From the development of blockchain technology to the present, 2019 may be the year that people are most concerned about cross-chain technology.
In the new year, the public chain has entered a buffer period from massive expansion, and scalability has become a deeper theme of the public chain. Before the emergence of cross-chain technology, the public chains in the blockchain were isolated islands, unable to communicate with each other. It greatly limits the space for the operability of the blockchain, and at the same time, various types of Tokens cannot truly realize asset circulation and information exchange on the chain.
At present, cross-chain technology is gradually developing, and a number of projects focusing on cross-chain technology have emerged, such as Ripple Interledger Protocol, BTC Relay, Cosmos, Polkadot, Lightning network, WanChain, FUSION, etc.
As a representative project of cross-chain technology, the Cosmos main network, which has been cultivated for 4 years, was officially launched on March 14, 2019. A big step for this star project has become a small step in the development of cross-chain technology, which has attracted a lot of attention.
On the theme of this issue, Odaily invited Harriet, the founder of IRISnet, who participated in the development of Cosmos and is also the second HUB of the Cosmos ecology, to share with you the technical dry goods of Cosmos.
The following is the live content:
The following is the live content:
Odaily: First of all, let us invite the guests to give a brief introduction.
Harriet：Hi, I'm Harriet from IRISnet. Our team has participated in the development of the Cosmos open source project since April 2017 as the Cosmos China development team, and designed the second HUB of the Cosmos ecosystem in December 2017 with the support of Tendermint, the core development team of Cosmos --- IRISnet. Our team can be regarded as the team that knows the most about Cosmos technology in China. Today, I am very grateful to Odaily for the invitation to share with you the latest development of Cosmos, and to answer the questions you have in the community.
First of all, what does Cosmos do?
What Cosmos wants to solve is the cross-chain problem, allowing assets and value to flow between different blockchain networks.
The core development team of the Cosmos project is Jae Kwon leading the Tendermint team located in Berkeley. Of course, Cosmos is proud to list another development team on its official website as our Chinese team. Jae Kwon first proposed a non-degenerate POS consensus implementation that supports Byzantine fault tolerance in 2014, that is Tendermint. As you can see, their development team is now also named Tendermint.
So we generally refer to Tendermint in two contexts, sometimes referring to core development, and sometimes referring to the Tendermint consensus engine. After the Tendrmint consensus was proposed in 2014, it was adopted by multiple blockchain projects, including the early Oracle enterprise alliance chain.
Tendermint has very good features, fast, and every block is the final state.
Tendermint consensus is also called BPos, bonded POS, proof of stake with pledge. This is very different from the DPos based on EOS. If you are interested, I can explain its advanced nature later.
The advanced type of Tendermint is well recognized by the industry, including Arthur, the founder of another famous pos chain tezos, who also said that he will migrate to Tendermint in the future.
Jae is a very forward thinking person. After completing Tendermint, he saw early on the need for blockchain interconnection, and completed the design of Cosmos in the winter of 2016.
The Cosmos project is the first project in the industry to propose cross-chain issues and provide a complete implementation plan.
When we say the Cosmos network, it actually includes many interconnected blockchains.
I will post here the English introduction of Cosmos on its official website:
Cosmos is a decentralized network of independent parallel blockchains, each powered by BFT consensus algorithms like Tendermint consensus.
Cosmos is an ecosystem of blockchains that can scale and interoperate with each other.
It may be more intuitive to put a picture
The Cosmos network includes many interconnected blockchains, all of which focus on different application requirements. The one that deals specifically with cross-chain requirements is called Hub, and the others connected to the Hub are called Zones. Cosmos plans to link Ethereum and Bitcoin networks. My picture is a bit old. Now it is developed based on Tendermint. Binance Chain can also be connected to Cosmos. The latest playlist of the Loom network, which is the second-level expansion of Ethereum, also announced that it will be developed based on the Cosmso SDK and will join the Cosmos network in the future.
All Zones and HUBs use the unified consensus protocol Tendermint, and the connection to external heterogeneous chains such as ETH btc is realized through Tendermint-based Peg.
Each chain (Zone, Hub) in the system is an independent blockchain with its own governance that does not rely on the HUB.
The communication between Hub and Zone is solved by the inter-blockchain communication protocol IBC (Inter-Blockchain Communication protocol)
Another feature of Cosmos is that it supports multiple Hubs. In March, IRISnet, which was launched successively, and Cosmos Hub are the initial cross-chain hubs in this ecology, and will cooperate to support the Cosmos large cross-chain ecology.
