The performance and security of a blockchain is determined by the nodes operating it. A conventional blockchain is limited by the transactional processing power of a single node in the network. To circumvent this limitation, most protocol designers come up with complex schemes to distribute work across a subset of nodes in the system. This is what we refer to as sharding. Sharding is a complex problem statement that requires well-thought out mechanisms to ensure safety and usability, especially with respect to composability of applications.
There is one team that stands out by taking a different approach to scaling a layer-1 blockchain network: Solana. Instead of trying to scale by adding more nodes, subsetting them across different blockchains, and then trying to economically link them together into one system, Solana is radically optimizing the performance of a single node on one chain (#NoSharding).
The results of this approach are astonishing: in a cluster with nodes running high-performance GPU-based validation hardware, Solana can achieve a throughput of tens of thousands of transactions per second on a single, composable, blockchain!
Sustaining this type of performance in a production environment relies on more than low-level optimization and high-end hardware. Node operators need to be able to continuously operate- even in adversarial settings-both to ensure the network stays performant, and to maximize their rewards for maintaining the blockchain.
One way to achieve this is to rely on network engineers to troubleshoot nodes in case they go down for whatever reason. This solution comes with a host of problems and is putting pressure on individuals. This makes it not well-suited for an environment seeking to be the base layer of a new financial system. Imagine getting a call at night and having to manually fix a machine that is handling large amounts of value, knowing that a mistake can become extremely costly, even catastrophic.
Another approach is to institute an automated failover system consisting of multiple nodes communicating and deciding internally which of them gets to sign blocks. Such a design comes with its own challenges, especially around ensuring that no blocks are accidentally double-signed, which would lead to large slashing penalties. So far only a very small group of teams have explored this design space, e.g. Certus One and Chorus One.
With support from the Solana team, Chorus One has dedicated resources to build and maintain software to provide high availability validation tailored to the Solana network: Solana StrongGate.
StrongGate allows validators on Solana to run redundant infrastructure with a focus on protecting against accidental double-signing. StrongGate works by using the Solana blockchain as a detection mechanism and a highly available, strongly consistent database as a resolution mechanism to determine which of the validator nodes gets to sign blocks.
Watch Chorus One’s Meher Roy present StrongGate at the first SolCon in Osaka, Japan for a detailed breakdown of the design and rationale:
We will soon share the repo and more information on how to use StrongGate for your Solana validator operation. We’d like to thank Solana for their support and we are looking forward to continuing to contribute our part to build and operate the web scale blockchain that the world deserves!
Chorus One is building validation and staking infrastructure for Proof-of-Stake networks.
We will offer staking on the Solana blockchain. You can support our work and earn staking rewards by delegating to our validator node.
Website: https://chorus.one
Twitter: https://twitter.com/chorusone
Telegram: https://t.me/chorusone
Solana is a web-scale blockchain with speeds up to 50,000 tps powered by Proof of History.
Website: https://solana.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/solana
Telegram: https://t.me/solanaio
Originally published at https://blog.chorus.one on November 15, 2019.
Humanity’s strive for economic growth fueled by carbon-based energy sources has led to the warmest 5-year period on record according to a recent report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Our planet’s atmosphere is reaching record high greenhouse gas concentrations and there are no signs of these trends slowing down. It’s becoming clear that major actions are required to avoid an impending crisis.
There are many theories regarding the best way to deliver peaceful social and political change. Most can be grouped into one of the following categories:
Change can and does come from each of these strategies (to different degrees, of course!). They are all useful in their own way. But in this time of climate catastrophe, where urgent action is required, the real challenge is to ensure that the efforts of all these strategies can be channelled so that they can mutually reinforce each other. In this post, we argue that the Regen Network can act as the coordination mechanism to align all of these efforts.
It’s worth noting that the Regen Network didn’t spontaneously arise. It builds on an existing global movement whose origins can be traced back to crypto-anarchism of the late-eighties and early nineties. More recently the thinking behind crypto-anarchism was reborn in communities that formed around the Bitcoin project, particularly with the ideas that led to Ethereum in late 2013. Regen Network is built using technologies from the Cosmos and Tendermint ecosystem, which are grounded in the vision brought forth by Ethereum. There are now tens of thousands (maybe even hundreds of thousands) of developers across the globe working to build out a new internet that is sometimes called Web3 or the decentralized web.
