Dragonchain Public Proposal TL;DR:

Dragonchain has demonstrated twice Reddit’s entire total daily volume (votes, comments, and posts per Reddit 2019 Year in Review) in a 24-hour demo on an operational network. Every single transaction on Dragonchain is decentralized immediately through 5 levels of Dragon Net, and then secured with combined proof on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, and Binance Chain, via Interchain. At the time, in January 2020, the entire cost of the demo was approximately $25K on a single system (transaction fees locked at $0.0001/txn). With current fees (lowest fee $0.0000025/txn), this would cost as little as $625.
Watch Joe walk through the entire proposal and answer questions on YouTube.
This proposal is also available on the Dragonchain blog.

Hello Reddit and Ethereum community!

I’m Joe Roets, Founder & CEO of Dragonchain. When the team and I first heard about The Great Reddit Scaling Bake-Off we were intrigued. We believe we have the solutions Reddit seeks for its community points system and we have them at scale.
For your consideration, we have submitted our proposal below. The team at Dragonchain and I welcome and look forward to your technical questions, philosophical feedback, and fair criticism, to build a scaling solution for Reddit that will empower its users. Because our architecture is unlike other blockchain platforms out there today, we expect to receive many questions while people try to grasp our project. I will answer all questions here in this thread on Reddit, and I've answered some questions in the stream on YouTube.
We have seen good discussions so far in the competition. We hope that Reddit’s scaling solution will emerge from The Great Reddit Scaling Bake-Off and that Reddit will have great success with the implementation.

Executive summary

Dragonchain is a robust open source hybrid blockchain platform that has proven to withstand the passing of time since our inception in 2014. We have continued to evolve to harness the scalability of private nodes, yet take full advantage of the security of public decentralized networks, like Ethereum. We have a live, operational, and fully functional Interchain network integrating Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, and ~700 independent Dragonchain nodes. Every transaction is secured to Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Ethereum Classic. Transactions are immediately usable on chain, and the first decentralization is seen within 20 seconds on Dragon Net. Security increases further to public networks ETH, BTC, and ETC within 10 minutes to 2 hours. Smart contracts can be written in any executable language, offering full freedom to existing developers. We invite any developer to watch the demo, play with our SDK’s, review open source code, and to help us move forward. Dragonchain specializes in scalable loyalty & rewards solutions and has built a decentralized social network on chain, with very affordable transaction costs. This experience can be combined with the insights Reddit and the Ethereum community have gained in the past couple of months to roll out the solution at a rapid pace.

Response and PoC

In The Great Reddit Scaling Bake-Off post, Reddit has asked for a series of demonstrations, requirements, and other considerations. In this section, we will attempt to answer all of these requests.

Live Demo

A live proof of concept showing hundreds of thousands of transactions

On Jan 7, 2020, Dragonchain hosted a 24-hour live demonstration during which a quarter of a billion (250 million+) transactions executed fully on an operational network. Every single transaction on Dragonchain is decentralized immediately through 5 levels of Dragon Net, and then secured with combined proof on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, and Binance Chain, via Interchain. This means that every single transaction is secured by, and traceable to these networks. An attack on this system would require a simultaneous attack on all of the Interchained networks.
24 hours in 4 minutes (YouTube):
24 hours in 4 minutes
The demonstration was of a single business system, and any user is able to scale this further, by running multiple systems simultaneously. Our goals for the event were to demonstrate a consistent capacity greater than that of Visa over an extended time period.
Tooling to reproduce our demo is available here:
https://github.com/dragonchain/spirit-bomb

Source Code

Source code (for on & off-chain components as well tooling used for the PoC). The source code does not have to be shared publicly, but if Reddit decides to use a particular solution it will need to be shared with Reddit at some point.

• Dragonchain Core
• Tooling for demonstration
• Dragonchain Github

Scaling

How it works & scales

Architectural Scaling

Dragonchain’s architecture attacks the scalability issue from multiple angles. Dragonchain is a hybrid blockchain platform, wherein every transaction is protected on a business node to the requirements of that business or purpose. A business node may be held completely private or may be exposed or replicated to any level of exposure desired.
Every node has its own blockchain and is independently scalable. Dragonchain established Context Based Verification as its consensus model. Every transaction is immediately usable on a trust basis, and in time is provable to an increasing level of decentralized consensus. A transaction will have a level of decentralization to independently owned and deployed Dragonchain nodes (~700 nodes) within seconds, and full decentralization to BTC and ETH within minutes or hours. Level 5 nodes (Interchain nodes) function to secure all transactions to public or otherwise external chains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. These nodes scale the system by aggregating multiple blocks into a single Interchain transaction on a cadence. This timing is configurable based upon average fees for each respective chain. For detailed information about Dragonchain’s architecture, and Context Based Verification, please refer to the Dragonchain Architecture Document.

Economic Scaling

An interesting feature of Dragonchain’s network consensus is its economics and scarcity model. Since Dragon Net nodes (L2-L4) are independent staking nodes, deployment to cloud platforms would allow any of these nodes to scale to take on a large percentage of the verification work. This is great for scalability, but not good for the economy, because there is no scarcity, and pricing would develop a downward spiral and result in fewer verification nodes. For this reason, Dragonchain uses TIME as scarcity.
TIME is calculated as the number of Dragons held, multiplied by the number of days held. TIME influences the user’s access to features within the Dragonchain ecosystem. It takes into account both the Dragon balance and length of time each Dragon is held. TIME is staked by users against every verification node and dictates how much of the transaction fees are awarded to each participating node for every block.
TIME also dictates the transaction fee itself for the business node. TIME is staked against a business node to set a deterministic transaction fee level (see transaction fee table below in Cost section). This is very interesting in a discussion about scaling because it guarantees independence for business implementation. No matter how much traffic appears on the entire network, a business is guaranteed to not see an increased transaction fee rate.

Scaled Deployment

Dragonchain uses Docker and Kubernetes to allow the use of best practices traditional system scaling. Dragonchain offers managed nodes with an easy to use web based console interface. The user may also deploy a Dragonchain node within their own datacenter or favorite cloud platform. Users have deployed Dragonchain nodes on-prem on Amazon AWS, Google Cloud, MS Azure, and other hosting platforms around the world. Any executable code, anything you can write, can be written into a smart contract. This flexibility is what allows us to say that developers with no blockchain experience can use any code language to access the benefits of blockchain. Customers have used NodeJS, Python, Java, and even BASH shell script to write smart contracts on Dragonchain.
With Docker containers, we achieve better separation of concerns, faster deployment, higher reliability, and lower response times.
We chose Kubernetes for its self-healing features, ability to run multiple services on one server, and its large and thriving development community. It is resilient, scalable, and automated. OpenFaaS allows us to package smart contracts as Docker images for easy deployment.
Contract deployment time is now bounded only by the size of the Docker image being deployed but remains fast even for reasonably large images. We also take advantage of Docker’s flexibility and its ability to support any language that can run on x86 architecture. Any image, public or private, can be run as a smart contract using Dragonchain.

Flexibility in Scaling

Dragonchain’s architecture considers interoperability and integration as key features. From inception, we had a goal to increase adoption via integration with real business use cases and traditional systems.
We envision the ability for Reddit, in the future, to be able to integrate alternate content storage platforms or other financial services along with the token.

• LBRY - To allow users to deploy content natively to LBRY
• MakerDAO to allow users to lend small amounts backed by their Reddit community points.
• STORJ/SIA to allow decentralized on chain storage of portions of content. These integrations or any other are relatively easy to integrate on Dragonchain with an Interchain implementation.

Cost

Cost estimates (on-chain and off-chain) For the purpose of this proposal, we assume that all transactions are on chain (posts, replies, and votes).