The main network of Cosmos, also known as Cosmos Hub, was launched on March 14. Now the block height is almost 96,000, and 85 validators are producing blocks.
https://hubble.figment.network/chains/cosmoshub-1
The above are some block browsers, you can check the status of the Cosmos main network.
There are three stages for the launch of the Cosmos main network. Now that the first stage has been completed and the network is waiting for stability, it is possible to vote on the community chain to decide when to open the transfer function, and then enter the second stage. The third stage is the realization of IBC . Its current state is only a verifiable minimum feasible implementation, and it has not been applied on an open large-scale public chain. Cosmos and IRISnet are now live on the mainnet, and this is a task we must focus on. The underlying layers of Cosmos hub and IRISnet Hub are both developed by Cosmos SDK, so these two HUBs are the most efficient way to verify this cross-chain communication protocol.
We have an article about these three stages, I will share the link here:《Cosmos mainnet launch trilogy", interested students can study later.
Many people often ask what is the relationship between Cosmos and IRISnet?
official websiteofficial websiteWhen I introduced myself (Who we are), I introduced this: IRISnet is another Cosmos HUB in the Cosmos large cross-chain ecosystem. It supports cross-chain services and will also promote the construction of decentralized business applications.
I just mentioned that the blockchains of the Cosmos ecosystem are all independent networks. The IRIS Hub developed with the Cosmos SDK is also an independent blockchain. It is different from the Cosmos Hub in that it supports data and is responsible for computing across chains in the form of services. At the same time, the design and implementation of IRISnet's token economy are also different. At the same time, IRISnet is supporting complex online governance. What we are most proud of is that software upgrades can be realized without hard forks through online governance support, so we also Call yourself a self-evolving BPoS network.
Cosmos vs EOS
The most important point that is different from the DPoS entrustment and reward model of EOS' super node (Block Producer) is that BPoS participates in entrustment and self-binding tokens cannot be circulated and is truly pledged and bound on the network, while EOS's DPoS design entrusts and There is no associated restriction on transfer circulation. One token can be entrusted to 30 nodes (voting), and the voting token can also be circulated. Around the design of BPoS and DPoS, Cosmos founder Jae Kwon and EOS founder BM once had a wonderful debate in the GitHub community. It is generally believed that BPoS is better than "Nothing at Stake"."(No real pledge) DPoS has stronger security support
There is also a difference between EOS's super node (Block Producer) and Cosmos/Tendermint BPoS's delegation and reward model. Cosmos has inflationary token rewards for all users participating in delegation. Anyone who has a server can also choose to become a verifier to obtain delegation commission rewards and mining rewards. The requirements for becoming a verifier are not high, and the official recommendation is a server configuration with 2-core CPU and 6GB memory. According to the test of Huobi Research Institute, a slightly lower configuration can also run a full node or a validator node. Not only the number of nodes is more (initial 100 nodes, Cosmos and IRISnet plan to support 300 nodes in the next 3 years), but any ordinary user can really participate in the consensus of network block generation through entrusted binding, which undoubtedly improves the consensus of the network. Participation scope.
Cosmos Vs. Polkadot
Polkadot was designed after Cosmos, and it borrowed some good spirits from Cosmos/Tendermint from the beginning, so it is more comprehensive in design. For example, the design of Cosmos focuses on the cross-chain transfer of tokens, and the cross-chain of Polkadot can also support the use of data across chains. However, around data and complex computing cross-chain, IRISnet has given a design, which is also a supplement to the Cosmos ecology.
secondary title
Here's the Q&A session:
Q1: What is the economic model of Cosmos? How are initial tokens distributed? In the future, it will be inclined to inflation or deflation, and what trend may the overall currency price show?
Harriet：The Cosmos project completed its fundraising in April 2017 with $17 million worth of Bitcoin and Ethereum at the time. A total of 236 million Atoms will be issued, and the distribution is: 75% for public offering, 5% for angel investors, 10% for ICF (Inter-chain Foundation), and 10% for the team. At that time, the benchmark price was 10 cents, with discounts of 25% and 15% for strategic investors and early investors, respectively.
The economic model of Cosmos is an inflationary model. The BPoS system hopes to encourage everyone to pledge tokens on the network. Tokens pledged on the network are not liquid. In order to encourage verifiers (miners), Cosmos issues additionally at an inflation rate of 7%-20% every year: network pledge rate When it reaches more than two-thirds, the inflation rate will stabilize at 7%. If the pledge rate is less than two-thirds, the inflation rate will increase linearly until it stabilizes at 20%. The goal of this design is to make the tokens that can be traded in the market a small number, and a larger amount is used for network security mortgages.