The Web3 philosophy is based on the sovereignty of the individual as a route to political and economic freedom. Projects like Ethereum and Cosmos are also built around ideas of community, where sovereign individuals can achieve their goals by working together with others. This results in new forms of economic interactions mediated by smart contracts, new financial mechanisms (“DeFi”), new social structures (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations or DAOs), new models of democracy and governance, new forms of property rights, etc.
The Regen Network vision starts with the question: what if we could reliably measure the health of every inch of the planet? If we could, then we would notice when things got better or worse in any locality. We could know when soil health improves, when wildlife is reintroduced, when land use is diversified, when water quality improves, when forests are expanded etc. Once we know these things, we can use this information to create incentives rewarding anyone who can make a positive change. This is where capital comes in. Governments, corporations, citizens and communities all have a vested interest in helping to solve this problem. So Regen looks to attract investment capital from those who desperately need to see the problem solved (all of us!) and channel it to the projects that can have the most impact. Various sensors, satellite imagery, drones, data analytics and AI, etc. are used to verify the ecological data. Blockchains provide an open, transparent record of this data and how funds are being spent. The Regen Network is a shared commons: it is owned and operated by the Regen community.
The Regen Network gives us the one thing we are missing right now: trust. We can trust that change is happening as the data is verified at source and recorded on the blockchain. We can trust that the people that are making it happen are getting rewarded appropriately, as smart contracts set the rules regarding how and when people get paid. We can trust that the network cannot be taken over by vested interests, as the governance rules of the system are clear and transparent.
Let’s look at the how Regen fits into the categories of change introduced at the start of this post:
Petitioners are fearless warriors but they face two big challenges: complexity and an aversion to markets. Petitioners typically rely on governments to effect change. But this time governments don’t know how to fix the problem without the wheels coming off the global economy. The solutions required are too complex for any one government to solve and the global systems to manage this (G20, IMF, World Bank, UN) are not equipped to take on the challenge. A failed top-down attempt to reconfigure the global economy could easily slide into global conflict.
So what tools do we have to manage complexity? It turns out we already have a coordination mechanism that has been proven to work on a global scale. It takes inputs from every actor in the system and aggregates that raw data into usable information that is used to make informed decision making. It has enabled sustained growth in human well-being over centuries. This mechanism is called a market.
Unfortunately, petitioners don’t trust markets as they tend to get co-opted by vested interests. Luckily, we now have a solution to this: blockchain technology. The Regen Network uses blockchain technology to build market-mechanisms that are resistant to co-option. These networks are owned and governed by the community. They are carefully designed to avoid attacks by powerful players.
The Regen Network also provides a way for governments to play their part to enable a robust solution to the problem. Governments can’t solve the problem alone, but they can certainly provide funding, supporting infrastructure, regulatory assistance, and rally their citizens behind these efforts.
Localists are the doers. They work hard to get things done. They find solutions that work on a local level. They share these ideas across the Internet with others. Their model has also proved to be effective.
But it’s too slow for what we need right now. And because they haven’t been able to get access to capital, they haven’t been able to scale their ideas.
The decentralized nature of the Regen Network aligns well with the localist approach. With Regen you don’t need to get permission to act. You just need to prove that what you are doing is effective. This aligns well with localists, who are naturally results-focused.
Regen can add value by routing capital to the most effective localists and by providing a mechanism to quickly spread proven models across the globe.
Self-helpers need purpose. They need a mission. They want to build a better life for themselves and those around them. Yes, that includes a safe planet to live in. But they also want a comfortable life for them and their families. A purpose with no income is a life sentence of poverty. So they need purpose that also gives them opportunities to create wealth.
To date all we’ve heard about climate change is that it will cost us. We have to travel less, eat less meat, buy less goods, spend time recycling… It’s all cost and no rewards.
Regen is looking to change that. People should get paid for the value they create. And saving the planet is valuable for all of us. The people who are provably contributing to ecological well-being should be generously rewarded.
The paradigm shift model was proposed by Thomas Kuhn to explain changes in scientific interpretations in the world. The basic idea is that science resists new ideas, until at some point the old interpretation becomes untenable and a sudden and fundamental change occurs. The classic example is the shift from the geo-centric model of the solar system to the heliocentric model of Copernicus.
It is possible that a similar phenomenon is happening with public blockchains, where a new alternative economic and political model is evolving in parallel to our existing social structures. For some people, the old system cannot be reformed. It is destined to lead us to dire ecological consequences. They argue that the only way forward is to build a parallel economic model that can step in to take over from the existing system before it’s too late. In this view, the world will shift over to Web3 once the technology is ready.