On the Dragonchain network, transaction costs are deterministic/predictable. By staking TIME on the business node (as described above) Reddit can reduce transaction costs to as low as $0.0000025 per transaction.
Dragonchain Fees Table

Getting Started

How to run it

Building on Dragonchain is simple and requires no blockchain experience. Spin up a business node (L1) in our managed environment (AWS), run it in your own cloud environment, or on-prem in your own datacenter. Clear documentation will walk you through the steps of spinning up your first Dragonchain Level 1 Business node.
Getting started is easy...

1. Download Dragonchain’s dctl
2. Input three commands into a terminal
3. Build an image
4. Run it

More information can be found in our Get started documents.

• Quickstart
• Full Documentation

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Architecture

Dragonchain is an open source hybrid platform. Through Dragon Net, each chain combines the power of a public blockchain (like Ethereum) with the privacy of a private blockchain.
Dragonchain organizes its network into five separate levels. A Level 1, or business node, is a totally private blockchain only accessible through the use of public/private keypairs. All business logic, including smart contracts, can be executed on this node directly and added to the chain.
After creating a block, the Level 1 business node broadcasts a version stripped of sensitive private data to Dragon Net. Three Level 2 Validating nodes validate the transaction based on guidelines determined from the business. A Level 3 Diversity node checks that the level 2 nodes are from a diverse array of locations. A Level 4 Notary node, hosted by a KYC partner, then signs the validation record received from the Level 3 node. The transaction hash is ledgered to the Level 5 public chain to take advantage of the hash power of massive public networks.
Dragon Net can be thought of as a “blockchain of blockchains”, where every level is a complete private blockchain. Because an L1 can send to multiple nodes on a single level, proof of existence is distributed among many places in the network. Eventually, proof of existence reaches level 5 and is published on a public network.

• Dragonchain architecture
• Dragon Net easy to consume 2018 Infographic

API Documentation

APIs (on chain & off)

• Python SDK
• NodeJS/Javascript SDK
• Go SDK
• DCTL Package
• API References
• RESTful API

SDK Source

• https://github.com/dragonchain/dragonchain-sdk-python
• https://github.com/dragonchain/dragonchain-sdk-javascript
• https://github.com/dragonchain/dragonchain-sdk-go
• https://github.com/dragonchain/dragonchain-sdk-dart

Nobody’s Perfect

Known issues or tradeoffs

• Dragonchain is open source and even though the platform is easy enough for developers to code in any language they are comfortable with, we do not have so large a developer community as Ethereum. We would like to see the Ethereum developer community (and any other communities) become familiar with our SDK’s, our solutions, and our platform, to unlock the full potential of our Ethereum Interchain. Long ago we decided to prioritize both Bitcoin and Ethereum Interchains. We envision an ecosystem that encompasses different projects to give developers the ability to take full advantage of all the opportunities blockchain offers to create decentralized solutions not only for Reddit but for all of our current platforms and systems. We believe that together we will take the adoption of blockchain further. We currently have additional Interchain with Ethereum Classic. We look forward to Interchain with other blockchains in the future. We invite all blockchains projects who believe in decentralization and security to Interchain with Dragonchain.
• While we only have 700 nodes compared to 8,000 Ethereum and 10,000 Bitcoin nodes. We harness those 18,000 nodes to scale to extremely high levels of security. See Dragonchain metrics.
• Some may consider the centralization of Dragonchain’s business nodes as an issue at first glance, however, the model is by design to protect business data. We do not consider this a drawback as these nodes can make any, none, or all data public. Depending upon the implementation, every subreddit could have control of its own business node, for potential business and enterprise offerings, bringing new alternative revenue streams to Reddit.

Costs and resources

Summary of cost & resource information for both on-chain & off-chain components used in the PoC, as well as cost & resource estimates for further scaling. If your PoC is not on mainnet, make note of any mainnet caveats (such as congestion issues).

Every transaction on the PoC system had a transaction fee of $0.0001 (one-hundredth of a cent USD). At 256MM transactions, the demo cost $25,600. With current operational fees, the same demonstration would cost $640 USD.
For the demonstration, to achieve throughput to mimic a worldwide payments network, we modeled several clients in AWS and 4-5 business nodes to handle the traffic. The business nodes were tuned to handle higher throughput by adjusting memory and machine footprint on AWS. This flexibility is valuable to implementing a system such as envisioned by Reddit. Given that Reddit’s daily traffic (posts, replies, and votes) is less than half that of our demo, we would expect that the entire Reddit system could be handled on 2-5 business nodes using right-sized containers on AWS or similar environments.
Verification was accomplished on the operational Dragon Net network with over 700 independently owned verification nodes running around the world at no cost to the business other than paid transaction fees.

Requirements

Scaling

This PoC should scale to the numbers below with minimal costs (both on & off-chain). There should also be a clear path to supporting hundreds of millions of users.
Over a 5 day period, your scaling PoC should be able to handle:
*100,000 point claims (minting & distributing points) *25,000 subscriptions *75,000 one-off points burning *100,000 transfers

During Dragonchain’s 24 hour demo, the above required numbers were reached within the first few minutes.
Reddit’s total activity is 9000% more than Ethereum’s total transaction level. Even if you do not include votes, it is still 700% more than Ethereum’s current volume. Dragonchain has demonstrated that it can handle 250 million transactions a day, and it’s architecture allows for multiple systems to work at that level simultaneously. In our PoC, we demonstrate double the full capacity of Reddit, and every transaction was proven all the way to Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Reddit Scaling on Ethereum

Decentralization

Solutions should not depend on any single third-party provider. We prefer solutions that do not depend on specific entities such as Reddit or another provider, and solutions with no single point of control or failure in off-chain components but recognize there are numerous trade-offs to consider

Dragonchain’s architecture calls for a hybrid approach. Private business nodes hold the sensitive data while the validation and verification of transactions for the business are decentralized within seconds and secured to public blockchains within 10 minutes to 2 hours. Nodes could potentially be controlled by owners of individual subreddits for more organic decentralization.

• Billing is currently centralized - there is a path to federation and decentralization of a scaled billing solution.
• Operational multi-cloud
• Operational on-premises capabilities
• Operational deployment to any datacenter
• Over 700 independent Community Verification Nodes with proof of ownership
• Operational Interchain (Interoperable to Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ethereum Classic, open to more)

Usability Scaling solutions should have a simple end user experience.

Users shouldn't have to maintain any extra state/proofs, regularly monitor activity, keep track of extra keys, or sign anything other than their normal transactions

Dragonchain and its customers have demonstrated extraordinary usability as a feature in many applications, where users do not need to know that the system is backed by a live blockchain. Lyceum is one of these examples, where the progress of academy courses is being tracked, and successful completion of courses is rewarded with certificates on chain. Our @Save_The_Tweet bot is popular on Twitter. When used with one of the following hashtags - #please, #blockchain, #ThankYou, or #eternalize the tweet is saved through Eternal to multiple blockchains. A proof report is available for future reference. Other examples in use are DEN, our decentralized social media platform, and our console, where users can track their node rewards, view their TIME, and operate a business node.
Examples:

• Den social media
• Eternal & Save The Tweet bot
• Lyceum/Academy

​

Transactions complete in a reasonable amount of time (seconds or minutes, not hours or days)

All transactions are immediately usable on chain by the system. A transaction begins the path to decentralization at the conclusion of a 5-second block when it gets distributed across 5 separate community run nodes. Full decentralization occurs within 10 minutes to 2 hours depending on which interchain (Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Ethereum Classic) the transaction hits first. Within approximately 2 hours, the combined hash power of all interchained blockchains secures the transaction.
​

