What a Decentralized AeroNyx Node Does Today

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What a decentralized AeroNyx node does today

AeroNyx is the protocol; the App, Nodeboard, MemChain, Blind Vault, and independently operated AeroNyx nodes are products or protocol components. An AeroNyx node is not named after its implementation language.

Evidence status

• Source implemented: reviewed node source includes signed peer descriptors, bounded gossip, persistent peer recovery, opaque relay handling, per-hop onion-layer opening, terminal-signed delivery receipts, aggregate health, and configuration-gated sealed storage.
• Automated tests verified — scoped: 11 core blind-relay tests, 23 server onion tests, one terminal-receipt-only three-hop probe test, five foundational recovery tests, and six replica-recovery store tests passed. On the commander integration line, server compilation and three privacy-diagnostic relay-smoke tests also passed; the socket-bound end-to-end smoke remains unverified.
• Current fleet verified — partial snapshot: at 2026-08-31 09:03 UTC, the public aggregate reported six protocol-foundation-ready and two-hop-proof-ready nodes, four message-delivery-proof nodes, and zero real_relay_ready nodes. This does not certify the pending release-specific relay-smoke run.

Source presence, a passing test, and fleet deployment are different facts. A node may expose aggregate readiness without proving that every message, packet, media object, or AI task used a multi-hop path.

Blind-node boundary

Nodes may process signatures, freshness, TTL, the immediate next hop, ciphertext size, and aggregate outcomes required to operate the protocol. Public evidence must not reveal node addresses, operator access, credentials, keys, routes, payloads, client addresses, DNS, MemChain plaintext, or social-graph edges.

See node discovery and encrypted multi-hop relay, Blind Vault and MemChain crash-recovery boundaries, and node health and relay-smoke verification.

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Protocol and products

AeroNyx is the protocol. The App, Nodeboard, MemChain, Blind Vault, and independently operated nodes are products or components that use it. A product feature is not automatically a protocol guarantee.

Reading the evidence

Source implemented means the reviewed code contains the behavior. Automated tests verified means the named tests passed in the stated environment. Current fleet verified means only the timestamped public snapshot. None of these labels proves that every connection used a multi-hop route.

Privacy boundary

Nodes handle the minimum needed to validate, forward, rate-limit, and report aggregate health. They must not receive the keys or plaintext for messages, packets, DNS, files, MemChain records, or identity secrets. Public documentation reports aggregate evidence, not addresses, access details, routes, payloads, or social-graph data.