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https://preview.redd.it/rqt2dldyg8e51.jpg?width=1044&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=777ae9d4fbbb54c3540682b72700fc4ba3de0a44
We are excited to participate and present Syscoin Platform's ideal characteristics and capabilities towards a well-rounded Reddit Community Points solution!
Our scaling solution for Reddit Community Points involves 2-way peg interoperability with Ethereum. This will provide a scalable token layer built specifically for speed and high volumes of simple value transfers at a very low cost, while providing sovereign ownership and onchain finality.
Token transfers scale by taking advantage of a globally sorting mempool that provides for probabilistically secure assumptions of “as good as settled”. The opportunity here for token receivers is to have an app-layer interactivity on the speed/security tradeoff (99.9999% assurance within 10 seconds). We call this Z-DAG, and it achieves high-throughput across a mesh network topology presently composed of about 2,000 geographically dispersed full-nodes. Similar to Bitcoin, however, these nodes are incentivized to run full-nodes for the benefit of network security, through a bonded validator scheme. These nodes do not participate in the consensus of transactions or block validation any differently than other nodes and therefore do not degrade the security model of Bitcoin’s validate first then trust, across every node. Each token transfer settles on-chain. The protocol follows Bitcoin core policies so it has adequate code coverage and protocol hardening to be qualified as production quality software. It shares a significant portion of Bitcoin’s own hashpower through merged-mining.
This platform as a whole can serve token microtransactions, larger settlements, and store-of-value in an ideal fashion, providing probabilistic scalability whilst remaining decentralized according to Bitcoin design. It is accessible to ERC-20 via a permissionless and trust-minimized bridge that works in both directions. The bridge and token platform are currently available on the Syscoin mainnet. This has been gaining recent attention for use by loyalty point programs and stablecoins such as Binance USD.

Solutions

Syscoin Foundation identified a few paths for Reddit to leverage this infrastructure, each with trade-offs. The first provides the most cost-savings and scaling benefits at some sacrifice of token autonomy. The second offers more preservation of autonomy with a more narrow scope of cost savings than the first option, but savings even so. The third introduces more complexity than the previous two yet provides the most overall benefits. We consider the third as most viable as it enables Reddit to benefit even while retaining existing smart contract functionality. We will focus on the third option, and include the first two for good measure.

1. Distribution, burns and user-to-user transfers of Reddit Points are entirely carried out on the Syscoin network. This full-on approach to utilizing the Syscoin network provides the most scalability and transaction cost benefits of these scenarios. The tradeoff here is distribution and subscription handling likely migrating away from smart contracts into the application layer.
2. The Reddit Community Points ecosystem can continue to use existing smart contracts as they are used today on the Ethereum mainchain. Users migrate a portion of their tokens to Syscoin, the scaling network, to gain much lower fees, scalability, and a proven base layer, without sacrificing sovereign ownership. They would use Syscoin for user-to-user transfers. Tips redeemable in ten seconds or less, a high-throughput relay network, and onchain settlement at a block target of 60 seconds.
3. Integration between Matic Network and Syscoin Platform - similar to Syscoin’s current integration with Ethereum - will provide Reddit Community Points with EVM scalability (including the Memberships ERC777 operator) on the Matic side, and performant simple value transfers, robust decentralized security, and sovereign store-of-value on the Syscoin side. It’s “the best of both worlds”. The trade-off is more complex interoperability.

Syscoin + Matic Integration

Matic and Blockchain Foundry Inc, the public company formed by the founders of Syscoin, recently entered a partnership for joint research and business development initiatives. This is ideal for all parties as Matic Network and Syscoin Platform provide complementary utility. Syscoin offers characteristics for sovereign ownership and security based on Bitcoin’s time-tested model, and shares a significant portion of Bitcoin’s own hashpower. Syscoin’s focus is on secure and scalable simple value transfers, trust-minimized interoperability, and opt-in regulatory compliance for tokenized assets rather than scalability for smart contract execution. On the other hand, Matic Network can provide scalable EVM for smart contract execution. Reddit Community Points can benefit from both.
Syscoin + Matic integration is actively being explored by both teams, as it is helpful to Reddit, Ethereum, and the industry as a whole.

Proving Performance & Cost Savings

Our POC focuses on 100,000 on-chain settlements of token transfers on the Syscoin Core blockchain. Transfers and burns perform equally with Syscoin. For POCs related to smart contracts (subscriptions, etc), refer to the Matic Network proposal.
On-chain settlement of 100k transactions was accomplished within roughly twelve minutes, well-exceeding Reddit’s expectation of five days. This was performed using six full-nodes operating on compute-optimized AWS c4.2xlarge instances which were geographically distributed (Virginia, London, Sao Paulo Brazil, Oregon, Singapore, Germany). A higher quantity of settlements could be reached within the same time-frame with more broadcasting nodes involved, or using hosts with more resources for faster execution of the process.
Addresses used: 100,014
The demonstration was executed using this tool. The results can be seen in the following blocks:
612722: https://sys1.bcfn.ca/block/6d47796d043bb4c508d29123e6ae81b051f5e0aaef849f253c8f3a6942a022ce
612723: https://sys1.bcfn.ca/block/8e2077f743461b90f80b4bef502f564933a8e04de97972901f3d65cfadcf1faf
612724: https://sys1.bcfn.ca/block/205436d25b1b499fce44c29567c5c807beaca915b83cc9f3c35b0d76dbb11f6e
612725: https://sys1.bcfn.ca/block/776d1b1a0f90f655a6bbdf559ff5072459cbdc5682d7615ff4b78c00babdc237
612726: https://sys1.bcfn.ca/block/de4df0994253742a1ac8ac9eec8d2a8c8b0a6d72c53d6f3caa29bb6c171b0a6b
612727: https://sys1.bcfn.ca/block/e5e167c52a9decb313fbaadf49a5e34cb490f8084f642a850385476d4ef10d70
612728: https://sys1.bcfn.ca/block/ab64d989edc71890e7b5b8491c20e9a27520dc45a5f7c776d3dae79057f59fe7
612729: https://sys1.bcfn.ca/block/5e8b7ecd0e36f99d07e4ea6e135fc952bf7ec30164ab6f4d1e98b0f2d405df6d
612730: https://sys1.bcfn.ca/block/d395df3d31dde60bbb0bece6bd5b358297da878f0beb96be389e5f0e043580a3
It is important to note that this POC is not focused on Z-DAG. The performance of Z-DAG has been benchmarked within realistic network conditions: Whiteblock’s audit is publicly available. Network latency tests showed an average TPS around 15k with burst capacity up to 61k. Zero-latency control group exhibited ~150k TPS. Mainnet testing of the Z-DAG network is achievable and will require further coordination and additional resources.
Even further optimizations are expected in the upcoming Syscoin Core release which will implement a UTXO model for our token layer bringing further efficiency as well as open the door to additional scaling technology currently under research by our team and academic partners. At present our token layer is account-based, similar to Ethereum. Opt-in compliance structures will also be introduced soon which will offer some positive performance characteristics as well. It makes the most sense to implement these optimizations before performing another benchmark for Z-DAG, especially on the mainnet considering the resources required to stress-test this network.

Cost Savings

Total cost for these 100k transactions: $0.63 USD
See the live fee comparison for savings estimation between transactions on Ethereum and Syscoin. Below is a snapshot at time of writing:
ETH price: $318.55 ETH gas price: 55.00 Gwei ($0.37)
Syscoin price: $0.11
Snapshot of live fee comparison chart
Z-DAG provides a more efficient fee-market. A typical Z-DAG transaction costs 0.0000582 SYS. Tokens can be safely redeemed/re-spent within seconds or allowed to settle on-chain beforehand. The costs should remain about this low for microtransactions.
Syscoin will achieve further reduction of fees and even greater scalability with offchain payment channels for assets, with Z-DAG as a resilience fallback. New payment channel technology is one of the topics under research by the Syscoin development team with our academic partners at TU Delft. In line with the calculation in the Lightning Networks white paper, payment channels using assets with Syscoin Core will bring theoretical capacity for each person on Earth (7.8 billion) to have five on-chain transactions per year, per person, without requiring anyone to enter a fee market (aka “wait for a block”). This exceeds the minimum LN expectation of two transactions per person, per year; one to exist on-chain and one to settle aggregated value.