Free to use for end users (no gas fees, or fixed/minimal fees that Reddit can pay on their behalf)

With transaction pricing as low as $0.0000025 per transaction, it may be considered reasonable for Reddit to cover transaction fees for users.
All of Reddit's Transactions on Blockchain (month)
Community points can be earned by users and distributed directly to their Reddit account in batch (as per Reddit minting plan), and allow users to withdraw rewards to their Ethereum wallet whenever they wish. Withdrawal fees can be paid by either user or Reddit. This model has been operating inside the Dragonchain system since 2018, and many security and financial compliance features can be optionally added. We feel that this capability greatly enhances user experience because it is seamless to a regular user without cryptocurrency experience, yet flexible to a tech savvy user. With regard to currency or token transactions, these would occur on the Reddit network, verified to BTC and ETH. These transactions would incur the $0.0000025 transaction fee. To estimate this fee we use the monthly active Reddit users statista with a 60% adoption rate and an estimated 10 transactions per month average resulting in an approximate $720 cost across the system. Reddit could feasibly incur all associated internal network charges (mining/minting, transfer, burn) as these are very low and controllable fees.
Reddit Internal Token Transaction Fees
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Reddit Ethereum Token Transaction Fees
When we consider further the Ethereum fees that might be incurred, we have a few choices for a solution.

1. Offload all Ethereum transaction fees (user withdrawals) to interested users as they wish to withdraw tokens for external use or sale.
2. Cover Ethereum transaction fees by aggregating them on a timed schedule. Users would request withdrawal (from Reddit or individual subreddits), and they would be transacted on the Ethereum network every hour (or some other schedule).
3. In a combination of the above, customers could cover aggregated fees.
4. Integrate with alternate Ethereum roll up solutions or other proposals to aggregate minting and distribution transactions onto Ethereum.

Bonus Points

Users should be able to view their balances & transactions via a blockchain explorer-style interface

From interfaces for users who have no knowledge of blockchain technology to users who are well versed in blockchain terms such as those present in a typical block explorer, a system powered by Dragonchain has flexibility on how to provide balances and transaction data to users. Transactions can be made viewable in an Eternal Proof Report, which displays raw data along with TIME staking information and traceability all the way to Bitcoin, Ethereum, and every other Interchained network. The report shows fields such as transaction ID, timestamp, block ID, multiple verifications, and Interchain proof. See example here.
Node payouts within the Dragonchain console are listed in chronological order and can be further seen in either Dragons or USD. See example here.
In our social media platform, Dragon Den, users can see, in real-time, their NRG and MTR balances. See example here.
A new influencer app powered by Dragonchain, Raiinmaker, breaks down data into a user friendly interface that shows coin portfolio, redeemed rewards, and social scores per campaign. See example here.
​

Exiting is fast & simple

Withdrawing funds on Dragonchain’s console requires three clicks, however, withdrawal scenarios with more enhanced security features per Reddit’s discretion are obtainable.
​

Interoperability Compatibility with third party apps (wallets/contracts/etc) is necessary.

Proven interoperability at scale that surpasses the required specifications. Our entire platform consists of interoperable blockchains connected to each other and traditional systems. APIs are well documented. Third party permissions are possible with a simple smart contract without the end user being aware. No need to learn any specialized proprietary language. Any code base (not subsets) is usable within a Docker container. Interoperable with any blockchain or traditional APIs. We’ve witnessed relatively complex systems built by engineers with no blockchain or cryptocurrency experience. We’ve also demonstrated the creation of smart contracts within minutes built with BASH shell and Node.js. Please see our source code and API documentation.
​

Scaling solutions should be extensible and allow third parties to build on top of it Open source and extensible
APIs should be well documented and stable

• Python SDK
• NodeJS/Javascript SDK
• Go SDK
• DCTL Package
• API References
• RESTful API

​

Documentation should be clear and complete

For full documentation, explore our docs, SDK’s, Github repo’s, architecture documents, original Disney documentation, and other links or resources provided in this proposal.

• Github
• Architecture
• Disney Use Cases
• Den social media
• Dragon Den Blue Paper
• Core documentation
• Javascript SDK
• Python SDK
• Go SDK
• Dart SDK
• User friendly console
• TIME
• Academy
• Dragonchain Wikipedia

​

Third-party permissionless integrations should be possible & straightforward Smart contracts are Docker based, can be written in any language, use full language (not subsets), and can therefore be integrated with any system including traditional system APIs. Simple is better. Learning an uncommon or proprietary language should not be necessary.

Advanced knowledge of mathematics, cryptography, or L2 scaling should not be required. Compatibility with common utilities & toolchains is expected.
Dragonchain business nodes and smart contracts leverage Docker to allow the use of literally any language or executable code. No proprietary language is necessary. We’ve witnessed relatively complex systems built by engineers with no blockchain or cryptocurrency experience. We’ve also demonstrated the creation of smart contracts within minutes built with BASH shell and Node.js.

Bonus

Bonus Points: Show us how it works. Do you have an idea for a cool new use case for Community Points? Build it!

TIME

Community points could be awarded to Reddit users based upon TIME too, whereas the longer someone is part of a subreddit, the more community points someone naturally gained, even if not actively commenting or sharing new posts. A daily login could be required for these community points to be credited. This grants awards to readers too and incentivizes readers to create an account on Reddit if they browse the website often. This concept could also be leveraged to provide some level of reputation based upon duration and consistency of contribution to a community subreddit.

• TIME
• Learn more about TIME and how to apply this to your nodes

Dragon Den

Dragonchain has already built a social media platform that harnesses community involvement. Dragon Den is a decentralized community built on the Dragonchain blockchain platform. Dragon Den is Dragonchain’s answer to fake news, trolling, and censorship. It incentivizes the creation and evaluation of quality content within communities. It could be described as being a shareholder of a subreddit or Reddit in its entirety. The more your subreddit is thriving, the more rewarding it will be. Den is currently in a public beta and in active development, though the real token economy is not live yet. There are different tokens for various purposes. Two tokens are Lair Ownership Rights (LOR) and Lair Ownership Tokens (LOT). LOT is a non-fungible token for ownership of a specific Lair. LOT will only be created and converted from LOR.
Energy (NRG) and Matter (MTR) work jointly. Your MTR determines how much NRG you receive in a 24-hour period. Providing quality content, or evaluating content will earn MTR.

• Dragon Den Blue Paper
• Den social media

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Security. Users have full ownership & control of their points.

All community points awarded based upon any type of activity or gift, are secured and provable to all Interchain networks (currently BTC, ETH, ETC). Users are free to spend and withdraw their points as they please, depending on the features Reddit wants to bring into production.
​

Balances and transactions cannot be forged, manipulated, or blocked by Reddit or anyone else

Users can withdraw their balance to their ERC20 wallet, directly through Reddit. Reddit can cover the fees on their behalf, or the user covers this with a portion of their balance.
​

Users should own their points and be able to get on-chain ERC20 tokens without permission from anyone else

Through our console users can withdraw their ERC20 rewards. This can be achieved on Reddit too. Here is a walkthrough of our console, though this does not show the quick withdrawal functionality, a user can withdraw at any time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNlTMxnfVHw
​

Points should be recoverable to on-chain ERC20 tokens even if all third-parties involved go offline

If necessary, signed transactions from the Reddit system (e.g. Reddit + Subreddit) can be sent to the Ethereum smart contract for minting.
​

A public, third-party review attesting to the soundness of the design should be available

To our knowledge, at least two large corporations, including a top 3 accounting firm, have conducted positive reviews. These reviews have never been made public, as Dragonchain did not pay or contract for these studies to be released.
​

Bonus points
Public, third-party implementation review available or in progress

See above
​

Compatibility with HSMs & hardware wallets

For the purpose of this proposal, all tokenization would be on the Ethereum network using standard token contracts and as such, would be able to leverage all hardware wallet and Ethereum ecosystem services.