Q2: Developers want to know how to develop DApps on it? Can DApps be developed on the Cosmos network now? Are there any DApps that can be played now?
Harriet：Cosmos provides a very good development kit - Cosmos SDK. IRISnet, Binance Chain, Loom, and Playlist are all developed based on the Cosmos SDK. But this is not the same as DApp. Using the Cosmos SDK, we actually develop our own application-specific chain. The design does not support the development of DApps directly on the Cosmos Hub. My understanding is that in the future, it should not be supported, because Cosmos' application architecture concept is an application-specific chain: each chain focuses on its own application requirements to achieve the best support for performance and security governance .
Therefore, supporting the development of DAapp will be a zone role of the Cosmos network, such as Ethermint supporting smart contracts. The Tendermint consensus engine used at the bottom of Ethermint is compatible with the Ethereum EVM at the application layer.
Q3: Did Cosmos not issue ERC20? So what are the ICO participants holding now? What is traded on the exchange?
Harriet：The main network of Comos has been launched on March 14. Cosmos has never issued ERC20 tokens, and the early investors participating in the ICO hold the pledged token Atom on the main network.
The Cosmos main network has not yet entered the second stage, and there is no transfer function, so the exchanges are not trading Atoms on the main network, they use the form of futures, IOU, in Chinese, it is a white bar.
Q4: Will the current small white bar of ATOM return to zero?
Harriet：Whether the small white strip will return to zero or not depends on whether the exchange is reliable or not. At present, the Cosmos network has not opened the transfer function, and the exchange is IOU (white bar). It cannot be absolutely said that all IOUs of exchanges may be scams, but traders should be aware of the risks involved.
In addition, as announced in Cosmos's own blog, as a practical innovation network, it will indeed have uncertainties. The network is not stable in the first stage, and it may be restarted in extreme cases. This is why at this stage The Cosmos network does not have the transfer function enabled. BPoS network, as a developer, what we are looking forward to is that everyone can really pay attention to the usage scenarios of the token, truly participate in the security verification of the network, and serve as a mortgage for network security. We are quite unwilling to see the token become the target of hype.
Q5: At present, many cross-chain technologies have emerged. What is the reason for IRISnet to choose the underlying cross-chain technology of Cosmos? Or is Cosmos more attractive to IRISnet than other cross-chain projects?
Harriet：Blockchain cross-chain technology is still a very cutting-edge technology, so there are many innovative practices, and many projects use different methods to practice. In addition to Cosmos, the other Polkdot projects are also remarkable. Here I will explain why we choose the Cosmos SDK by comparing it with Polkdot.
First of all, Cosmos was the first to start cross-chain technology practice. We participated in the development of Cosmos in 2017. At that time, Polkdot was still in the state of a white paper. Cosmos had a more complete code. Today, the Cosmos SDK has been very complete So, for students who develop application-specific chains, the Cosmos SDK is a good choice.
In addition, I really like the architectural concept of Cosmos. As I mentioned just now, Polkdot also has many good features, but let me first talk about the most important difference between Polkdot and Cosmos, which is also quite attractive to us. one point. That is, Cosmos independent security (independent security) is called shared security compared to Polkdot.
The main chain in the Polkdot architecture is called a relay chain (which is a bit like a Hub in the Cosmos ecosystem). The security and governance of the chain issued by Polkdot in the network is supported by the Polkdot relay chain, and each chain in Cosmos is has its own independent governance.
We prefer that each chain can have its own governance, which brings more governance flexibility and even lower operating costs to each chain, because you don’t need the main chain to provide you with consensus services, so you don’t need to go to Pay the consensus fee for the main chain miners.
Q6: Does Cosmos have any practical applications? Or is there any application of cross-chain technology now?
Harriet：Among the cross-chain application scenarios envisioned by Cosmos in the white paper, a very important application scenario is the decentralized exchange. Binance Chain is a good example of building a decentralized exchange based on the Cosmos SDK application.
The other is support for network expansion, such as Ethereum, Ethermint is a landing case.
Another practical case is IRISnet, which implements cross-blockchain calls for data and complex calculations through cross-chains. We have also used the service infrastructure of IRISnet to build some industry applications. For example, BEAN has started to serve commercial customers and has won some awards. Interested students can search for more specific information on the Internet.
Q7: Some voices wonder whether 100 verifiers will make the network too centralized? Can you objectively evaluate the consensus mechanism of Cosmos?