Tools, Infrastructure & Documentation

Syscoin Bridge

Mainnet Demonstration of Syscoin Bridge with the Basic Attention Token ERC-20
A two-way blockchain interoperability system that uses Simple Payment Verification to enable:

• Any Standard ERC-20 token to be moved from Ethereum to the Syscoin blockchain as a Syscoin Platform Token (SPT), and back to Ethereum
• Any SPT to be moved from Syscoin to the Ethereum blockchain as an ERC-20 token, and back to Syscoin

Benefits

• Permissionless
• No counterparties involved
• No trading mechanisms involved
• No third-party liquidity providers required
• Cross-chain Fractional Supply - 2-way peg - Token supply maintained globally
• ERC-20s gain vastly improved transactionality with the Syscoin Token Platform, along with the security of bitcoin-core-compliant PoW.
• SPTs gain access to all the tooling, applications and capabilities of Ethereum for ERC-20, including smart contracts.

https://preview.redd.it/l8t2m8ldh8e51.png?width=1180&format=png&auto=webp&s=b0a955a0181746dc79aff718bd0bf607d3c3aa23
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Source code

https://github.com/syscoin/?q=sysethereum
Main Subprojects

• Sysethereum contracts: Ethereum contract deployment source code.
• Sysethereum agents: External agents.
• Sysethereum Dapp: UI Dapp for reference implementation. The Sysethereum-Dapp automates the process flows depicted in “Syscoin Bridge & How it Works” within a native ReactJS application for convenience. An active implementation using the Syscoin Platform Mainnet can be used at bridge.syscoin.org.

API

Tools to simplify using Syscoin Bridge as a service with dapps and wallets will be released some time after implementation of Syscoin Core 4.2. These will be based upon the same processes which are automated in the current live Sysethereum Dapp that is functioning with the Syscoin mainnet.

Documentation

Syscoin Bridge & How it Works (description and process flow)
Superblock Validation Battles
HOWTO: Provision the Bridge for your ERC-20
HOWTO: Setup an Agent
Developer & User Diligence

Trade-off

The Syscoin Ethereum Bridge is secured by Agent nodes participating in a decentralized and incentivized model that involves roles of Superblock challengers and submitters. This model is open to participation. The benefits here are trust-minimization, permissionless-ness, and potentially less legal/regulatory red-tape than interop mechanisms that involve liquidity providers and/or trading mechanisms.
The trade-off is that due to the decentralized nature there are cross-chain settlement times of one hour to cross from Ethereum to Syscoin, and three hours to cross from Syscoin to Ethereum. We are exploring ways to reduce this time while maintaining decentralization via zkp. Even so, an “instant bridge” experience could be provided by means of a third-party liquidity mechanism. That option exists but is not required for bridge functionality today. Typically bridges are used with batch value, not with high frequencies of smaller values, and generally it is advantageous to keep some value on both chains for maximum availability of utility. Even so, the cross-chain settlement time is good to mention here.

Cost

Ethereum -> Syscoin: Matic or Ethereum transaction fee for bridge contract interaction, negligible Syscoin transaction fee for minting tokens
Syscoin -> Ethereum: Negligible Syscoin transaction fee for burning tokens, 0.01% transaction fee paid to Bridge Agent in the form of the ERC-20, Matic or Ethereum transaction fee for contract interaction.

Z-DAG

Zero-Confirmation Directed Acyclic Graph is an instant settlement protocol that is used as a complementary system to proof-of-work (PoW) in the confirmation of Syscoin service transactions. In essence, a Z-DAG is simply a directed acyclic graph (DAG) where validating nodes verify the sequential ordering of transactions that are received in their memory pools. Z-DAG is used by the validating nodes across the network to ensure that there is absolute consensus on the ordering of transactions and no balances are overflowed (no double-spends).

Benefits

• Unique fee-market that is more efficient for microtransaction redemption and settlement
• Uses decentralized means to enable tokens with value transfer scalability that is comparable or exceeds that of credit card networks
• Provides high throughput and secure fulfillment even if blocks are full
• Probabilistic and interactive
• 99.9999% security assurance within 10 seconds
• Can serve payment channels as a resilience fallback that is faster and lower-cost than falling-back directly to a blockchain
• Each Z-DAG transaction also settles onchain through Syscoin Core at 60-second block target using SHA-256 Proof of Work consensus

https://preview.redd.it/pgbx84jih8e51.png?width=1614&format=png&auto=webp&s=5f631d42a33dc698365eb8dd184b6d442def6640

Source code

https://github.com/syscoin/syscoin

API

Syscoin-js provides tooling for all Syscoin Core RPCs including interactivity with Z-DAG.

Documentation

Z-DAG White Paper
Useful read: An in-depth Z-DAG discussion between Syscoin Core developer Jag Sidhu and Brave Software Research Engineer Gonçalo Pestana

Trade-off

Z-DAG enables the ideal speed/security tradeoff to be determined per use-case in the application layer. It minimizes the sacrifice required to accept and redeem fast transfers/payments while providing more-than-ample security for microtransactions. This is supported on the premise that a Reddit user receiving points does need security yet generally doesn’t want nor need to wait for the same level of security as a nation-state settling an international trade debt. In any case, each Z-DAG transaction settles onchain at a block target of 60 seconds.

Syscoin Specs

Syscoin 3.0 White Paper
(4.0 white paper is pending. For improved scalability and less blockchain bloat, some features of v3 no longer exist in current v4: Specifically Marketplace Offers, Aliases, Escrow, Certificates, Pruning, Encrypted Messaging)

• 16MB block bandwidth per minute assuming segwit witness carrying transactions, and transactions ~200 bytes on average
• SHA256 merge mined with Bitcoin
• UTXO asset layer, with base Syscoin layer sharing identical security policies as Bitcoin Core
• Z-DAG on asset layer, bridge to Ethereum on asset layer
• On-chain scaling with prospect of enabling enterprise grade reliable trustless payment processing with on/offchain hybrid solution
• Focus only on Simple Value Transfers. MVP of blockchain consensus footprint is balances and ownership of them. Everything else can reduce data availability in exchange for scale (Ethereum 2.0 model). We leave that to other designs, we focus on transfers.
• Future integrations of MAST/Taproot to get more complex value transfers without trading off trustlessness or decentralization.
• Zero-knowledge Proofs are a cryptographic new frontier. We are dabbling here to generalize the concept of bridging and also verify the state of a chain efficiently. We also apply it in our Digital Identity projects at Blockchain Foundry (a publicly traded company which develops Syscoin softwares for clients). We are also looking to integrate privacy preserving payment channels for off-chain payments through zkSNARK hub & spoke design which does not suffer from the HTLC attack vectors evident on LN. Much of the issues plaguing Lightning Network can be resolved using a zkSNARK design whilst also providing the ability to do a multi-asset payment channel system. Currently we found a showstopper attack (American Call Option) on LN if we were to use multiple-assets. This would not exist in a system such as this.

Wallets

Web3 and mobile wallets are under active development by Blockchain Foundry Inc as WebAssembly applications and expected for release not long after mainnet deployment of Syscoin Core 4.2. Both of these will be multi-coin wallets that support Syscoin, SPTs, Ethereum, and ERC-20 tokens. The Web3 wallet will provide functionality similar to Metamask.
Syscoin Platform and tokens are already integrated with Blockbook. Custom hardware wallet support currently exists via ElectrumSys. First-class HW wallet integration through apps such as Ledger Live will exist after 4.2.
Current supported wallets
Syscoin Spark Desktop
Syscoin-Qt

Explorers

Mainnet: https://sys1.bcfn.ca (Blockbook)
Testnet: https://explorer-testnet.blockchainfoundry.co
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Thank you for close consideration of our proposal. We look forward to feedback, and to working with the Reddit community to implement an ideal solution using Syscoin Platform!