Other Considerations

Minting/distributing tokens is not performed by Reddit directly

This operation can be automated by smart contract on Ethereum. Subreddits can if desired have a role to play.
​

One off point burning, as well as recurring, non-interactive point burning (for subreddit memberships) should be possible and scalable

This is possible and scalable with interaction between Dragonchain Reddit system and Ethereum token contract(s).
​

Fully open-source solutions are strongly preferred

Dragonchain is fully open source (see section on Disney release after conclusion).

Conclusion

Whether it is today, or in the future, we would like to work together to bring secure flexibility to the highest standards. It is our hope to be considered by Ethereum, Reddit, and other integrative solutions so we may further discuss the possibilities of implementation. In our public demonstration, 256 million transactions were handled in our operational network on chain in 24 hours, for the low cost of $25K, which if run today would cost $625. Dragonchain’s interoperable foundation provides the atmosphere necessary to implement a frictionless community points system. Thank you for your consideration of our proposal. We look forward to working with the community to make something great!

Disney Releases Blockchain Platform as Open Source

The team at Disney created the Disney Private Blockchain Platform. The system was a hybrid interoperable blockchain platform for ledgering and smart contract development geared toward solving problems with blockchain adoption and usability. All objective evaluation would consider the team’s output a success. We released a list of use cases that we explored in some capacity at Disney, and our input on blockchain standardization as part of our participation in the W3C Blockchain Community Group.
https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-blockchain/2016May/0052.html

Open Source

In 2016, Roets proposed to release the platform as open source to spread the technology outside of Disney, as others within the W3C group were interested in the solutions that had been created inside of Disney.
Following a long process, step by step, the team met requirements for release. Among the requirements, the team had to:

• Obtain VP support and approval for the release
• Verify ownership of the software to be released
• Verify that no proprietary content would be released
• Convince the organization that there was a value to the open source community
• Convince the organization that there was a value to Disney
• Offer the plan for ongoing maintenance of the project outside of Disney
• Itemize competing projects
• Verify no conflict of interest
• Preferred license
• Change the project name to not use the name Disney, any Disney character, or any other associated IP - proposed Dragonchain - approved
• Obtain legal approval
• Approval from corporate, parks, and other business units
• Approval from multiple Disney patent groups Copyright holder defined by Disney (Disney Connected and Advanced Technologies)
• Trademark searches conducted for the selected name Dragonchain
• Obtain IT security approval
• Manual review of OSS components conducted
• OWASP Dependency and Vulnerability Check Conducted
• Obtain technical (software) approval
• Offer management, process, and financial plans for the maintenance of the project.
• Meet list of items to be addressed before release
• Remove all Disney project references and scripts
• Create a public distribution list for email communications
• Remove Roets’ direct and internal contact information
• Create public Slack channel and move from Disney slack channels
• Create proper labels for issue tracking
• Rename internal private Github repository
• Add informative description to Github page
• Expand README.md with more specific information
• Add information beyond current “Blockchains are Magic”
• Add getting started sections and info on cloning/forking the project
• Add installation details
• Add uninstall process
• Add unit, functional, and integration test information
• Detail how to contribute and get involved
• Describe the git workflow that the project will use
• Move to public, non-Disney git repository (Github or Bitbucket)
• Obtain Disney Open Source Committee approval for release

On top of meeting the above criteria, as part of the process, the maintainer of the project had to receive the codebase on their own personal email and create accounts for maintenance (e.g. Github) with non-Disney accounts. Given the fact that the project spanned multiple business units, Roets was individually responsible for its ongoing maintenance. Because of this, he proposed in the open source application to create a non-profit organization to hold the IP and maintain the project. This was approved by Disney.
The Disney Open Source Committee approved the application known as OSSRELEASE-10, and the code was released on October 2, 2016. Disney decided to not issue a press release.
Original OSSRELASE-10 document

Dragonchain Foundation

The Dragonchain Foundation was created on January 17, 2017. https://den.social/l/Dragonchain/24130078352e485d96d2125082151cf0/dragonchain-and-disney/