Harriet：By comparing it with other mature PoS networks (such as EOS), I can better explain why I think BPoS like Cosmos has better support for decentralization.
BPoS started with 100 nodes (it can be expanded to nearly 300 in the future), and EOS now has 21 super nodes.
In addition to having more nodes, Tendermint's consensus mechanism BPoS (Bonded PoS) has better support for decentralization than DPoS represented by EOS. In the DPoS network, there is no associated restriction on token voting and transfer circulation. In BPoS, the token is actually pledged on the network and cannot be transferred and circulated. This is very different from the DPoS design. You may also know that Jae, the founder of Cosmos, and BM, the founder of EOS, had a very exciting debate in the gitHub community in the early days. Jae's views at the time were also recognized by the technical community. BPS, which truly pledges tokens on the network, has stronger security support than the nothing at stake (no real pledge) DPoS network.
Another point is that the verification threshold for BPoS users to participate in the network is lower. The configuration of BPoS validators is smaller than that of DPoS super nodes, so it can also allow more nodes to participate. At the same time, more ordinary users can also choose the method of entrusting pledges to pledge their tokens to nodes they trust. All users who participate in entrusting can also get token inflation rewards. In this way, more users can participate in the network consensus through entrustment, which also improves the participation scope of the network consensus and has better security support.
Q8: If an excellent node keeps only 1% of the entrusted income, and the other 99% is given to the entrusting party, so as to attract a large number of entrusting parties (although the entrusted amount increases, but the cost does not increase), how to avoid this kind of competition What about the centralization problem?
Harriet：In fact, most people may not choose a very low commission rate. Mortgage has benefits, but it also has corresponding risks. Rational people will choose a node that strictly treats the node as a business. And rigorously regard the node as a business node, and set a reasonable commission rate to support its own costs and ensure that it has a sustainable business model.
Clients are also diversified. Many people’s first concern is not the Commission rate. They may be more willing to find a highly reliable node service with a reasonable fee, multiple sentry hosts, HSM hardware encryption support, and a long operating history. . Therefore, there are 100 nodes (more will be supported in the future), differentiated services, and a low-threshold, diverse and wide-ranging entrusted crowd are a kind of support for decentralization.
Q9: What challenges does the current Cosmos cross-chain technology face?
Harriet：In my opinion, cross-chain technology is a very cutting-edge and exploratory technical field. This is why IBC has not yet been implemented on the main network, which will be the third phase of the Cosmos main network. IBC is still a verifiable prototype and needs more optimization. In the test network environment, it is necessary to carefully and rigorously verify the complex distributed environment before it can be truly put into use on the main network. Any innovative technology carries uncertainty and certain risks.
Q10: Eric Meltzer of Proof of Work offered an interesting point of view: the most interesting thing about Cosmos is not cross-chain, but the possibility of being a second-tier network of Bitcoin. What do you think?
Harriet：Cosmos' cross-chain can support a variety of scenarios: in addition to decentralized exchanges, in addition to the complex calculations and data that IRISnet is doing and the ability to call data across chains, another very important thing is expansion. Eric's point revolves around support for scaling. I basically agree with his statement, but from the perspective of engineering practice step by step, I think we will see the second-level expansion of Ethereum first. The Bitcoin network is not a smart contract system, and it is more difficult to support cross-chain transactions than a system like Ethereum.
Q11: What is the threshold for becoming a Hub?
Harriet：The threshold required to become a Hub is: first, you must have a very rigorous technical foundation, be able to develop and support the community to operate and maintain a credible and complex HUB network; the second and more important point is to be able to find the demand for adding value to the cross-chain ecology , bringing richer application scenarios to the cross-chain ecology. The second point is that the creation of ecology is more important in my opinion.
Q12: When will IRIS be officially listed on the exchange?
Harriet：Out of a responsible attitude, I cannot give a definite answer to this question now. I still want to say that I hope the community can pay more attention to the innovative BPOS network and token usage scenarios, and I hope that everyone can participate in our ecological construction in various forms: becoming a verifier or developer, or owning a common token Investors can also participate in the mortgage, which can also support the security of the network.
IRISnet is an open network. Now there are some exchanges outside, which may be connected to IRISnet by themselves. Here I can't say exactly whether these networks are conducting real iris transactions. I just want to give a risk reminder to the community responsibly. Any innovation has uncertain factors. I hope that everyone will pay more attention to the continuous improvement of our network functions in the early stage, and don’t easily participate in the token hype. In addition, please pay attention to us Project official communication channels to get accurate information about the project.