Heyo! Continuing with our six-part catch up series to get up to date on the May and June news from Parachute and partners, here’s Part II of VI (22 May - 28 May'20):
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If you're in crypto, there's often the random pump/moon/wenBinance talk that props up from time to time in groups. Especially, when someone new joins a project and is unfamiliar with the community culture. At Parachute, we have always made it a point to have more meaningful discussions than price. Cap shared some of his thoughts on this as well. For the #culturalweekend prompt this week, Jason got Parachuters to share about “something weird your family does that is a tradition for them but not a traditional tradition”. Peace Love’s Big Trivia in TTR was quite fun as always. The beta testing group for ParJar swaps was set up this week. Also, Chris organised something amazing this week which will possibly remain a secret amongst Parachute admins (and Doc Vic 😊 ). But if word of it ever goes out, you’ll realise why Parachute is the most wholesome project in all of crypto. Chris also gave out some cool $PAR to folks in the Parachute channel to talk about "something that you didn't spend much money on that had a big impact on your quality of life". This week's Two-for-Tuesday featured music from "female artists, including bands with at least one female member". Click here for the playlist. Thanks Sebastian!
Some good cheer from Alexis all the way from Germany
aXpire’s May recap video covers product updates from Bilr, PayBX etc. To track this week’s 20k $AXPR burn, click here. The team also shared success strategies for law firms. 2gether co-founder Salvador Casquero wrote about best security practices in finance. A new update was pushed to Wednesday Coin’s dApp, WednesdayClub. In this week’s XIO discussions, Citizens talked about ideal time allocation strategies for research and execution. Top Citizens on the Leaderboard stand a chance to win some cool merch. Also, watch out for pesky scams. Voyager announced a partnership with Sterling Trading Tech to launch a crypto trading widget. Proactive Investors covered Voyager in its latest piece chronicling their growing user base. As mentioned in a previous update, CEO Stephen Ehrlich’s crypto investment webinar happened this week. Switch crew did a community AMA just before the $GHOST airdrop snapshot. The team expanded with new dev hires. In preparation for the $GHOST airdrop, ProBit completed its $VSF:$ESH swap and Stex announced support for $ESH/$GHOST airdrop. $ESH was listed on HitBTC and Changelly. Folks who guessed these exchanges correctly won some tokens as well. Founder Josh Case sat down with Mr. Backwards for an interview. Among several updates to the Ghost website, a staking calculator was added. Click here to read the latest technical update from Fantom. $FTM was in the running to be added as a collateral for DAI. Congratulations to Uptrennd for becoming the highest ranked blockchain-based social media platform as per Alexa. They started a SmartLink campaign with 2key Network. The first Uptrennd halvening went live this week. The team is reachable on Discord from now as well. District0x’s latest District Weekly and Dev Updates can be read here and here respectively. Hydro team shared their thoughts on how virtual cards for independent contractors (otherwise referred to as 1099 employees) could improve reimbursement practices. Entries for their Decentralization Ambassador program were opened this week.
These look great, XIO team
This is what is planned for the GHOST ecosystem currently
SelfKey compiled a master list of crypto lending platforms. The Loans Marketplace will feature many of these. Full transcript of the May 12th AMA was released. SelfKey advisor Edmund Lowell spoke at the BlockConf DIGITAL conference this week. Mongolian exchange AIS-X joined the Exchange Marketplace. Pynk’s crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs went live this week. Check out their campaign video here. Amazing production! Plus, this cool feature in City A.M. was the perfect way to close off the week. Wibson hosted a meetup (online of course!) for its Spanish speaking community this week. The crew also introduced the app at an Ethereum event in Buenos Aires. Harmony burned all mainnet tokens mined before Open Staking going public. The latest staking stats and validator data can be seen here and here respectively. That’s right, 3B+ $ONE is already staked. Woohoo! With its latest CoinDCX listing, $ONE got its first INR trading pair. Saweet! The major improvement proposals that were discussed with the community this week were making Open Staking more decentralized and creating a more liquid staking market. This led to the first release after Open Staking. The winners of the effective-median-stake contest were announced. Hope you got a chance to take part in the Flash Quiz. Do you know about all the projects that have been built in the Harmony ecosystem? Here’s a rundown. The team hosted an AMA as well. BitMax changed some of its rules for $ONE staking. Check out COTI’s latest network growth stats here. And super congratulations on winning the Gate.io listing vote! $COTI was also added to Binance’s Locked Savings staking program. Broking platform Troy Trade partnered with COTI to improve its scalability. DoYourTip’s $DYT now has 2500+ HODLers. Neat! Mycro was invited to join BitForex’s app platform CAPP Town. GET Protocol’s GUTS Tickets was covered in Cryptogeeks’ latest blogpost on blockchain-based ticketing.
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And with that, it’s a wrap for this week in Parachute and partners! See you again with another update. Cheerio!

Author: Gamals Ahmed, CoinEx Business Ambassador
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ABSTRACT

In this research report, we present a study on Kyber Network. Kyber Network is a decentralized, on-chain liquidity protocol designed to make trading tokens simple, efficient, robust and secure.
Kyber design allows any party to contribute to an aggregated pool of liquidity within each blockchain while providing a single endpoint for takers to execute trades using the best rates available. We envision a connected liquidity network that facilitates seamless, decentralized cross-chain token swaps across Kyber based networks on different chains.
Kyber is a fully on-chain liquidity protocol that enables decentralized exchange of cryptocurrencies in any application. Liquidity providers (Reserves) are integrated into one single endpoint for takers and users. When a user requests a trade, the protocol will scan the entire network to find the reserve with the best price and take liquidity from that particular reserve.

1.INTRODUCTION

DeFi applications all need access to good liquidity sources, which is a critical component to provide good services. Currently, decentralized liquidity is comprised of various sources including DEXes (Uniswap, OasisDEX, Bancor), decentralized funds and other financial apps. The more scattered the sources, the harder it becomes for anyone to either find the best rate for their trade or to even find enough liquidity for their need.
Kyber is a blockchain-based liquidity protocol that aggregates liquidity from a wide range of reserves, powering instant and secure token exchange in any decentralized application.
The protocol allows for a wide range of implementation possibilities for liquidity providers, allowing a wide range of entities to contribute liquidity, including end users, decentralized exchanges and other decentralized protocols. On the taker side, end users, cryptocurrency wallets, and smart contracts are able to perform instant and trustless token trades at the best rates available amongst the sources.
The Kyber Network is project based on the Ethereum protocol that seeks to completely decentralize the exchange of crypto currencies and make exchange trustless by keeping everything on the blockchain.
Through the Kyber Network, users should be able to instantly convert or exchange any crypto currency.

1.1 OVERVIEW ABOUT KYBER NETWORK PROTOCOL

The Kyber Network is a decentralized way to exchange ETH and different ERC20 tokens instantly — no waiting and no registration needed.
Using this protocol, developers can build innovative payment flows and applications, including instant token swap services, ERC20 payments, and financial DApps — helping to build a world where any token is usable anywhere.
Kyber’s fully on-chain design allows for full transparency and verifiability in the matching engine, as well as seamless composability with DApps, not all of which are possible with off-chain or hybrid approaches. The integration of a large variety of liquidity providers also makes Kyber uniquely capable of supporting sophisticated schemes and catering to the needs of DeFi DApps and financial institutions. Hence, many developers leverage Kyber’s liquidity pool to build innovative financial applications, and not surprisingly, Kyber is the most used DeFi protocol in the world.
The Kyber Network is quite an established project that is trying to change the way we think of decentralised crypto currency exchange.
The Kyber Network has seen very rapid development. After being announced in May 2017 the testnet for the Kyber Network went live in August 2017. An ICO followed in September 2017, with the company raising 200,000 ETH valued at $60 million in just one day.
The live main net was released in February 2018 to whitelisted participants, and on March 19, 2018, the Kyber Network opened the main net as a public beta. Since then the network has seen increasing growth, with network volumes growing more than 500% in the first half of 2019.
Although there was a modest decrease in August 2019 that can be attributed to the price of ETH dropping by 50%, impacting the overall total volumes being traded and processed globally.
They are developing a decentralised exchange protocol that will allow developers to build payment flows and financial apps. This is indeed quite a competitive market as a number of other such protocols have been launched.
In Brief - Kyber Network is a tool that allows anyone to swap tokens instantly without having to use exchanges. - It allows vendors to accept different types of cryptocurrency while still being paid in their preferred crypto of choice. - It’s built primarily for Ethereum, but any smart-contract based blockchain can incorporate it.
At its core, Kyber is a decentralized way to exchange ETH and different ERC20 tokens instantly–no waiting and no registration needed. To do this Kyber uses a diverse set of liquidity pools, or pools of different crypto assets called “reserves” that any project can tap into or integrate with.
A typical use case would be if a vendor allowed customers to pay in whatever currency they wish, but receive the payment in their preferred token. Another example would be for Dapp users. At present, if you are not a token holder of a certain Dapp you can’t use it. With Kyber, you could use your existing tokens, instantly swap them for the Dapp specific token and away you go.
All this swapping happens directly on the Ethereum blockchain, meaning every transaction is completely transparent.