Written by chaintalk.tv
https://preview.redd.it/v238540taz751.jpg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2a852e171a74e49da802d7c12fadba452cf4cf43
We recently had the opportunity to interview the VP of ViaBTC Group, Eddie Jiang. ViaBTC Group owns popular crypto exchange CoinEx and ViaBTC Pool. In this interview Eddie discusses being the first exchange to use BCH as the base currency, ViaBTC Pool and integrating with CoinEx, new features and ambassador program, and competing with other exchanges like Binance and Huobi. Please enjoy the interview below.
How come you decided to open up CoinEx to other cryptos other than just BCH?
Eddie Jiang: CoinEx is the world’s first exchange to implement Bitcoin Cash as a base currency. At that time, it was evident that there was a demand for BCH trading markets, and we are the first to explore this opportunity. It also shows our determination to support the BCH’s development.
As CoinEx is developing, our goal becomes bigger and we are aiming at the global market. We need to constantly improve our product diversification to meet the different needs of more users, so we open up to other cryptos. In the past six months, we have listed more than 50 new tokens. Up to now, we have listed 129 cryptos and 313 markets. Besides, in addition to spot trading, CoinEx also supports perpetual contract and other derivatives trading.
How does CoinEx integrate with the ViaBTC Pool?
Eddie Jiang: ViaBTC Group announced a strategic upgrade, which included a new organizational structure, product innovations and service improvements, on 30 May.
As part of the change, the Group has established three dedicated business units (BU): the financial services BU, consisting of ViaBTC mining pool and CoinEx exchange; the infrastructure services BU, including ViaWallet and Blockchain Explorer; and the ecological development BU, focusing on the research and development of public chain technology and the construction of the ecology.
After halving, the combination of mining and finance will become closer and closer. Investing in mining machines is like buying a Bitcoin option. Miners need more flexible financial products to maintain and increase the value of assets, or hedging services. Based on this judgment, the operations of ViaBTC mining pool and CoinEx exchange will be integrated in the future to realize the financial empowerment of the mining pool to meet the diverse financial needs of miners.
Features of this integrated product upgrade can be summarized as: “ The mining pool is the wallet, and the wallet is the transaction.” ViaBTC is the world first mining pool that has a wallet embedded in the mining pool account. Users do not need to transfer the mined coins, and can realize the function of coin exchange within the wallet. For example, they can directly convert the mined coins into USDT to pay electricity bill. What’s more, users can store, deposit and withdraw their revenue, and transfer assets to CoinEx at any time without charge, as well as complete other operations on the exchange, such as purchasing wealth management products for asset preservation and appreciation. In addition, we also provide hedging services. All of the above functions can be completed in one stop in the mining pool, without the need to transfer assets between different platforms.
The exchange empowers the mining pool, and the mining pool will further bring more traffic and resources to the exchange. The two complement each other and development coordinately.
CoinEx has recently added many new features. Can you talk about what new updates were made to the platform and why you made them?
Eddie Jiang: We have always attached great importance to the development of overseas markets since our establishment, and one of our major goals this year is to cover at least 10 different languages speaking markets.
To realize this and to meet the needs of more users worldwide, CoinEx has been continuously optimizing and upgrading its operating strategies, products and services. Our product diversifications are constantly improving. As I said before, we have launched leverage trading, perpetual contract trading, and wealth management products in addition to just spot trading. However, we don’t ignore the importance of spot trading. More mainstream, popular, and high-quality tokens have been listed, and up to now, there are 129 tokens and 313 trading pairs on CoinEx.
During the epidemic, we have never slowed down our development. Lacking of the OTC service has always been a shortage for CoinEx. In March, we partner with Simplex to integrate the first fiat onramp to our platform. People now can buy crypto with their credit cards, which lowers the threshold for more people to enter the crypto world. Moreover, we announced global strategic partnership with Matrixport to provide people with large amount of fiat to crypto needs the OTC service. These newly launched services also help to attract more users.
At the same time, CoinEx has been launched in Arabic, Italian, English, Japanese, Russian, Korean and other 16 languages. Earlier we also carried out product upgrades, making the UI and function sections clearer.
In terms of operations, we launched an upgraded CoinEx Ambassador program in March. To best utilize each ambassador’s personal strengths, there are four categories of CoinEx Ambassador with different responsibilities, namely Referral Ambassador, Marketing Ambassador, Operation Ambassador, and Business Ambassador, which will expand our brand’s exposure and help CoinEx grow into a more international exchange platform.
From March until now CoinEx has seen a 100% increase in user registrations. Why is that and are you able to see where they are coming from?
Eddie Jiang: Because of the efforts mentioned above, in 2020, we’ve seen an exponential increase in activity in just the past few months alone. In this year alone, CoinEx’s daily registered users increased by 100%. These new users mainly come from markets such as the Middle East, Asia Pacific, and more.
Interestingly, we saw an uptick in traffic from the Middle East in March. User growth in Southeast Asia also picked up significantly, newly registered users increased by 133.6% in April.
With Binance, BitMex, Huobi, Bybit, and Deribit, controlling most of the crypto futures and options markets, where do you see CoinEx fitting in? How do you plan to capture market share from these large exchanges?
Eddie Jiang: We won’t compete with others. We focus on ourselves to improve products and our goal is to be better than yesterday.
Our pace is solid and steady, instead of focusing on temporary heat and flow. We have always attached great importance of spot trading, and we are committed to be responsible for users’ investment. We have set up CoinEx Institution, which is dedicated on project research. A listing committee consist of core team members review and vote on projects recommended by the CoinEx Institution. In this way, fraud projects are avoided as much as possible.
Besides, we will focus on niche areas with great potential. For example, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. CoinEx can serve users in those countries well by providing a platform with rich cryptos to trade, and will pay more efforts on refined operations in different countries.
Moreover, CoinEx has a very complete ecosystem. Financial services, infrastructure, and ecological development, the three business units complement each other. The infrastructure BU is our cornerstone and is positioned as a defensive product; the financial service BU is a cash cow and is positioned as an aggressive product; the ecological development BU focuses on the public chain ecology and is the future infrastructure.
What is the geographical breakdown of the CoinEx userbase?
Eddie Jiang: The current proportion of CoinEx’s overseas users has reached 80% of the total registered users, and mainly in Australia, Southeast Asia, North America, Middle East and South Korea.
Do you have plans to focus on any certain jurisdictions? How will you do that?
Eddie Jiang: When we evaluate regions, two things matter: policy and potential.
Whether an exchange’s business expansion in a region is smooth or not largely depends on the region’s policies. If the region is not very friendly towards cryptocurrency or has repeated attitudes, there will be more difficulties and the cost will be much higher.
For a region’s development potential, we need to think about the demand and market development status. South Korea, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and other regions are all areas with good potential for cryptocurrency development. Compared with Europe and America, policy risks in these countries are lower, and the supervision mechanism is relatively complete. The public has a high degree of awareness of cryptocurrencies. Besides, some regions or countries have inflation problems due to political and economic reasons.
CoinEx will continue to focus on the Middle East and South Asia, which are relatively niche. India has just lifted ban on cryptocurrency trading this year, and there are many cryptocurrency investors in Indian. CoinEx can serve them well by providing a platform with rich cryptos to trade. More people in the Middle East are interested cryptos, especially in countries that are subject to economic sanctions or high inflation. For those people, cryptocurrencies are one of the best choices for asset preservation.
Since the CoinEx Ambassador program launched in March, it has been almost three months. We are conducting the second round of ambassador recruitment. This time, we will use the power of ambassadors to expand our recruitment coverage and strive to attract more crypto enthusiasts from all over the world to grow together with CoinEx. Moreover, we will launch the National Expansion plan and leverage on the CoinEx and ViaBTC mining pool resources, to further explore the Russian market. At the market level, we will make more PR efforts in local markets, and start refined operations.
What is CoinEx Chain and CoinEx DEX?
Eddie Jiang: CoinEx Chain is a public chain built on the Tendermint consensus protocol and the Cosmos SDK. It consists of three dedicated public chains parallel to each other. Among these three chains, CoinEx DEX meets the most basic needs of DeFi for token issuance, transfer, and transactions. The Smart Chain is designed to meet the needs of complex financial scenarios and delivers programmable cash. The Privacy Chain facilitates privacy and security.
On November 11, 2019, we took the lead in launching the Mainnet of CoinEx DEX. CoinEx DEX is the world’s first public chain dedicated to decentralized transactions. Users can easily manage their digital assets on it.
CoinEx DEX can fully satisfy the following conditions: users have private keys at their own disposal; transfers and transactions are all completed on-chain, which is 200% transparent and checkable; the issuance, transfer, and transaction of tokens do not require review or permission; the community governance and operation is decentralized, similar to EOS, and validators are introduced to the community ecosystem construction and governance. There are currently 41 validators.
It also has extreme performance. TPS reaches as high as 10,000 and transactions are confirmed within seconds. The transaction fee, 0.0001 US dollars for each transaction, is negligible.
Third, it’s simple and easy to use. The new operation interface design helps beginners get started quickly; with the one-click token issuing module, users only need to fill in a few items to issue tokens; the built-in automated market-making module guarantees liquidity.
How will CoinEx DEX improve the decentralized exchange space that has been unable to gain much adoption?
Eddie Jiang: There are many challenges and difficulties facing centralized exchanges. The first difficulty is security. Security is a huge concern for CEXs. Over the last 10 years, hackers have stolen more than $1.5 billion from centralized exchanges. In fact, research groups estimate that hackers stole somewhere between $950 Million and $1 Billion from centralized exchanges in 2018 alone. There were also incidents of coin thefts in other exchanges in 2019. Many exchanges, such as Mt. Gox, Youbit, were forced to file for bankruptcy and shut down as a result of hacks.
The second is high management costs. Centralized exchanges need to list a large number of cryptocurrencies and each of them have different trading pairs. That entails huge efforts in development and maintenance and, thus, high management costs.
The last is global policies. Cryptocurrency is faced with different regulatory policies in different countries. Every time a centralized exchange enters a country, it needs to adapt itself to local regulatory policies for compliance. This is a holdback for the exchange’s rapid market expansion globally. Such adaptation will also bring a huge learning cost for the exchange team.
Obviously, these problems can be well solved by DEX. CoinEx DEX is a true DEX with full open source and full community governance, as well as without depending on official nodes, websites, wallets, etc. On DEX, users are able to in charge of their own private keys and assets all by themselves. Their assets are more safe and secure. Transfers and transactions are all completed on-chain, which is 200% transparent and checkable; and the issuance, transfer, and transaction of tokens do not require review or permission. What’s more, CoinEx DEX provides a great and convenient user experience.
How will CoinEx Chain and DEX help the crypto industry as a whole?
Eddie Jiang: The public chain is the cornerstone of the blockchain industry. CoinEx Chain has the parallelism of multiple dedicated public chains, each of which performs its own functions, by cross-chaining for both high performance and flexibility.
CoinEx Chain is committed to building the next generation of blockchain financial infrastructure. It is a more complete ecosystem built around the DEX public chain. The DEX public chain is a dedicated public chain developed specifically for token issuance and trading and the biggest improvement on trading speed, so it only supports the necessary functions, not smart contracts.
But smart contracts are the foundation for building more complex financial applications. Outside the DEX public chain, CoinEx Chain also includes a Smart Chain that supports smart contracts.
Moreover, as privacy issues on the current blockchain have been criticized, it is one of the core tasks of CoinEx Chain to safeguard users’ privacy. Similar to the Smart Chain, the Privacy Chain specifically supports transaction privacy protection. With cross-chain circulation, it can improve the privacy characteristic of the entire CoinEx Chain ecosystem.
Nowadays, 1.7 million people in the world have no bank accounts; however, among them, two thirds are smartphone users with huge demands for financial services. The public chain will empower DeFi applications’ development and popularization, not only help more companies to seize the huge market opportunity, but also to bring lasting transformations and improvements in people’s lives.
With so many crypto exchanges, what is the future outlook of CoinEx when it comes to the crypto exchange space?
Eddie Jiang: It has been nearly 3 years since CoinEx has been launched, but it’s quite young for an entrepreneurial team. We have seen too many projects’ failures due to governance issues. CoinEx has a very elite team with high technical and management capabilities. In terms of business, CoinEx has gradually developed with diversified business and a complete ecosystem. It’s clear that the market will still grow very fast in the future, and the market size is still very large. We will continue to improve our products, put more efforts in marketing and operations, as well as look for more high-quality projects, to increase the number of users and transactions on the platform. Lay a solid foundation, and I’m sure the time will come for us to shine.
What updates is the CoinEx team most excited for?
Eddie Jiang: We are very excited about the National Expansion Plan which will be launched later this year. It is an important part in CoinEx’s globalization strategy. We will actively explore some new markets while consolidate the original ones. CoinEx will set aside 10 million US dollars to set up a “Pioneer Fund” to support this plan. This fund will be used to support local cryptocurrency projects and promote the development of the local cryptocurrency communities through investment or cooperation. Our goal this year is to invest in projects and communities that are conducive to expanding the CoinEx ecosystem in countries with high development potential.
Original article
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Original article here: https://medium.com/wanchain-foundation/ama-with-wanchain-vp-lini-58ada078b4fe
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“What is unique about us is that we have actually put theory into practice.”
— Lini

