What was the solana mainnet launch model?

External question — Solana Stack Exchange Author: yeehaa Original post: https://solana.stackexchange.com/questions/7413 License: CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Adaptation: HTML converted to plain text; contact email addresses removed. Just a qq about how the chain got started in 2020. What was the launch model? i.e. at genesis was there a small group of trusted validators from the community/devs/investors who ran validators and then new validators were free to join afterwards?

External answer — Solana Stack Exchange Author: Serban Original post: https://solana.stackexchange.com/a/7423 License: CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Adaptation: HTML converted to plain text; contact email addresses removed. Initially there was a testnet which was incentivized (= mostly open) for validators to join. Then there was a SLP Network with a restricted number of validators and the actual genesis was processed by a single bootstrap validator. SLP Network became mainnet beta after a few weeks and mainnet beta participation was also incentivized via the same program as testnet.