1.1.1 WHY BUILD THE KYBER NETWORK?

While crypto currencies were built to be decentralized, many of the exchanges for trading crypto currencies have become centralized affairs. This has led to security vulnerabilities, with many exchanges becoming the victims of hacking and theft.
It has also led to increased fees and costs, and the centralized exchanges often come with slow transfer times as well. In some cases, wallets have been locked and users are unable to withdraw their coins.
Decentralized exchanges have popped up recently to address the flaws in the centralized exchanges, but they have their own flaws, most notably a lack of liquidity, and often times high costs to modify trades in their on-chain order books.
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Some of the Integrations with Kyber Protocol
The Kyber Network was formed to provide users with a decentralized exchange that keeps everything right on the blockchain, and uses a reserve system rather than an order book to provide high liquidity at all times. This will allow for the exchange and transfer of any cryptocurrency, even cross exchanges, and costs will be kept at a minimum as well.
The Kyber Network has three guiding design philosophies since the start:

1. To be most useful the network needs to be platform-agnostic, which allows any protocol or application the ability to take advantage of the liquidity provided by the Kyber Network without any impact on innovation.
   
2. The network was designed to make real-world commerce and decentralized financial products not only possible but also feasible. It does this by allowing for instant token exchange across a wide range of tokens, and without any settlement risk.
   
3. The Kyber Network was created with ease of integration as a priority, which is why everything runs fully on-chain and fully transparent. Kyber is not only developer-friendly, but is also compatible with a wide variety of systems.
   

1.1.2 WHO INVENTED KYBER?

Kyber’s founders are Loi Luu, Victor Tran, Yaron Velner — CEO, CTO, and advisor to the Kyber Network.

1.1.3 WHAT DISTINGUISHES KYBER?

Kyber’s mission has always been to integrate with other protocols so they’ve focused on being developer-friendly by providing architecture to allow anyone to incorporate the technology onto any smart-contract powered blockchain. As a result, a variety of different dapps, vendors, and wallets use Kyber’s infrastructure including Set Protocol, bZx, InstaDApp, and Coinbase wallet.
Besides, dapps, vendors, and wallets, Kyber also integrates with other exchanges such as Uniswap — sharing liquidity pools between the two protocols.
A typical use case would be if a vendor allowed customers to pay in whatever currency they wish, but receive the payment in their preferred token. Another example would be for Dapp users. At present, if you are not a token holder of a certain Dapp you can’t use it. With Kyber, you could use your existing tokens, instantly swap them for the Dapp specific token and away you go.
Limit orders on Kyber allow users to set a specific price in which they would like to exchange a token instead of accepting whatever price currently exists at the time of trading. However, unlike with other exchanges, users never lose custody of their crypto assets during limit orders on Kyber.
The Kyber protocol works by using pools of crypto funds called “reserves”, which currently support over 70 different ERC20 tokens. Reserves are essentially smart contracts with a pool of funds. Different parties with different prices and levels of funding control all reserves. Instead of using order books to match buyers and sellers to return the best price, the Kyber protocol looks at all the reserves and returns the best price among the different reserves. Reserves make money on the “spread” or differences between the buying and selling prices. The Kyber wants any token holder to easily convert one token to another with a minimum of fuss.

1.2 KYBER PROTOCOL

The protocol smart contracts offer a single interface for the best available token exchange rates to be taken from an aggregated liquidity pool across diverse sources. ● Aggregated liquidity pool. The protocol aggregates various liquidity sources into one liquidity pool, making it easy for takers to find the best rates offered with one function call. ● Diverse sources of liquidity. The protocol allows different types of liquidity sources to be plugged into. Liquidity providers may employ different strategies and different implementations to contribute liquidity to the protocol. ● Permissionless. The protocol is designed to be permissionless where any developer can set up various types of reserves, and any end user can contribute liquidity. Implementations need to take into consideration various security vectors, such as reserve spamming, but can be mitigated through a staking mechanism. We can expect implementations to be permissioned initially until the maintainers are confident about these considerations.
The core feature that the Kyber protocol facilitates is the token swap between taker and liquidity sources. The protocol aims to provide the following properties for token trades: ● Instant Settlement. Takers do not have to wait for their orders to be fulfilled, since trade matching and settlement occurs in a single blockchain transaction. This enables trades to be part of a series of actions happening in a single smart contract function. ● Atomicity. When takers make a trade request, their trade either gets fully executed, or is reverted. This “all or nothing” aspect means that takers are not exposed to the risk of partial trade execution. ● Public rate verification. Anyone can verify the rates that are being offered by reserves and have their trades instantly settled just by querying from the smart contracts. ● Ease of integration. Trustless and atomic token trades can be directly and easily integrated into other smart contracts, thereby enabling multiple trades to be performed in a smart contract function.
How each actor works is specified in Section Network Actors. 1. Takers refer to anyone who can directly call the smart contract functions to trade tokens, such as end-users, DApps, and wallets. 2. Reserves refer to anyone who wishes to provide liquidity. They have to implement the smart contract functions defined in the reserve interface in order to be registered and have their token pairs listed. 3. Registered reserves refer to those that will be cycled through for matching taker requests. 4. Maintainers refer to anyone who has permission to access the functions for the adding/removing of reserves and token pairs, such as a DAO or the team behind the protocol implementation. 5. In all, they comprise of the network, which refers to all the actors involved in any given implementation of the protocol.
The protocol implementation needs to have the following: 1. Functions for takers to check rates and execute the trades 2. Functions for the maintainers to registeremove reserves and token pairs 3. Reserve interface that defines the functions reserves needs to implement
https://preview.redd.it/d2tcxc7wdcg51.png?width=700&format=png&auto=webp&s=b2afde388a77054e6731772b9115ee53f09b6a4a

1.3 KYBER CORE SMART CONTRACTS

Kyber Core smart contracts is an implementation of the protocol that has major protocol functions to allow actors to join and interact with the network. For example, the Kyber Core smart contracts provide functions for the listing and delisting of reserves and trading pairs by having clear interfaces for the reserves to comply to be able to register to the network and adding support for new trading pairs. In addition, the Kyber Core smart contracts also provide a function for takers to query the best rate among all the registered reserves, and perform the trades with the corresponding rate and reserve. A trading pair consists of a quote token and any other token that the reserve wishes to support. The quote token is the token that is either traded from or to for all trades. For example, the Ethereum implementation of the Kyber protocol uses Ether as the quote token.
In order to search for the best rate, all reserves supporting the requested token pair will be iterated through. Hence, the Kyber Core smart contracts need to have this search algorithm implemented.
The key functions implemented in the Kyber Core Smart Contracts are listed in Figure 2 below. We will visit and explain the implementation details and security considerations of each function in the Specification Section.

1.4 HOW KYBER’S ON-CHAIN PROTOCOL WORKS?

Kyber is the liquidity infrastructure for decentralized finance. Kyber aggregates liquidity from diverse sources into a pool, which provides the best rates for takers such as DApps, Wallets, DEXs, and End users.

1.4.1 PROVIDING LIQUIDITY AS A RESERVE

Anyone can operate a Kyber Reserve to market make for profit and make their tokens available for DApps in the ecosystem. Through an open reserve architecture, individuals, token teams and professional market makers can contribute token assets to Kyber’s liquidity pool and earn from the spread in every trade. These tokens become available at the best rates across DApps that tap into the network, making them instantly more liquid and useful.
MAIN RESERVE TYPES Kyber currently has over 45 reserves in its network providing liquidity. There are 3 main types of reserves that allow different liquidity contribution options to suit the unique needs of different providers. 1. Automated Price Reserves (APR) — Allows token teams and users with large token holdings to have an automated yet customized pricing system with low maintenance costs. Synthetix and Melon are examples of teams that run APRs. 2. Fed Price Reserves (FPR) — Operated by professional market makers that require custom and advanced pricing strategies tailored to their specific needs. Kyber alongside reserves such as OneBit, runs FPRs. 3. Bridge Reserves (BR) — These are specialized reserves meant to bring liquidity from other on-chain liquidity providers like Uniswap, Oasis, DutchX, and Bancor into the network.