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Wanchain’s Vice President of Business Development, Lini, sat down with blockchain media organization Neutrino for an AMA covering a wide range of topics concerning Wanchain’s development.
The following is an English translation of the original Chinese AMA which was held on December 13th, 2018:
Neutrino: Could you please first share with us a little basic background, what are the basic concepts behind cross chain technology? What are the core problems which are solved with cross-chain? In your opinion, what is the biggest challenge of implementing cross chain to achieve value transfer between different chains?
Lini: Actually, this question is quite big. Let me break it down into three smaller parts:

1. First, what is the meaning of “cross-chain”?

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In China, we like to use the word “cross-chain”, the term “interoperability” is used more frequently in foreign countries. Interoperability is also one of the important technologies identified by Vitalik for the development of a future blockchain ecosystem mentioned in the Ethereum white paper. So cross-chain is basically the concept of interoperability between chains.

1. The core problem solved by cross chain is that of “multi-ledger” synchronous accounting

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In essence, blockchain is a distributed bookkeeping technique, also known as distributed ledger technology. Tokens are the core units of account on each chain, there currently exist many different chains, each with their own token. Of especial importance is the way in which each ledger uses tokens to interact with each other for the purpose of clearing settlements.

1. The core purpose of the cross-chain technology is as one of the key infrastructures of the future economy based on digital currencies.

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Cross chain technology is one of the foundational technological infrastructures that is necessary for the large scale application of blockchain technology.
Neutrino: As we all know, there are many different kinds of cross-chain technologies. Please give us a brief introduction to several popular cross-chain technologies on the market, and the characteristics of each of these technologies。
Lini: Before answering this question, it is very important to share two important concepts with our friends: heterogeneity and homogeneity, and centralization and decentralization.
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These two points are especially important for understanding various cross-chain technologies, because there are many different technologies and terminologies, and these are some of the foundational concepts needed for understanding them.
There are also two core challenges which must be overcome to implement cross-chain:
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Combining the above two points, we look at the exploration of some solutions in the industry and the design concepts of other cross-chain projects.
First I’d like to discuss the Relay solution.
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However the Relay solution must consume a relatively large amount of gas to read the BTC header. Another downside is that, as we all know, Bitcoin’s blocks are relatively slow, so the time to wait for verification will be long, it usually takes about 10 minutes to wait for one block to confirm, and the best practice is to wait for 6 blocks.
The next concept is the idea of Sidechains.
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This solution is good, but not all chains contain SPV, a simple verification method. Therefore, there are certain drawbacks. Of course, this two way peg way solves challenge beta very well, that is, the atomicity of the transaction.
These two technical concepts have already been incorporated into a number of existing cross chain projects. Let’s take a look at two of the most influential of these.
The first is Polkadot.
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This is just a summary based on Polkadot’s whitepaper and most recent developments. The theoretical design is very good and can solve challenges alpha and beta. Last week, Neutrino organized a meetup with Polkadot, which we attended. In his talk, Gavin’s focus was on governance, he didn’t get into too much technical detail, but Gavin shared some very interesting ideas about chain governance mechanisms! The specific technical details of Polkadot may have to wait until after their main net is online before it can be analyzed.
Next is Cosmos.
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Cosmos is a star project who’s basic concept is similar to Polkadot. Cosmos’s approach is based on using a central hub. Both projects both take into account the issue of heterogeneous cross-chain transactions, and both have also taken into account how to solve challenges alpha and beta.
To sum up, each research and project team has done a lot of exploration on the best methods for implementing cross-chain technology, but many are still in the theoretical design stage. Unfortunately, since the main net has not launched yet, it is not possible to have a more detailed understanding of each project’s implementation. A blockchain’s development can be divided into two parts: theoretical design, and engineering implementation. Therefore, we can only wait until after the launch of each project’s main network, and then analyze it in more detail.
Neutrino: As mentioned in the white paper, Wanchain is a general ledger based on Ethereum, with the goal of building a distributed digital asset financial infrastructure. There are a few questions related to this. How do you solve Ethereum’s scaling problem? How does it compare with Ripple, which is aiming to be the standard trading protocol that is common to all major banks around the world? As a basic potential fundamental financial infrastructure, what makes Wanchain stand out?
Lini: This question is actually composed of two small questions. Let me answer the first one first.

1. Considerations about TPS.

First of all, Wanchain is not developed on Ethereum. Instead, it draws on some of Ethereum’s code and excellent smart contracts and virtual machine EVM and other mature technical solutions to build the mainnet of Wanchain.
The TPS of Ethereum is not high at this stage, which is limited by various factors such as the POW consensus mechanism. However, this point also in part is due to the characteristics of Ethereum’s very distributed and decentralized features. Therefore, in order to improve TPS, Wanchain stated in its whitepaper that it will launch its own POS consensus, thus partially solving the performance issues related to TPS. Wanchain’s POS is completely different from the POS mechanism of Ethereum 2.0 Casper.
Of course, at the same time, we are also paying close attention to many good proposals from the Ethereum community, such as sharding, state channels, side chains, and the Raiden network. Since blockchain exists in the world of open source, we can of course learn from other technological breakthroughs and use our own POS to further improve TPS. If we have some time at the end, I’d love to share some points about Wanchain’s POS mechanism.

