lains, who ran a witness in BitShares under the name ‘spectral’, Paul Thomas Clarke, who has held several public presentations on EOS, Frederic Lhote who has experience forking, modifying and hosting DPoS blockchains and Lars-Ivar Ihler who has extensive experience hosting complex server systems.

To secure the freedom of the EOS network BitSpace BP will provide secure, scalable, high quality BP servers and seed nodes with low latency and geographical, jurisdictional and technical redundancy. BitSpace BP is hosting the servers through a combination of on-site, co-location and cloud services outlined below. 

BitSpace BP has a green-tech profile with hydropower and green cooling systems. The Green Mountain facility combines the security of energy independence from the grid as well as nuclear and EMP resistance, with extremely low latency to the rest of Europe.

Finally BitSpace BP provides a Public Monitoring Service that serves as a transparent dashboard for our technical operations. This will increase awareness of the requirements of running a node and serve as a model to hold BPs accountable for any technical issues.

**BitSpace BP Monitoring Service:** https://eos-bp.bitspace.no

# Architecture & Server Infrastructure
BitSpace is hosting the servers through a combination of on-site, co-location and cloud services. We will take advantage of Norway’s advanced infrastructure as Norway runs on 98% renewable energy from hydropower sources and provides some of the strongest internet connections Europe has to offer.

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## Green Mountain and Secondary Servers

BitSpace BP operates the primary EOS BP node and one of the seed nodes in [Green Mountain](https://greenmountain.no/), a Tier III underground data centre in a former high-security NATO ammunition storage facility in Stavanger, Norway. The servers are powered and cooled using hydro power from Norwegian mountains and fjords. The secondary backup site is a cloud service that is regionally distributed. Last but not least, we have a third backup site in-house at the BitSpace Headquarters at Nydalen in Oslo, Norway.

### Global Seed Node Server Distribution
In order to maximize both redundancy and efficiency of the seed nodes, we will be utilizing a combination of local servers and cloud services. The seed nodes will be distributed between Green Mountain and globally spread amongst multiple large-scale cloud providers. We will also be running one seed node in-house at the BitSpace Headquarters at Nydalen in Oslo, Norway.

### High Speed and Low Latency
Green Mountain in Stavanger provides high-speed and low-latency connections west to London, east to Oslo and Stockholm, south to major markets through Denmark to Germany, Netherlands and other core data centre hubs.

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### Green cooling
The cooling solution with use of cold water and gravity is the most energy efficient cooling solution in the world. It uses less than 3kW of power to gain more than 1000 kW of cooling, supporting our requirements and targets for energy efficiency.

### EMP and Nuclear Security
The best protection for EMP activity are locations underground. The server rooms have coverage of 100 m of granite so Green Mountain is well protected against EMP energy. The location was originally built by NATO to withstand a nuclear bomb. The main characteristics of the site were maintained in the rebuilding process as it became a data centre.

# Scalable Infrastructure and Architecture 

Our focus is on top of the line hardware with services that we implement to our systems using idempotent automation that is scalable within minutes according to the requirements of the EOS network. 

### High Performance Servers (Preliminary Plan)
 Type  |  Model
------------ | -------------
Server model | Supermicro 2023US-TR4 2U
CPU | AMD Epyc 16C/32T 7351P 2.4GHz (2.9GHz) 64M
Memory | 256GB DDR4 2666MHz ECC
SSD | 2x Intel NVMe DC P4500 - 2TB
Bandwidth | 1Gbps
Network | 4x 1Gb NIC

Scaling will be handled in a way that continues to improve the technical, geographical and jurisdictional redundancy of our infrastructure. In terms of performance, we are constantly benchmarking and will continue to research the technical aspects of EOS to clarify the requirements of the block producer and the seed nodes.

### Public Monitoring Service
BitSpace provides a public monitoring service in the form of a publicly accessible dashboard that displays BitSpace block producer statistics as well as relevant data from the EOS chain.

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[Live stats here](http://eos-bp.bitspace.no).

This monitoring service will be improved over time to also provide relevant data about the EOS chain. We believe having public monitoring will provide a level of transparency to our service and help others to plan and create similar services.

# Governance Services

There are a number of governance values and positions that need to be confronted as the EOS blockchain and community decides on its constitution, parameters of operation and how to resolve technical and communal disputes.