1.5 KYBER NETWORK ROLES

There Kyber Network functions through coordination between several different roles and functions as explained below: - Users — This entity uses the Kyber Network to send and receive tokens. A user can be an individual, a merchant, and even a smart contract account. - Reserve Entities — This role is used to add liquidity to the platform through the dynamic reserve pool. Some reserve entities are internal to the Kyber Network, but others may be registered third parties. Reserve entities may be public if the public contributes to the reserves they hold, otherwise they are considered private. By allowing third parties as reserve entities the network adds diversity, which prevents monopolization and keeps exchange rates competitive. Allowing third party reserve entities also allows for the listing of less popular coins with lower volumes. - Reserve Contributors — Where reserve entities are classified as public, the reserve contributor is the entity providing reserve funds. Their incentive for doing so is a profit share from the reserve. - The Reserve Manager — Maintains the reserve, calculates exchange rates and enters them into the network. The reserve manager profits from exchange spreads set by them on their reserves. They can also benefit from increasing volume by accessing the entire Kyber Network. - The Kyber Network Operator — Currently the Kyber Network team is filling the role of the network operator, which has a function to adds/remove Reserve Entities as well as controlling the listing of tokens. Eventually, this role will revert to a proper decentralized governance.

1.6 BASIC TOKEN TRADE

A basic token trade is one that has the quote token as either the source or destination token of the trade request. The execution flow of a basic token trade is depicted in the diagram below, where a taker would like to exchange BAT tokens for ETH as an example. The trade happens in a single blockchain transaction. 1. Taker sends 1 ETH to the protocol contract, and would like to receive BAT in return. 2. Protocol contract queries the first reserve for its ETH to BAT exchange rate. 3. Reserve 1 offers an exchange rate of 1 ETH for 800 BAT. 4. Protocol contract queries the second reserve for its ETH to BAT exchange rate. 5. Reserve 2 offers an exchange rate of 1 ETH for 820 BAT. 6. This process goes on for the other reserves. After the iteration, reserve 2 is discovered to have offered the best ETH to BAT exchange rate. 7. Protocol contract sends 1 ETH to reserve 2. 8. The reserve sends 820 BAT to the taker.

1.7 TOKEN-TO-TOKEN TRADE

A token-to-token trade is one where the quote token is neither the source nor the destination token of the trade request. The exchange flow of a token to token trade is depicted in the diagram below, where a taker would like to exchange BAT tokens for DAI as an example. The trade happens in a single blockchain transaction. 1. Taker sends 50 BAT to the protocol contract, and would like to receive DAI in return. 2. Protocol contract sends 50 BAT to the reserve offering the best BAT to ETH rate. 3. Protocol contract receives 1 ETH in return. 4. Protocol contract sends 1 ETH to the reserve offering the best ETH to DAI rate. 5. Protocol contract receives 30 DAI in return. 6. Protocol contract sends 30 DAI to the user.

2.KYBER NETWORK CRYSTAL (KNC) TOKEN

Kyber Network Crystal (KNC) is an ERC-20 utility token and an integral part of Kyber Network.
KNC is the first deflationary staking token where staking rewards and token burns are generated from actual network usage and growth in DeFi.
The Kyber Network Crystal (KNC) is the backbone of the Kyber Network. It works to connect liquidity providers and those who need liquidity and serves three distinct purposes. The first of these is to collect transaction fees, and a portion of every fee collected is burned, which keeps KNC deflationary. Kyber Network Crystals (KNC), are named after the crystals in Star Wars used to power light sabers.
The KNC also ensures the smooth operation of the reserve system in the Kyber liquidity since entities must use third-party tokens to buy the KNC that pays for their operations in the network.
KNC allows token holders to play a critical role in determining the incentive system, building a wide base of stakeholders, and facilitating economic flow in the network. A small fee is charged each time a token exchange happens on the network, and KNC holders get to vote on this fee model and distribution, as well as other important decisions. Over time, as more trades are executed, additional fees will be generated for staking rewards and reserve rebates, while more KNC will be burned. - Participation rewards — KNC holders can stake KNC in the KyberDAO and vote on key parameters. Voters will earn staking rewards (in ETH) - Burning — Some of the network fees will be burned to reduce KNC supply permanently, providing long-term value accrual from decreasing supply. - Reserve incentives — KNC holders determine the portion of network fees that are used as rebates for selected liquidity providers (reserves) based on their volume performance.

Finally, the KNC token is the connection between the Kyber Network and the exchanges, wallets, and dApps that leverage the liquidity network. This is a virtuous system since entities are rewarded with referral fees for directing more users to the Kyber Network, which helps increase adoption for Kyber and for the entities using the Network.
And of course there will soon be a fourth and fifth uses for the KNC, which will be as a staking token used to generate passive income, as well as a governance token used to vote on key parameters of the network.
The Kyber Network Crystal (KNC) was released in a September 2017 ICO at a price around $1. There were 226,000,000 KNC minted for the ICO, with 61% sold to the public. The remaining 39% are controlled 50/50 by the company and the founders/advisors, with a 1 year lockup period and 2 year vesting period.
Currently, just over 180 million coins are in circulation, and the total supply has been reduced to 210.94 million after the company burned 1 millionth KNC token in May 2019 and then its second millionth KNC token just three months later.
That means that while it took 15 months to burn the first million KNC, it took just 10 weeks to burn the second million KNC. That shows how rapidly adoption has been growing recently for Kyber, with July 2019 USD trading volumes on the Kyber Network nearly reaching $60 million. This volume has continued growing, and on march 13, 2020 the network experienced its highest daily trading activity of $33.7 million in a 24-hour period.
Currently KNC is required by Reserve Managers to operate on the network, which ensures a minimum amount of demand for the token. Combined with future plans for burning coins, price is expected to maintain an upward bias, although it has suffered along with the broader market in 2018 and more recently during the summer of 2019.
It was unfortunate in 2020 that a beginning rally was cut short by the coronavirus pandemic, although the token has stabilized as of April 2020, and there are hopes the rally could resume in the summer of 2020.

2.1 HOW ARE KNC TOKENS PRODUCED?

The native token of Kyber is called Kyber Network Crystals (KNC). All reserves are required to pay fees in KNC for the right to manage reserves. The KNC collected as fees are either burned and taken out of the total supply or awarded to integrated dapps as an incentive to help them grow.

2.2 HOW DO YOU GET HOLD OF KNC TOKENS?

Kyber Swap can be used to buy ETH directly using a credit card, which can then be used to swap for KNC. Besides Kyber itself, exchanges such as Binance, Huobi, and OKex trade KNC.

2.3 WHAT CAN YOU DO WITH KYBER?

The most direct and basic function of Kyber is for instantly swapping tokens without registering an account, which anyone can do using an Etheruem wallet such as MetaMask. Users can also create their own reserves and contribute funds to a reserve, but that process is still fairly technical one–something Kyber is working on making easier for users in the future.

2.4 THE GOAL OF KYBER THE FUTURE

The goal of Kyber in the coming years is to solidify its position as a one-stop solution for powering liquidity and token swapping on Ethereum. Kyber plans on a major protocol upgrade called Katalyst, which will create new incentives and growth opportunities for all stakeholders in their ecosystem, especially KNC holders. The upgrade will mean more use cases for KNC including to use KNC to vote on governance decisions through a decentralized organization (DAO) called the KyberDAO.
With our upcoming Katalyst protocol upgrade and new KNC model, Kyber will provide even more benefits for stakeholders. For instance, reserves will no longer need to hold a KNC balance for fees, removing a major friction point, and there will be rebates for top performing reserves. KNC holders can also stake their KNC to participate in governance and receive rewards.

2.5 BUYING & STORING KNC

Those interested in buying KNC tokens can do so at a number of exchanges. Perhaps your best bet between the complete list is the likes of Coinbase Pro and Binance. The former is based in the USA whereas the latter is an offshore exchange.
The trading volume is well spread out at these exchanges, which means that the liquidity is not concentrated and dependent on any one exchange. You also have decent liquidity on each of the exchange books. For example, the Binance BTC / KNC books are wide and there is decent turnover. This means easier order execution.
KNC is an ERC20 token and can be stored in any wallet with ERC20 support, such as MyEtherWallet or MetaMask. One interesting alternative is the KyberSwap Android mobile app that was released in August 2019.
It allows for instant swapping of tokens and has support for over 70 different altcoins. It also allows users to set price alerts and limit orders and works as a full-featured Ethereum wallet.