1. Concerning, Ripple, it is completely different from what Wanchain hopes to do.

Ripple is focused on exchanges between different fiat pairs, the sharing of data between banks and financial institutions, as a clearing and settlement system, and also for the application of DLT, for example the Notary agent mechanism.
Wanchain is focused on different use cases, it is to act as a bridge between different tokens and tokens, and between assets and tokens. For various cross-chain applications it is necessary to consume WAN as a gas fee to pay out to nodes.
So it seems that the purpose Ripple and Wanchain serve are quite different. Of course, there are notary witnesses in the cross-chain mechanism, that is, everyone must trust the middleman. Ripple mainly serves financial clients, banks, so essentially everyone’s trust is already there.
Neutrino: We see that Wanchain uses a multi-party computing and threshold key sharing scheme for joint anchoring, and achieves “minimum cost” for integration through cross-chain communication protocols without changing the original chain mechanism. What are the technical characteristics of multi-party computing and threshold key sharing? How do other chains access Wanchain, what is the cross-chain communication protocol here? What is the cost of “minimum cost?
Lini: The answer to this question is more technical, involving a lot of cryptography, I will try to explain it in a simple way.

1. About sMPC -

It stands for secure multi-party computation. I will explain it using an example proposed by the scholar Andrew Yao, the only Turing Award winner in China. The scenario called Yao’s Millionaire Problem. How can two millionaires know who is wealthier without revealing the details of their wealth to each other or a trusted third party? I’m not going to explain the answer in detail here, but those who are interested can do a web search to learn more.
In sMPC multiple parties each holding their own piece of private data jointly perform a calculation (for example, calculating a maximum value) and obtain a calculation result. However, in the process, each party involved does not leak any of their respective data. Essentially sMPC calculation can allow for designing a protocol without relying on any trusted third parties, since no individual ever has access to the complete private information.
Secure multiparty computing can be abstractly understood as two parties who each have their own private data, and can calculate the results of a public function without leaking their private data. When the entire calculation is completed, only the calculation results are revealed to both parties, and neither of them knows the data of the other party and the intermediate data of the calculation process. The protocol used for secure multiparty computing is homomorphic encryption + secret sharing + OT (+ commitment scheme + zero knowledge proofs, etc.)
Wanchain’s 21 cross chain Storeman nodes use sMPC to participate in the verification of a transaction without obtaining of a user’s complete private key. Simply put, the user’s private key will have 21 pieces given to 21 anonymous people who each can only get 1/21 part, and can’t complete the whole key.

1. Shamir’s secret sharing

There are often plots in a movie where a top secret document needs to be handed over to, let’s say five secret agents. In order to protect against the chance of an agent from being arrested or betraying the rest, the five agents each hold only part of a secret key which will reveal the contents of the documents. But there is also a hidden danger: if one the agents are really caught, how can the rest of the agents access the information in the documents? At this point, you may wonder if there is any way for the agents to still recover the original text with only a portion of the keys? In other words, is there any method that allows a majority of the five people to be present to unlock the top secret documents? In this case, the enemy must be able to manipulate more than half of the agents to know the information in the secret documents.
Wanchain uses the threshold M<=N; N=21; M=16. That is to say, at least 16 Storeman nodes must participate in multi-party calculation to confirm a transaction. Not all 21 Storeman nodes are required to participate. This is a solution to the security problem of managing private keys.
Cross-chain communication protocols refers to the different communication methods used by different chains. This is because heterogeneous cross-chain methods can’t change the mechanism of the original chains. Nakamoto and Vitalik will not modify their main chains because they need BTC and ETH interoperability. Therefore, project teams that can only do cross-chain agreements to create different protocols for each chain to “talk”, or communicate. So the essence of a cross-chain protocol is not a single standard, but a multiple sets of standards. But there is still a shared sMPC and threshold design with the Storeman nodes.
The minimum cost is quite low, as can be shown with Wanchain 3.0’s cross chain implementation. In fact it requires just two smart contracts, one each on Ethereum and Wanchain to connect the two chains. To connect with Bitcoin all that is needed is to write a Bitcoin script. Our implementation guarantees both security and decentralization, while at the same time remaining simple and consuming less computation. The specific Ethereum contract and Bitcoin scripts online can be checked out by anyone interested in learning more.
Neutrino: What kind of consensus mechanism is currently used by Wanchain? In addition, what is the consensus and incentive mechanism for cross-chain transactions, and what is the purpose of doing so? And Wanchain will support cross-chain transactions (such as BTC, ETH) on mainstream public chains, asset cross-chain transactions between the alliance chains, and cross-chain transactions between the public and alliance chains, how can you achieve asset cross-chain security and privacy?
Lini: It is now PPOW (Permissioned Proof of Work), in order to ensure the reliability of the nodes before the cross-chain protocol design is completed, and to prepare to switch to POS (as according to the Whitepaper roadmap). The cross-chain consensus has been mentioned above, with the participation of a small consensus (at least 16 nodes) in a set of 21 Storeman nodes through sMPC and threshold secret sharing.
In addition, the incentive is achieved through two aspects: 1) 100% of the cross chain transaction fee is used to reward the Storeman node; 2) Wanchain has set aside a portion of their total token reserve as an incentive mechanism for encouraging Storeman nodes in case of small cross-chain transaction volume in the beginning.
It can be revealed that Storeman participation is opening gradually and will become completely distributed and decentralized in batches. The first phase of the Storeman node participation and rewards program is to be launched at the end of 2018. It is expected that the selection of participants will be completed within one quarter. Please pay attention to our official announcements this month.
In addition, for public chains, consortium chains, and private chains, asset transfer will also follow the cross-chain mechanism mentioned above, and generally follow the sMPC and threshold integration technology to ensure cross-chain security.
When it comes to privacy, this topic will be bigger. Going back to the Wanchain Whitepaper, we have provided privacy protection on Wanchain mainnet. Simply put, the principle is using ring signatures. The basic idea is that it mixes the original address with many other addresses to ensure privacy. We also use one-time address. In this mechanism a stamp system is used that generates a one-time address from a common address. This has been implemented since our 2.0 release.
But now only the privacy protection of native WAN transactions can be provided. The protection of cross-chain privacy and user experience will also be one of the important tasks for us in 2019.
Neutrino: At present, Wanchain uses Storeman as a cross-chain trading node. Can you introduce the Storeman mechanism and how to protect these nodes?
Lini: Let me one problem from two aspects.

1. As I introduced before in my explanation of sMPC, the Storeman node never holds the user’s private key, but only calculates the transaction in an anonymous and secure state, and the technology prevents the Storeman nodes from colluding.
2. Even after technical guarantees, we also designed a “double protection” against the risk from an economic point of view, that is, each node participating as a Storeman needs to pledge WAN in the contract as a “stake”. The pledge of WAN will be greater than the amount of any single transaction as a guarantee against loss of funds.

