<div class="pull-right"><img src="https://s29.postimg.org/5yv83vcx3/ppfunk-av-s2.png"></img>

</div>Hello PeerPlays stakeholders! I am asking you to approve me as a witness for the PeerPlays network, which launched this week.<br><br>

Witnesses in PeerPlays are expected to be reliable transaction validators and block producers, forming the decentralized PeerPlays blockchain network throughout the world. Witnesses are also expected to provide reliable, independent feeds for prices and external events. Witnesses are trusted to run the network software while acting in the interests of PeerPlays stakeholders.




# Experience

I've been in the smart money/cryptocurrency world since 2013 and here on Steem for over a year now, and I've been running at least one Steem node this whole time. In that time I've gone from an SP miner, to backup witness, to full time top 20 witness in Steem. In support of the network I have written guides, helped numerous people out with issues, sought to educate people on how Steem works, and funded initiatives to increase the value of Steem as a platform. During this time I've kept up with the ecosystem and kept my finger on the pulse of the network.

Though it is often taken for granted, I consider my #1 duty as a Steem witness is to provide a reliable witness node. I have one of the lowest missed block counts of any Steem witness, with most misses occurring while I was mining and a backup witness. I have not had any downtime of a node that is supposed to be producing blocks, and connectivity with the network has been solid.

I'd like to put my experience to work on the brand new PeerPlays blockchain, a member of the Graphene family and a cousin of BitShares and Steem. I have been running a witness node, backup node, and seed node on its testnet in the last two weeks. 

Last Tuesday we, the witnesses began running the main net and quickly it was running on servers all over the world. I have already been running as a witness since then, with no missed blocks. The first GUI wallet was released last night, and that means people can begin to use the network without using the command line.

# Objectives

As part of the witness team, I aim to keep the PeerPlays network secure and reliable. I will meet its scalability needs as the network grows. I will meet the need to provide reliable price and oracle feeds to the network. I look forward to working together with other witnesses, community members, and the PeerPlays team to make it a success for provably fair gaming and everyone's stake including my own.

# Infrastructure

* Dedicated witness node
* Backup node for automatic failover
* Seed/API node - seed: `5.9.18.213:18828` API: `ws://5.9.18.213:8090`

All servers are in different data centers and are on gigabit connections to the internet.

My node hardware has plenty of capacity and could easily handle a Steem node right now. As PeerPlays grows I will scale the hardware with it, **before** it's necessary. 

# Voting Guide

I ask you, the stakeholder of PeerPlays, to approve my account as a witness in the PeerPlays network. To do so you will need to vote with your PeerPlays account.

To claim your BitShares account (BTS account names from the sharedrop are prepended with "bts-") or create a new account and claim your crowdfund tokens, follow these instructions: http://www.peerplays.com/news/how-to-claim-your-ppy-tokens/

Once you have read the instructions, the GUI is available to download for Windows and Mac from the official Github page here: https://github.com/PBSA/peerplays-core-gui/releases (PeerplaysCoreWallet-v0.1.1 ....dmg for Mac, ....exe for Windows, and ..._amd64.deb for Debian-based Linux. Version numbers subject to change).

When you have logged in to your new account or bts- account, and claimed any applicable tokens, you may add approval for me by clicking the Vote link at the top of the GUI, and then the Witness tab: 

<center>![](https://s16.postimg.org/8mampelad/voting_UI.png)</center>

Find my witness name, `pfunk-witness` in the list and click the Add button. Also add any other witnesses you know you can trust to make the network more valuable at this stage.

<center>![](https://s1.postimg.org/hn93ew1gf/voting_UI-2.png)</center>

When finished adding witness accounts to vote for, scroll down and click the Publish Changes button, then click Confirm in the dialog that pops up:

<center>![](https://s22.postimg.org/m7gia8uj5/voting_UI-3.png)</center>

<center>![](https://s18.postimg.org/57l1hj6zt/voting_UI-4.png)</center>

# Proxying

Another way to vote for me and witnesses that I think are doing a good job is to set my PeerPlays account as a voting proxy. I plan on keeping up with the network and witnesses over the long haul. In this way, you can ensure your stake is voting, but without having to stay in touch with it constantly.

Here's where you can set my account as a voting proxy:

<center>![](https://s13.postimg.org/4lzly475j/proxy_UI.png)</center>

# About PeerPlays

PeerPlays is a blockchain network created specifically to allow provably fair gaming and betting. The abilities and strengths of Graphene make it a perfect fit for the application: a global, decentralized, censorship-resistant smart contract/dapp network with lightning-fast transaction confirmations, high transaction throughput, built-in price and oracle feeds, and mature web integration. It's exciting.
* For more information about PeerPlays, visit the website: https://peerplays.com
* Talk to me and other people involved, by joining [the PeerPlays Telegram chat](https://t.me/Peerplays).