2.6 KYBER KATALYST UPGRADE

Kyber has announced their intention to become the de facto liquidity layer for the Decentralized Finance space, aiming to have Kyber as the single on-chain endpoint used by the majority of liquidity providers and dApp developers. In order to achieve this goal the Kyber Network team is looking to create an open ecosystem that garners trust from the decentralized finance space. They believe this is the path that will lead the majority of projects, developers, and users to choose Kyber for liquidity needs. With that in mind they have recently announced the launch of a protocol upgrade to Kyber which is being called Katalyst.
The Katalyst upgrade will create a stronger ecosystem by creating strong alignments towards a common goal, while also strengthening the incentives for stakeholders to participate in the ecosystem.
The primary beneficiaries of the Katalyst upgrade will be the three major Kyber stakeholders: 1. Reserve managers who provide network liquidity; 2. dApps that connect takers to Kyber; 3. KNC holders.
These stakeholders can expect to see benefits as highlighted below: Reserve Managers will see two new benefits to providing liquidity for the network. The first of these benefits will be incentives for providing reserves. Once Katalyst is implemented part of the fees collected will go to the reserve managers as an incentive for providing liquidity.
This mechanism is similar to rebates in traditional finance, and is expected to drive the creation of additional reserves and market making, which in turn will lead to greater liquidity and platform reach.
Katalyst will also do away with the need for reserve managers to maintain a KNC balance for use as network fees. Instead fees will be automatically collected and used as incentives or burned as appropriate. This should remove a great deal of friction for reserves to connect with Kyber without affecting the competitive exchange rates that takers in the system enjoy. dApp Integrators will now be able to set their own spread, which will give them full control over their own business model. This means the current fee sharing program that shares 30% of the 0.25% fee with dApp developers will go away and developers will determine their own spread. It’s believed this will increase dApp development within Kyber as developers will now be in control of fees.
KNC Holders, often thought of as the core of the Kyber Network, will be able to take advantage of a new staking mechanism that will allow them to receive a portion of network fees by staking their KNC and participating in the KyberDAO.

2.7 COMING KYBERDAO

With the implementation of the Katalyst protocol the KNC holders will be put right at the heart of Kyber. Holders of KNC tokens will now have a critical role to play in determining the future economic flow of the network, including its incentive systems.
The primary way this will be achieved is through KyberDAO, a way in which on-chain and off-chain governance will align to streamline cooperation between the Kyber team, KNC holders, and market participants.
The Kyber Network team has identified 3 key areas of consideration for the KyberDAO: 1. Broad representation, transparent governance and network stability 2. Strong incentives for KNC holders to maintain their stake and be highly involved in governance 3. Maximizing participation with a wide range of options for voting delegation
Interaction between KNC Holders & Kyber
This means KNC holders have been empowered to determine the network fee and how to allocate the fees to ensure maximum network growth. KNC holders will now have three fee allocation options to vote on: - Voting Rewards: Immediate value creation. Holders who stake and participate in the KyberDAO get their share of the fees designated for rewards. - Burning: Long term value accrual. The decreasing supply of KNC will improve the token appreciation over time and benefit those who did not participate. - Reserve Incentives:Value creation via network growth. By rewarding Kyber reserve managers based on their performance, it helps to drive greater volume, value, and network fees.

2.8 TRANSPARENCY AND STABILITY

The design of the KyberDAO is meant to allow for the greatest network stability, as well as maximum transparency and the ability to quickly recover in emergency situations. Initally the Kyber team will remain as maintainers of the KyberDAO. The system is being developed to be as verifiable as possible, while still maintaining maximum transparency regarding the role of the maintainer in the DAO.
Part of this transparency means that all data and processes are stored on-chain if feasible. Voting regarding network fees and allocations will be done on-chain and will be immutable. In situations where on-chain storage or execution is not feasible there will be a set of off-chain governance processes developed to ensure all decisions are followed through on.

2.9 KNC STAKING AND DELEGATION

Staking will be a new addition and both staking and voting will be done in fixed periods of times called “epochs”. These epochs will be measured in Ethereum block times, and each KyberDAO epoch will last roughly 2 weeks.
This is a relatively rapid epoch and it is beneficial in that it gives more rapid DAO conclusion and decision-making, while also conferring faster reward distribution. On the downside it means there needs to be a new voting campaign every two weeks, which requires more frequent participation from KNC stakeholders, as well as more work from the Kyber team.
Delegation will be part of the protocol, allowing stakers to delegate their voting rights to third-party pools or other entities. The pools receiving the delegation rights will be free to determine their own fee structure and voting decisions. Because the pools will share in rewards, and because their voting decisions will be clearly visible on-chain, it is expected that they will continue to work to the benefit of the network.

3. TRADING

After the September 2017 ICO, KNC settled into a trading price that hovered around $1.00 (decreasing in BTC value) until December. The token has followed the trend of most other altcoins — rising in price through December and sharply declining toward the beginning of January 2018.
The KNC price fell throughout all of 2018 with one exception during April. From April 6th to April 28th, the price rose over 200 percent. This run-up coincided with a blog post outlining plans to bring Bitcoin to the Ethereum blockchain. Since then, however, the price has steadily fallen, currently resting on what looks like a $0.15 (~0.000045 BTC) floor.
With the number of partners using the Kyber Network, the price may rise as they begin to fully use the network. The development team has consistently hit the milestones they’ve set out to achieve, so make note of any release announcements on the horizon.

4. COMPETITION

The 0x project is the biggest competitor to Kyber Network. Both teams are attempting to enter the decentralized exchange market. The primary difference between the two is that Kyber performs the entire exchange process on-chain while 0x keeps the order book and matching off-chain.
As a crypto swap exchange, the platform also competes with ShapeShift and Changelly.

5.KYBER MILESTONES

• June 2020: Digifox, an all-in-one finance application by popular crypto trader and Youtuber Nicholas Merten a.k.a DataDash (340K subs), integrated Kyber to enable users to easily swap between cryptocurrencies without having to leave the application. • June 2020: Stake Capital partnered with Kyber to provide convenient KNC staking and delegation services, and also took a KNC position to participate in governance. • June 2020: Outlined the benefits of the Fed Price Reserve (FPR) for professional market makers and advanced developers. • May 2020: Kyber crossed US$1 Billion in total trading volume and 1 Million transactions, performed entirely on-chain on Ethereum. • May 2020: StakeWith.Us partnered Kyber Network as a KyberDAO Pool Master. • May 2020: 2Key, a popular blockchain referral solution using smart links, integrated Kyber’s on-chain liquidity protocol for seamless token swaps • May 2020: Blockchain game League of Kingdoms integrated Kyber to accept Token Payments for Land NFTs. • May 2020: Joined the Zcash Developer Alliance , an invite-only working group to advance Zcash development and interoperability. • May 2020: Joined the Chicago DeFi Alliance to help accelerate on-chain market making for professionals and developers. • March 2020: Set a new record of USD $33.7M in 24H fully on-chain trading volume, and $190M in 30 day on-chain trading volume. • March 2020: Integrated by Rarible, Bullionix, and Unstoppable Domains, with the KyberWidget deployed on IPFS, which allows anyone to swap tokens through Kyber without being blocked. • February 2020: Popular Ethereum blockchain game Axie Infinity integrated Kyber to accept ERC20 payments for NFT game items. • February 2020: Kyber’s protocol was integrated by Gelato Finance, Idle Finance, rTrees, Sablier, and 0x API for their liquidity needs. • January 2020: Kyber Network was found to be the most used protocol in the whole decentralized finance (DeFi) space in 2019, according to a DeFi research report by Binance. • December 2019: Switcheo integrated Kyber’s protocol for enhanced liquidity on their own DEX. • December 2019: DeFi Wallet Eidoo integrated Kyber for seamless in-wallet token swaps. • December 2019: Announced the development of the Katalyst Protocol Upgrade and new KNC token model. • July 2019: Developed the Waterloo Bridge , a Decentralized Practical Cross-chain Bridge between EOS and Ethereum, successfully demonstrating a token swap between Ethereum to EOS. • July 2019: Trust Wallet, the official Binance wallet, integrated Kyber as part of its decentralized token exchange service, allowing even more seamless in-wallet token swaps for thousands of users around the world. • May 2019: HTC, the large consumer electronics company with more than 20 years of innovation, integrated Kyber into its Zion Vault Wallet on EXODUS 1 , the first native web 3.0 blockchain phone, allowing users to easily swap between cryptocurrencies in a decentralized manner without leaving the wallet. • January 2019: Introduced the Automated Price Reserve (APR) , a capital efficient way for token teams and individuals to market make with low slippage. • January 2019: The popular Enjin Wallet, a default blockchain DApp on the Samsung S10 and S20 mobile phones, integrated Kyber to enable in-wallet token swaps. • October 2018: Kyber was a founding member of the WBTC (Wrapped Bitcoin) Initiative and DAO. • October 2018: Developed the KyberWidget for ERC20 token swaps on any website, with CoinGecko being the first major project to use it on their popular site.