If the node is malicious (even if it is a probability of one in a billion), the community will be compensated for the loss caused by the malicious node by confiscation of the staked WAN. This is like the POS mechanism used by ETH, using staking to prevent bad behavior is a common principle.
Neutrino: On December 12th, the mainnet of Wanchain 3.0 was launched. Wanchain 3.0 opened cross-chain transactions between Bitcoin, Ethereum and ERC20 (such as MakerDao’s stable currency DAI and MKR). What does this version mean for you and the industry? This upgrade of cross-chain with Bitcoin is the biggest bright spot. So, if now you are able to use Wanchain to make transactions between what is the difference between tokens, then what is the difference between a cross chain platform like Wanchain and cryptocurrency exchanges?
Lini: The release of 3.0 is the industry’s first major network which has crossed ETH and BTC, and it has been very stable so far. As mentioned above, many cross-chain, password-protected theoretical designs are very distinctive, but for engineering implementation, the whether or not it can can be achieved is a big question mark. Therefore, this time Wanchain is the first network launched in the world to achieve this. Users are welcome to test and attack. This also means that Wanchain has connected the two most difficult and most challenging public networks. We are confident we will soon be connecting other well-known public chains.
At the same time of the release of 3.0, we also introduced cross chain integration with other ERC20 tokens in the 2.X version, such as MakerDao’s DAI, MKR, LRC, etc., which also means that more tokens of excellent projects on Ethereum will also gradually be integrated with Wanchain.
Some people will be curious, since Wanchain has crossed so many well-known public chains/projects; how is it different with crypto exchanges? In fact, it is very simple, one centralized; one distributed. Back to the white paper of Nakamoto, is not decentralization the original intention of blockchain? So what Wanchain has to do is essentially to solve the bottom layer of the blockchain, one of the core technical difficulties.
Anyone trying to create a DEX (decentralized exchange); digital lending and other application scenarios can base their application on Wanchain. There is a Wanchain based DEX prototype made by our community members Jeremiah and Harry, which quite amazing. Take a look at this video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=codcqb66G6Q
Neutrino: What are the specific application use cases after the launch of Wanchain 3.0? Most are still exploring small-scale projects. According to your experience, what are the killer blockchain applications of the future? What problems need to be solved during this period? How many years does it take?
Lini:

1. Wanchain is just a technology platform rather than positioning itself as an application provider; that is, Wanchain will continue to support the community, and the projects which use cross-chain technology to promote a wide range of use cases for Wanchain.
2. Cross-chain applications that we anticipate include things like: decentralized exchanges, digital lending, cross chain games, social networking dAPPs, gambling, etc. We also expect to see applications using non fungible tokens, for example exchange of real assets, STOs, etc.
3. We recently proposed the WanDAPP solution. Simply speaking, a game developer for example has been developing on Ethereum, and ERC20 tokens have been issued, but they hope to expand the player base of their games to attract more people. To participate and make full use of their DAPP, you can consider using the WanDAPP solution to deploy the game DAPP on other common platforms, such as EOS, TRON, etc., but you don’t have to issue new tokens on these chains or use the previous ERC20 tokens. In this way the potential user population of the game can be increased greatly without issuing more tokens on a new chain, improving the real value of the original token. This is accomplished completely using the cross-chain mechanism of Wanchain.
4. For large-scale applications, the infrastructure of the blockchain is not yet complete, there are issues which must first be dealt with such as TPS, sharding, sidechains, state channels, etc. These all must be solved for the large-scale application of blockchain applications. I don’t dare to guess when it will be completed, it depends on the progress of various different technical projects. In short, industry practitioners and enthusiasts need a little faith and patience.

Neutrino community member Block Venture Capital Spring: Will Wanchain be developing any more cross chain products aimed at general users? For example will the wallet be developed to make automatic cross chain transfers with other public chains? Another issue the community is concerned about is the currency issuance. Currently there are more than 100 million WAN circulating, what about the rest, when will it be released?
Lini: As a cross-chain public chain, we are not biased towards professional developers or ordinary developers, and they are all the same. As mentioned above, we provide a platform as infrastructure, and everyone is free to develop applications on us.
For example, if it is a decentralized exchange, it must be for ordinary users to trade on; if it is some kind of financial derivatives product, it is more likely to be used by finance professionals. As for cross-chain wallets which automatically exchange, I’m not sure if you are talking about distributed exchanges, the wallet will not be “automatic” at first, but you can “automatically” redeem other tokens.
Finally, the remaining WAN tokens are strictly in accordance with the plan laid out in the whitepaper. For example, the POS node reward mentioned above will give 10% of the total amount for reward. At the same time, for the community, there are also rewards for the bounty program. The prototype of the DEX that I just saw is a masterpiece of the overseas community developers, and also received tokens from our incentive program.
Neutrino community member’s question: There are many projects in the market to solve cross-chain problems, such as: Cosmos, Polkadot, what are Wanchain’s advantages and innovations relative to these projects?
Lini: As I mentioned earlier, Cosmos and pPolkadot all proposed very good solutions in theory. Compared with Wanchain, I don’t think that we have created anything particularly unique in our theory. The theoretical basis for our work is cryptography, which is derived from the academic foundation of scholars such as Yao Zhizhi and Silvio Micali. Our main strong point is that we have taken theory and put it into practice..
Actually, the reason why people often question whether a blockchain project can be realized or not is because the whitepapers are often too ambitious. Then when they actually start developing there are constant delays and setbacks. So for us, we focus on completing our very solid and realizable engineering goals. As for other projects, we hope to continue to learn from each other in this space.
Neutrino community member Amos from Huobi Research Institute question: How did you come to decide on 21 storeman nodes?
Lini: As for the nodes we won’t make choices based on quantity alone. The S in the POS actually also includes the time the tokens are staked, so that even if a user is staking less tokens, the amount of time they stake them for will also be used to calculate the award, so that is more fair. We designed the ULS (Unique Leader Selection) algorithm in order to reduce the reliance on the assumption of corruption delay (Cardano’s POS theory). which is used for ensuring fairness to ensure that all participants in the system can have a share of the reward, not only few large token holders.
Wu Di, a member of the Neutrino community: Many big exchanges have already begun to deploy decentralized exchanges. For example, Binance, and it seems that the progress is very fast. Will we be working with these influential exchanges in the future? We we have the opportunity to cooperate with them and broaden our own influence?
Lini: I also have seen some other exchange’s DEX. Going back the original point, distributed cross-chain nodes and centralized ones are completely different. I’m guessing that most exchanges use a centralized cross-chain solution, so it may not be the same as the 21 member Storeman group of Wanchain, but I think that most exchanges will likely be using their own token and exchange system. This is my personal understanding. But then, if you are developing cross chain technology, you will cooperate with many exchanges that want to do a DEX. Not only Binance, but also Huobi, Bithumb, Coinbase… And if there is anyone else who would like to cooperate we welcome them!
Neutrino community member AnneJiang from Maker: Dai as the first stable chain of Wanchain will open a direct trading channel between Dai and BTC. In relation to the Dai integration, has any new progress has been made on Wanchain so far?
Lini: DAI’s stable currency has already been integrated on Wanchain. I just saw it yesterday, let me give you a picture. It’s on the current 3.0 browser, https://www.wanscan.org/, you can take a look at it yourself.
This means that users with DAI are now free to trade for BTC, or ETH or some erc20 tokens. There is also a link to the Chainlink, and LRC is Loopring, so basically there are quite a few excellent project tokens. You may use the Wanchain to trade yourself, but since the DEX is not currently open, currently you can only trade with friends you know.
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About Neutrino

Neutrino is a distributed, innovative collaborative community of blockchains. At present, we have established physical collaboration spaces in Tokyo, Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai and other places, and have plans to expand into important blockchain innovation cities such as Seoul, Thailand, New York and London. Through global community resources and partnerships, Neutrino organizes a wide range of online an offline events, seminars, etc. around the world to help developers in different regions better communicate and share their experiences and knowledge.

About Wanchain

Wanchain is a blockchain platform that enables decentralized transfer of value between blockchains. The Wanchain infrastructure enables the creation of distributed financial applications for individuals and organizations. Wanchain currently enables cross-chain transactions with Ethereum, and today’s product launch will enable the same functionalities with Bitcoin. Going forward, we will continue to bridge blockchains and bring cross-chain finance functionality to companies in the industry. Wanchain has employees globally with offices in Beijing (China), Austin (USA), and London (UK).
You can find more information about Wanchain on our website. Additionally, you can reach us through Telegram, Discord, Medium, Twitter, and Reddit. You can also sign up for our monthly email newsletter here.
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