Regen Network is one of the most promising projects that delivers on this Web3 vision. For those who believe the current system is doomed, Regen gives them hope and a viable way to contribute to solving climate change.
But you don’t have to be a paradigm-shifter to believe in the Regen vision. For those who think the solution is a pragmatic mix of the existing system with some ideas from Web3, then Regen can also fulfil their needs.
A solution that can align these groups needs to have the following:
The Regen Network has all of the above. They have a viable, credible and pragmatic vision. Regen Network (once it’s fully operational) will show us all a very clear path to contribute in whatever way we can (time, effort, money, education, etc.) Saving the planet gives us all a sense of purpose. Regen channels this purpose into ecological improvement.
You can think of Regen Network as an ecological commitments network. Just like the electricity grid moves electrical power to where it’s needed, their ecological commitments network acts like a grid to route money and effort to where it can have the maximum ecological impact. People plug into the grid. They commit to doing some work that contributes to our ecological well-being. The grid matches them with people who are willing to pay for that task. A binding contract is agreed. Other entities commit to act as auditors. They confirm that commitments were delivered upon by providing proof (e.g. satellite imagery, sensor data). When commitments are verified, the people performing the work are paid.
The solution is powered by blockchain technology, which provides three key enablers that we didn’t have before:
The biggest challenge for the Regen Network to overcome is prejudice within the activist community against market-based approaches to solving the climate crisis.
For a long time, capital has been a dirty word in social activism. For some, money is the fuel of the corruption that protestors have spent decades fighting against. Some contend that the desire to financialize everything has destroyed communities, cultures and the planet. But it’s time to let go of that notion. Capital is not the enemy. Markets are not the enemy. Capital and markets are the solution.
The problem with markets to date is that they were often co-opted to serve the needs of corporations. The rules were crafted to ensure favourable outcomes to those who controlled them. Blockchain networks have changed that. Now anyone can design a market. Anyone can invent their own incentives mechanism and build it in a few lines of code. People can opt into the market mechanism that they believe are the most effective at enabling the change they want to see in the world. This is a profound transformation in the global power structure that the activist community should embrace.
Regen’s vision is to use these new capabilities to build markets based on provable ecological outputs. Avoiding climate catastrophe is a multi-trillion dollar problem. We need a big ambitious vision that can scale. We need a model that can align all stakeholders.
It must channel the energies of the petitioners who can build awareness and spread the word. They can march, lobby, strike to get governments to provide financing for Regen-based projects. Self-helpers will find their life’s purpose and a meaningful way to build wealth for them and their families. These will be the entrepreneurs and individual contributors, the farmers, the data scientists, the IoT experts, the people building AI for analyzing satellite imagery. Localists can plug into the grid and get paid for the work they are doing. They can share this knowledge with other communities across the globe. For sure, some people will only focus on their ability to make money. That could be a global corporation or a poor farmer in sub-Saharan Africa. The Regen Network doesn’t filter people out based on their motivations. The incentives structure and blockchain-enforced rules will ensure that only legitimate activities improving ecological health will be rewarded. People, tools and technology will work together to prevent fraud, scams and collusion.
This is a crisis. It needs urgency. It needs everyone to work together. Regen Network is building the grid that aligns all these efforts at effecting change, and channels them into effective ecological action.
Check out https://regen.network for more information on how you can help.
Regen are currently raising additional funding. If you are a VC, crypto investor or accredited investor, then please visit this page or contact gregory@regen.network for more information.
Chorus One is currently running a validator on Regen’s testnet and will offer staking services on the upcoming Regen Network mainnet. We have partnered with the team building the Regen Network to help fulfill their vision and will own and stake XRN tokens.
Images taken from Wikipedia, a Regen Network slide deck, and Daniel Clay, Markus Spiske, Biegun Wschodni from Unsplash.
Originally published at https://blog.chorus.one on November 5, 2019.
When the Cosmos Network launched, we set our initial commission rate to 15%. At the time, that was around the median commission rate and we were able to attract many delegators.
Since then there has been significant downward pressure on commission rates. As a result, today our rate is no longer competitive.
To make sure we are giving our loyal delegators a great deal, we have decided to reduce the Chorus One fee on Cosmos.
Our new commission rate on the Cosmos Hub will be 7.5%!