These issues can be resolved into sections on values, positions and pragmatics. The values are written in the EOS constitution as principles like the silver rule, individual sovereignty and voluntary association that set the values and intentions. The positions are taken as best-practices to apply these principles, in this case to BitSpace BP as Block Producer. Finally, there are a number of pragmatics that need to be set and decided.

We believe that these issues should be subject to continual debate and updated as we learn and grow as a community. We aim to be part of this discussion by publishing our ideas and promoting civil discussion among dissenting parties.

### BitSpace BP Positions

**Independence:** BitSpace BP will actively strive to maintain independence, including financial, political, legal and technical independence.

**No Collusion:** BitSpace BP will be proactive in preventing collusion with other block producers and diligent in reporting potential conflicts of interest.

**No Vote Buying:** BitSpace BP shall not engage in vote buying. 

**Honesty and Integrity:** To be truthful and to not profit by false or misleading statements, nor by withholding information.

**Transparency and Openness:** BitSpace BP will provide relevant and up to date information regarding key operations, including technical, financial and legal aspects of our services.

**Execute Arbitration:** BitSpace BP will carry out policy changes, enforce rulings and abide by arbitration decisions.

**Legal Compliance:** BitSpace BP will be compliant regarding all aspects of our operation and proactive in establishing best-practice procedures for EU directives like the GDPR.

The list of practical positions adopted by BitSpace BP will continue to evolve along with the EOS constitution to reflect the most up to date and mature understanding.

### BitSpace BP Pragmatics

From the Values and Positions follows our real-time, pragmatic response in regards to hard-forks, misbehaving contracts, take-down notices, account recovery services, price feeds, oracles and other potential roles that may require consensus among Block Producers. When decisions can not be made on a principled basis, the interest of the members of the EOS community is prioritized. 

# Community Services

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BitSpace has extensive experience hosting hackathons, meetups and conferences, producing educational material through courses, videos, presentations, and consulting with and incubating blockchain startups. We will leverage this experience to help create a healthy environment for EOS to prosper with events, education and development.

Manuel Lains and Christian Lains have regularly been holding presentations since 2013 on the topic of Bitcoin, Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies, highlighting the DPoS projects of Daniel Larimer, BitShares, Steemit and recently EOS. Ivar Duserud is a student of economics and has held a number of presentations. He has been both a moderator and panelist in several blockchain debates. Matthew Bryce has organized several BitSpace events, developed community campaigns and has taken care of media production. Kenneth Saccky has been responsible for social media and getting high-profile attendees at our events and for marketing the events to a mainstream audience. Hans Soot has designed our websites, helped organize several BitSpace events and was conferencier at the EOS Meetup in Oslo at the beginning of the year.

BitSpace is continuously working on growing the EOS community throughout the Nordic region. Communicating with the community and other block producers on an international level is very important for us and we are facilitating this on multiple levels. We are constantly opening new communication channels with global communities through social media and also staying informed through platforms such as EOS GO. BitSpace will be publishing a regular block producer newsletter covering Tech updates and Governance topics within EOS.

### EOS Events: Hackathons and Meetups

BitSpace operated an EOS hackathon in Oslo Norway in association with Hacklag to incentivize developers to develop on EOS and testrun the EOS hackathon process. This event is followed up by a hackathon taking place end of April 2018 in Trondheim, Norway in association with NTNU Accel. NTNU is one of the largest and most prestigious technical universities in Norway.

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_A shot from the EOS hackathon at Explorer HQ in Oslo, Norway_

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_Photo from our hackathon in Trondheim, Norway_

BitSpace is regularly working alongside event organisations to increase reach and educate different target audiences. Examples of these organisations include [SeedForum](https://www.seedforum.org/) and [Xplorico](https://www.xplorico.com/).

### EOS Education: Presentations and Videos

One of the primary focuses at BitSpace is education. Teaching developers, the public and figures outside of our regular networks about decentralized technologies and the benefits EOS can bring to both people and businesses is an essential part of our mission as BP.

The EOS platform was described by BitSpace at BI University in Oslo. This was a key topic that was carried out during the Blockchain track for Oslo Big Data Day with over 800 attendees. 

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_Christian Lains speaking about EOS at BI University, Oslo_

EOS was also presented to a delegation from Malaysia and local politicians in Drammen, Norway during the CXS Digital Hub event with Xplorico.