Full Article

With the development of blockchain technology, obtaining data on the chain only is no longer satisfying and how to bridge the real world and the blockchain world has always been the direction of the technological breakthrough. Under this background, Oracle Machine came to our attention. In particular, with the popularity of the DeFi concept, the industry starts to witness a boom of the application of Oracle Machine in financial derivatives, trading platforms, gambling games, and prediction markets.
At present, Oracle Machine represented by Themis is developing fast with a good momentum, leading the trend of the development of Oracle Machine and continuing to consolidate the basic technical support for the DeFi revolution. Themis’ mining system has been launched in the market, which is refreshing and appealing (see https://themisoracle.com/#/credit for details on the Themis mining).
90% of MIS, the native token of Themis, will be used for mining output. The entire mining mechanism runs through a distributed oracle protocol, which sets up three roles: data provider, data validator, and arbitration node. Reward and punishment mechanisms are applied to ensure the smooth ecological operation.
How does Themis mining work? Is it a new way to become wealthy? What are the characteristics? To answer these questions, we need to analyse the distribution mechanism, mining mechanism, and token value of Themis.
With a fairer mining mechanism, small and medium-sized miners can enjoy better benefits
One of the core values of blockchain is fairness and justice, and allowing everyone in the network to play a role in the system without permission. However, Bitcoin mining is now monopolized by several mining machine vendors such as Bitmain, leaving little space for other miners to participate. If those old PoW public chains, such as Bitcoin, has formed the head effect in mining, what about those new projects? Let's take Cosmos as an example. Since Binance joined its validator node, it has instantly ranked top with the strong financial strength and user base of the top exchange, making the small and medium nodes hard to participate.
After comparison, we can find that the mining mechanism of MIS is very friendly to ordinary users. Assuming that there are 12 mining transactions in a block, the ranking according to the MIS pledged by each transaction would be as follow:
https://preview.redd.it/1kfccgps2pg51.png?width=832&format=png&auto=webp&s=bf6c7f614c600826006bc2bf8a6026292c3b328c
The pledge ranking is based on the jump ranking weighting algorithm rather than the weighted average of the user pledge amount, which can prevent MIS from being controlled by a small number of people, avoid monopoly, creating a win-win situation in the Themis community.
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https://preview.redd.it/pme9tcd62pg51.png?width=832&format=png&auto=webp&s=049f899d2a5ee3ce64007d5cc0ae3ed6167c2b3a
Compared with other mining projects, Themis has introduced a unique pledge ranking method in the mining design. Users in the best ranking area will get the most benefits, which is a good mechanism guarantee for attracting more users to participate in mining. At the same time, it can lead to the decentralization of data providers, ensuring the decentralization of the oracle system and the positive development of the community.
How can miners join in Themis mining? The answer is to become a part of the ecology by playing the role of either data provider, data validator, or arbitration node.
The data provider is mainly responsible for providing various types of data, and the data validator verifies and challenges the data offered by the data provider and provides new data. The arbitration node arbitrates the query raised by the data validator and come up with the final result.
Both the data providers and validators of Themis need to pledge MIS to obtain the qualifications, and the caller of external data also needs to pay MIS assets when accessing the data of Themis oracles. If the data has been verified as correct, data providers and validators will receive mining rewards, and the more they pledge, the more rewards they will receive.
In the mining design of Themis, miners can acquire MIS by providing verifiable random number or offering the price of in-chain assets. Whenever miners call mining contracts, the system will charge no service fee (excluding the service fee of ETH). In addition, if no mining transaction occurs within a certain period of time, the first newly-emerging block containing mining transactions will acquire all the MIS rewards. In this way, miners can be encouraged to continue mining and maintain the ecological stability of Themis.
The number of MIS mining for each mining transaction of miners is calculated as follows:
First, calculate the number of MIS mining rewards N contained in the block of the packaged mining transaction. If the height difference between the block and the previous block containing the mining transaction is y, then N = y * 20.
The MIS mining quantity of this mining transaction is M, then M=Xi/(📷)×N. Among them, X is the ranking of the MIS pledge amount in the block, and those who pledge the same amount of MIS have the same ranking.
Few official pre-mining, while 90% belongs to the community
Based on the official announcement, the distribution of MIS is:
The total amount of MIS is 1 billion, 10% is reserved for early project promotion, the remaining 90% are produced by mining, in which 75% are directly awarded to data providers, 10% to developers, and 5% as reward for arbitration nodes and ecological incentive. The production of mining will be progressively decreased and released with ETH. For some current popular VC-invested projects, institutional holdings hold more than half of blocks and unlock the block every month, which is a huge stress for ordinary pledge users. Many projects also went wrong because institutional investors do not abide by the rules. For MIS, because there is fewer official pre-mining, the selling pressure will be smaller, which is more in line with the value of the blockchain.
The release plan of developer and arbitration node and ecological incentive is as follows:
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https://preview.redd.it/nld8k8gb2pg51.jpg?width=926&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8c2435c993cf86b2bf6b0c4d2a1935708734de97
The release plan of data provider incentive is as follows:
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The MIS awarded per block reduces by 10% in every 4 million blocks, and the reward per block at present is 20 MIS.
We can see that the allocation of MIS follows the following principles.
First of all, as MIS is the platform certificate of Themis, it is very reasonable to reserve 10% of MIS for early project promotion.
Secondly, 90% of MIS is produced through sustainable mining. This proportion can motivate contract users and miners to conduct contract mining, truly implementing the spirit of win-win community and token economy.
Finally, among the 90% of MIS, better incentive mechanisms have been adapted, mining reward ratios are subdivided, which can attract more investors to participate in mining.
Reasonable mining mechanism highlights the project value of Themis
Themis, as a public chain that provides a mechanism to solve the problems in Oracle Machine, has a unique charm in the value of MIS.
From the perspective of the number of tokens, the total amount of MIS is 1 billion, and the total mining pool is 900 million. 90% of the tokens are generated by mining, and the mining output gradually decreases its release with the Ethereum block, showing a great potential in its future added value. The earlier you participate in mining, the more profit you can gain.
From the perspective of Themis’s ecological design, Themis is committed to the original intention of building a price oracle. The data provider pays on-chain fees and pledges a certain amount of MIS, and determines the income obtained according to the scale of the pledge; the validator can make profit from challenging the data. Also, any smart contract developer or user need to pay the corresponding fee when calling Themis, and this part of the profit will be distributed to the data provider in proportion. Through this design, a logical closed loop is completed to ensure the healthy operation of the entire ecology and achieve the goal of mutual benefit. In Themis, all parties in the ecology can work together to grow more wealth.
In all, MIS has a huge potential for future development and arbitrage, and of course, a great profit potential as well.
Today, public chains like Themis are not just a technology platform, but also a symbol of future economic operation mode which connect between the blockchain and the real world. Themis, with a fair, justice and open network through mining, is building a strong token ecology, connecting external chain data and the systems, realising data interaction between blockchain and the real world, and more importantly, creating a new mode of token economy.

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Staking in Ethereum 2.0: when will it appear and how much can you earn on it?

Why coin staking will be added in Ethereum 2.0

A brief educational program for those who do not follow the update of the project of Vitalik Buterin. Ethereum has long been in need of updating, and the main problem of the network is scalability: the blockchain is overloaded, transactions are slowing down, and the cost of “gas” (transaction fees) is growing. If you do not update the consensus algorithm, then the network will someday cease to be operational. To avoid this, developers have been working for several years on moving the network from the PoW algorithm to state 2.0, running on PoS. This should make the network more scalable, faster and cheaper. In December last year, the first upgrade phase, Istanbul, was implemented in the network, and in April of this year, the Topaz test network with the possibility of staking was launched - the first users already earned 1%. In the PoS algorithm that Ethereum switches to, there is no mining, and validation occurs due to the delegation of user network coins to the masternodes. For the duration of the delegation, these coins are frozen, and for providing their funds for block validation, users receive a portion of the reward. This is staking - such a crypto-analogue of a bank deposit. There are several types of staking: with income from dividends or masternodes, but not the device’s power, as in PoW algorithms, but the number of miner coins is important in all of them. The more coins, the higher the income. For crypto investors, staking is an opportunity to receive passive income from blocked coins. It is assumed that the launch of staking:

• Will make ETH mining more affordable, but less resource intensive;
• Will make the network more secure and secure - attacks will become too expensive;
• Will create an entirely new sector of steak infrastructure around the platform;
• Provides increased scalability, which will create the opportunity for wider implementation of DeFi protocols;
• And, most importantly, it will show that Ethereum is a developing project.