We are convinced that with our reduced rates, we have one of the most compelling offerings on the Cosmos Hub:
We run a best in-class validator security architecture including automated failover, enterprise-grade key management utilizing HSMs, validation nodes distributed across continents, and external security audits. There are few who have invested as heavily in security and architecture as we have and none who give you as much insights to verify yourself. You can check out our validator architecture document here. If you are looking to minimize the risk for your ATOMs, staking with Chorus One is the way to go.
Sleep soundly knowing your ATOMs are protected.
We are the leading validator when it comes to producing high quality content and educational materials about Cosmos, Proof-of-Stake and the internet of blockchains. We help you learn about the network and are doing crucial work to help the Cosmos ecosystem grow and thrive.
Check out some examples of our work:
Stake with Chorus One and help grow the pie for everyone by building a vibrant and educated community.
We have partnered with Regen Network and estimated our carbon footprint. We are offsetting approximately 3x our estimation to ensure that Chorus One’s operations have a climate positive impact.
Our community voted to support the Rainforest Foundation. Learn more about how we are turning our validator climate positive. 🌴
With Proof-of-Stake we have a chance to build a new social and financial fabric leading to more abundance and opportunity for everyone.
By staking with the first climate-positive validator, you’re helping blockchains be a force for environmental sustainability and regeneration.
We are at the forefront of researching improvements to Proof-of-Stake and Cosmos. For example, we have been driving work around delegation vouchers and won the Berlin Cosmos Hackathon together with Sikka with our delegation voucher implementation. We think delegation vouchers could enable the Cosmos DeFi wave and unleash permissionless innovation for the internet of blockchains.
Help Cosmos evolve and innovate to become the foundation for the internet of blockchains.
We have been building a web application for the advanced crypto investor. It will allow you to perform all the basic actions such as staking, sending coins and voting in governance. But in addition, it will also have quality data and provide human-readable insights into the performance of your holdings. A first version is scheduled to launch this quarter! Stay tuned.
Stake with Chorus One and support better tools and user experiences for Proof-of-Stake and decentralized finance.
If interested, get in touch at hello@chorus.one, stop by our Telegram group, or join our recently formed Discord channel!
PS: We adjusted our commission rates today, but based on our maximum daily commission rate change of 2% it will take a bit under a week until we actually reach 7.5%.
Originally published at https://blog.chorus.one on August 7, 2019.
Blockchain fees are an underexplored topic that plague the UX of decentralized applications. Currently, Ethereum users need to hold a balance of ETH to pay for gas fees. There are many workarounds like meta transactions to make onboarding users easier. An often discussed concept is “economic abstraction” — letting users pay fees in other tokens aside from ETH. The Cosmos multi-token fee model aims to embrace this concept. In this model, validators are able to accept different token denominations as fees by whitelisting tokens and configuring minimum fees they are willing to accept per denomination. But using this model also comes with UX implications for the network, especially for stakers that will receive paid transaction fees as compensation.
In the Cosmos ecosystem, transactions will be routed through the Cosmos Hub via the inter-blockchain communication protocol (IBC). Since transaction fees are paid out as rewards to stakers, a world where users pay in multiple tokens also means that those staking will, by design, receive a fraction of these tokens as rewards.
In this world, the UX problem lies on the side of those providing their capital and services to secure the network. Small delegators might end up with tiny balances of fee tokens worthless to them. So how do we get rid off this dust? 🧹
As part of the Cosmos Seoul hackathon, we conceptualized a solution to this problem and won third prize with it. Babelfish is a protocol designed to accumulate fee tokens across a period of time (number of blocks) and to automatically auction them off in a batch. Our design uses Atoms as the auction pair. It distinguishes between individual auctions for popular payment tokens and basket auction for niche tokens.
The hackathon implementation uses a first price open bid auction. The following will walk through a hypothetical cBTC (BTC on a Cosmos peg zone) auction:
For a more detailed description and discussion of potential issues check out our in-depth writeup on Babelfish here.
Babelfish could provide a business model to the Cosmos Hub to offer fee auctions as a service to other blockchains. Additionally, the protocol also enables delegation vouchers to work in a multi-token environment. There are quite possibly some alterations and alternatives to this design. Making use of second price, dutch, or closed auctions is possible. An interesting alternative to our solution could also lie in an automatic conversion of fees using a Uniswap-style DEX. We are excited to contribute our research to making a user-friendly internet of blockchains a reality.
About Chorus One
Website: https://chorus.one
Twitter: https://twitter.com/chorusone
Telegram: https://chorus.one/telegram
Discord: https://chorus.one/discord
Originally published at https://blog.chorus.one on August 5, 2019.
