Node operators process transactions and receive token incentives. These independently owned high-spec node machines around the world are connected via Internet Computer Protocol (ICP), creating a self-sovereign network not reliant on any cloud services. Advanced cryptography allows any application or service to be run on the network in a decentralized manner via smart contracts.

The Internet Computer is a decentralized cloud blockchain, where apps can be built fully onchain, using AI, or by coding. Try caffeine.ai & icp.ninja.

ICP tokenholders own and govern the protocol. They currently take (burn) all of the total transaction fees paid by users (revenue). ICP Holders can stake their ICP on the Network Nervous System (NNS), an advanced fully on-chain DAO that facilitates liquid democracy. Staking ICP allows users to submit proposals, vote on proposals, and earn rewards for their participation in governance. Internet Computer's investors include Polychain, Scalar Capital, Amino Capital, etc.

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Internet Computer

# Internet Computer Total node providers Methodology

## 1. Overview

The total node providers metric measures the number of independent infrastructure providers operating nodes on the Internet Computer network on any given day. This metric tracks network decentralization and infrastructure participation by counting the unique entities that provide computing resources to the Internet Computer Protocol. Node providers are organizations or individuals who operate physical or virtual machines that participate in the network's consensus and computation processes.

## 2. Data sources

The metric relies on the following data sources:
- **Internet Computer network statistics**: Daily infrastructure metrics scraped from Internet Computer Protocol's public API endpoints
- **Node provider registry data**: Information from Internet Computer's governance system that tracks registered node providers
- **Network infrastructure data**: Daily snapshots of network participation and node operator statistics from the Internet Computer Protocol

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Raw data extraction
- **Purpose**: Extract daily node provider counts from Internet Computer's API responses
- **Logic**: Parse JSON data structures from scraped API responses that contain daily network statistics. The system extracts the `total_node_providers` field from nested daily statistics arrays within the API response. Each API response contains multiple daily data points organized in a JSON array format. The extraction process converts string timestamps to proper timestamp format and captures the node provider count as a numeric value.
- **Key fields**: `day` timestamp from JSON, `total_node_providers` count value, `inserted_at` tracking when the data was scraped

### Component B: Data deduplication  
- **Purpose**: Handle multiple API scrapes for the same day by selecting the most recent data
- **Logic**: When multiple scrapes exist for the same day due to API polling frequency, the system applies a deduplication strategy. It assigns row numbers to each record partitioned by timestamp and ordered by insertion time in descending order. The most recently scraped value is selected by filtering for row number 1. This ensures that if Internet Computer updates their statistics during the day or if there are multiple scraping attempts, the latest available data is used.
- **Key fields**: `row_number` for deduplication ranking, `inserted_at` timestamp for recency determination

### Final aggregation
- **Combining components**: The deduplicated daily node provider counts are passed directly to Token Terminal's metric standardization process without additional aggregation since the source data already represents daily totals
- **Currency conversion**: Not applicable as this is a count-based infrastructure metric rather than a financial value
- **Time aggregation**: Data represents daily snapshots of total node providers as of each day, with forward-fill logic applied to handle any missing days in the data series
- **Final calculation**: The metric value equals the total count of unique node providers operating on the Internet Computer network as reported by the protocol's governance and registry systems for each day, with standard Token Terminal metadata applied including blockchain categorization and data quality validation

*This methodology was automatically generated by Token Terminal's methodology analyzer.*

Total number of node providers in the Internet Computer network.

Internet ComputerICP

Total node providers

Total node providers

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