The first payments to stakeholders will be one to two years after the launch of the update

The minimum validator steak will be 32 ETN (≈$6092 for today). This is the minimum number of coins that an ETH holder must freeze in order to qualify for payments. Another prerequisite is not to disconnect your wallet from the network. If the user disconnects and goes into automatic mode, he loses his daily income. If at some point the steak drops below 16 ETH, the user will be deprived of the right to be a validator. The Ethereum network has to go through many more important stages before coin holders can make money on its storage. Collin Myers, the leader of the product strategy at the startup of the Ethereum developer ConsenSys, said that the genesis block of the new network will not be mined until the total amount of frozen funds reaches 524,000 ETN ($99.76 million at the time of publication). So many coins should be kept by 16,375 validators with a minimum deposit of 32 ETN. Until this moment, none of them will receive a percentage profit. Myers noted that this event is not tied to a clear time and depends on the activity of the community. All validators will have to freeze a rather significant amount for an indefinite period in the new network without confidence in the growth of the coin rate. It’s hard to say how many people there are. The developers believe that it will take 12−18 or even 24 months. According to the latest ConsenSys Codefi report, more than 65% of the 300 ETH owners surveyed plan to use the staking opportunity. This sample, of course, is not representative, but it can be assumed that most major coin holders will still be willing to take a chance.

How much can you earn on Ethereum staking

Developers have been arguing for a long time about what profitability should be among the validators of the Ethereum 2.0 network. The economic model of the network maintains an inflation rate below 1% and dynamically adjusts the reward scale for validators. The difficulty is not to overpay, but not to pay too little. Profitability will be variable, as it depends on the number and size of steaks, as well as other parameters. The fewer frozen coins and validators, the higher the yield, and vice versa. This is an easy way to motivate users to freeze ETN. According to the October calculations of Collin Myers, after the launch of Ethereum 2.0, validators will be able to receive from 4.6% to 10.3% per annum as a reward for their steak. At the summit, he clarified that the first time after the launch of the Genesis block, it can even reach 20.3%. But as the number of steaks grows, profitability will decline. So, with five million steaks, it drops to about 6.6%. The above numbers are not net returns. They do not include equipment and electricity costs. According to Myers, after the Genesis block, the costs of maintaining the validator node will be about 4.75% of the remuneration. They will continue to increase as the number of blocked coins increases, and with a five millionth steak, they will grow to about 14.7%. Myers emphasized that profitability will be higher for those who will work on their own equipment, rather than relying on cloud services. The latter, according to his calculations, at current prices can bring a loss of up to minus 15% per year. This, he believes, promotes true decentralization. At the end of April, Vitalik Buterin said that validators will be able to earn 5% per annum with a minimum stake of 32 ETH - 1.6 ETH per year, or $ 304 at the time of publication. However, given the cost of freezing funds, the real return will be at 0.8%.

How to calculate profitability from ETN staking

The easiest way to calculate the estimated return for Ethereum staking is to use a special calculator. For example, from the online services EthereumPrice or Stakingrewards. The service takes into account the latest indicators of network profitability, as well as additional characteristics: the time of operation of a node in the network, the price of a coin, the share of blocked ETNs and so on. Depending on these values, the profit of the validator can vary greatly. For example, you block 32 ETNs at today's coin price - $190, 1% of the coins are blocked, and the node works 99% of the time. According to the EthereumPrice calculator, in this case your yield will be 14.25% per annum, or 4.56 ETH.
Validator earnings from the example above for 10 years according to EthereumPrice.
If to change the data, you have the same steak, but the proportion of blocked coins is 10%. Now your annual yield is only 4.51%, or 1.44 ETH.
Validator earnings from the second example over 10 years according to EthereumPrice.
It is important that this is profitability excluding expenses. Real returns will be significantly lower and in the second case may be negative. In addition, you must consider the fluctuation of the course. Even with a yield of 14% per annum in ETN, dollar-denominated returns may be negative in a bear market.

When will the transition to Ethereum 2.0 start

Ben Edgington from Teku, the operator of Ethereum 2.0, at the last summit said that the transition to PoS could be launched in July this year. These deadlines, if there are no new delays, were also mentioned by experts of the BitMEX crypto exchange in their recent report on the transition of the Ethereum ecosystem to stage 2.0. However, on May 12, Vitalik Buterin denied the possibility of launching Ethereum 2.0 in July. The network is not yet ready and is unlikely to be launched before the end of the year. July 30 marks the 5th anniversary of the launch of Ethereum. Unfortunately, it seems that it will not be possible to start the update for the anniversary again. Full deployment of updates will consist of several stages. Phase 0. Beacon chain. The "zero" phase, which can be launched in July this year. In fact, it will only be a network test and PoS testing without economic activity, but it will use new ETN coins and the possibility of staking will appear. The "zero" phase will test the first layer of Ethereum 2.0 architecture - Lighthouse. This is the Ethereum 2.0 client in Rust, developed back in 2018. Phase 1. Sharding - rejection of full nodes in favor of load balancing between all network nodes (shards). This should increase network bandwidth and solve the scalability problem. This is the first full phase of Ethereum 2.0. It will initially be deployed with 64 shards. It is because of sharding that the transition of a network to a new state is so complicated - existing smart contracts cannot be transferred to a new network. Therefore, at first, perhaps several years, both networks will exist simultaneously. Phase 2. State execution. In this phase, various applications will work, and it will be possible to conclude smart contracts. This is a full-fledged working Ethereum 2.0 network. After the second phase, two networks will work in parallel - Ethereum and Ethereum 2.0. Coin holders will be able to transfer ETN from the first to the second without the ability to transfer them back. To stimulate network support, coin emissions in both networks will increase until they merge. Read more about the phases of transition to state 2.0 in the aforementioned BitMEX report.

How the upgrade to Ethereum 2.0 will affect the staking market and coin price

The transition of the second largest coin to PoS will dramatically increase the stake in the market. The deposit in 32 ETH is too large for most users. Therefore, we should expect an increase in offers for staking from the exchanges. So, the launch of such a service in November was announced by the largest Swiss crypto exchange Bitcoin Suisse. She will not have a minimum deposit, and the commission will be 15%. According to October estimates by Binance Research analysts, the transition of Ethereum to stage 2.0 can double the price of a coin and the stake of staking in the market, and it will also make ETH the most popular currency on the PoS algorithm. Adam Cochran, partner at MetaCartel Ventures DAO and developer of DuckDuckGo, argued in his blog that Ethereum's transition to state 2.0 would be the “biggest event” of the cryptocurrency market. He believes that a 3–5% return will attract the capital of large investors, and fear of lost profit (FOMO) among retail investors will push them to actively buy coins. The planned coin burning mechanism for each transaction will reduce the potential oversupply. However, BitMEX experts in the report mentioned above believe that updating the network will not be as important an event as it seems to many, and will not have a significant impact on the coin rate and the staking market. Initially, this will be more likely to test the PoS system, rather than a full-fledged network. There will be no economic activity and smart contracts, and interest for a steak will not be paid immediately. Therefore, most of the economic activity will continue to be concluded in the original Ethereum network, which will work in parallel with the new one. Analysts of the exchange emphasized that due to the addition of staking, the first time (short, in their opinion) a large number of ETNs will be blocked on the network. Most likely, this will limit the supply of coins and lead to higher prices. However, this can also release some of the ETNs blocked in smart contracts, and then the price will not rise. Moreover, the authors of the document are not sure that the demand for coins will be long-term and stable. For this to happen, PoS and sharding must prove that they work stably and provide the benefits for which the update was started. But, if this happens, the network is waiting for a wave of coins from the developers of smart contracts and DeFi protocols. In any case, quick changes should not be expected. A full transition to Ethereum 2.0 will take years and won’t be smooth - network failures are inevitable. We also believe that we should not rely on Ethereum staking as another panacea for all the problems of the coin and the market. Most likely, the transition of the network to PoS will not have a significant impact on the staking market, but may positively affect the price of the coin. However, relying on the ETN rally in anticipation of this is too optimistic.
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