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_EOS being presented by Christian Lains at the CXS Digital Hub Event_

BitSpace has also begun creating short video content for educational purposes about the EOS platform. Below are the links to these videos:

* [Why EOS?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttkkNpu-xH8)
* [Westerdals University Video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZOY8rCV9h8)
* [EOS Meetup Oslo - Radisson Plaza](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC4fNpmURWM)

BitSpace intends to create many more EOS community initiatives in the coming months and will scale these projects accordingly. Follow BitSpace on Steemit or Youtube to get notified of the latest content.

## EOS Development
BitSpace helps entrepreneurs, startups and established businesses to develop on the EOS platform through hackathons, education, consultation and incubation. BitSpace has a head Office in Oslo which features a positive training environment for developers and companies who wish to learn and develop on the EOS platform. 

### The EOS Academy
As a Block Producer, BitSpace is building an EOS Academy. The EOS Academy is a place where developers from around the world can congregate and learn to build decentralised applications on the EOS platform and expand their knowledge about the EOSIO software to commercially expand and scale the EOS ecosystem.

The EOS Academy will also act as a physical hub for the EOS community and an information facility that provides live data about the network. This data feed will be available for the community to access at any time and may also be used to increase efficiency of communication between global communities. 

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_The EOS Academy_

BitSpace is currently expanding to Estonia, Ukraine, Poland and Portugal and the intention is to duplicate our services in all locations.

### Project Development
We will also open up our partner projects to be tested as dapps on the EOS platform. BitSpace partner projects have independent funding, self-sustainable business models and marketing traction allowing Bitspace BP to focus on helping these projects with EOS integration and development.

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## BitGate
Bitgate is an exchange that utilises compliant KYC/AML procedures to simplify the process of mainstream adoption of cryptocurrency and give people access to the decentralised economy.

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## Etheos
Etheos is a blockchain application ecosystem that connects investors to EOS entrepreneurs and incentivises the creation of new applications.

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## Oasis
Oasis is a blockchain-based exchange for Green Bonds, as well as a tool for development of cooperatives, decentralized infrastructure for finance and energy grid solutions.

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## Parsec Frontiers
Parsec Frontiers is a massive multiplayer space exploration game with a virtual economy that runs on the blockchain.

BitSpace is continuously sourcing and helping new startups migrate to the EOS platform, working with accelerators that are involved with this process such as [StartupSoft](https://www.startupsoft.org/) and [TheFactory](http://www.thefactory.no/). We expect several new projects announcing their migration to EOS in the months to come.

# The BitSpace BP Entity

The BitSpace BP EOS Block Producer is hosted and operated by BitSpace AS, a Norwegian company. BitSpace consists of over 20 shareholders, with the three main shareholders being Manuel Lains, Christian Lains and Ivar Duserud. The expenditure used for the block candidacy setup has been independently funded by Manuel and Christian who combined, hold over fifty percent ownership of BitSpace and do not invest in other block candidates. In total, we estimate an expenditure of approximately $60,000 by June 3rd and we will publish scaling costs as we scale with the EOS network. The funding has been provided with no strings attached, and is motivated by our desire to take part in the success of the EOS network.

BitSpace is currently in dialogue with our lawyers at DLA-Piper to create a legal structure that safeguards the operation against future issues with decentralized earning of cryptocurrencies, file hosting, personal information, property, governance, exchange and other services that will operate on the EOS network. We will openly publish the results of this work to help block producers come to terms with the environment in their local jurisdictions to enable legal operation of EOS BP’s worldwide.

We are always open to feedback on our proposal, values and positions, and would love to hear suggestions on how to improve. 

Please join us in our telegram channel here: https://t.me/BitSpaceNetwork. 

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# Reference links

https://www.bitspace.no 
https://bitspace.no/eos/ 
https://twitter.com/bitspacenetwork 
https://www.youtube.com/BitSpace
https://www.steemit.com/@BitSpace
https://www.facebook.com/bitspace.no

## Events 
https://steemit.com/steemit/@bitspace/cryptofinance-live-debate-with-7-panelists-including-ned-scott-on-blockchain-cryptocurrency-and-regulation 
https://steemit.com/bitspace/@bitspace/bitspace-and-liberland-at-gran-canaria-business-week-2017 
https://steemit.com/cryptofinance2017/@bitspace/cryptofinance2017-oslo-october-19th-steemit-livestream 

## Other Websites
https://cryptofinance.no/ 
https://bitgate.no/ 
https://www.oasis.exchange/ 
https://etheos.io/ 

## Other Social Media
https://twitter.com/EOSNordics
https://www.twitter.com/etheos_io/