Cosmos Validators Brief 2
Cypher Core
Following up quickly here to the previous (and first) Cosmos Validator Brief, this Brief shines the light on Cypher.Core.
I first came upon Cypher Core’s CTO, Jay Jie, in the Cosmos “Game of Stakes” Riot chatroom and was impressed by his expertise in, and breadth of experience across, the wide spectrum that is blockchain. Besides being a participant in Cosmos’ Game of Stakes competition, as well as a testnet validator, the team is also an active testnet validator for the Iris Network.
I believe the most intriguing question Cypher Core poses here in their Brief is if in fact the fundraiser participants/delegators of Cosmos are as operationally ready for mainnet as the validators.
So without further adieu here’s Ken Trueba, COO, and Jay Jie, CTO, of Cypher Core…
Tell me a bit about yourselves — as much/ little as you guys would like to share.
Ken Trueba (Ken):
I think I can speak for majority of us over at Cypher Core when saying this, but I like to think that we’re a very tight knit group of individuals. It’s something I personally like to take pride in when working with team members, there’s a sense of unity and cooperation unlike anything else I’ve ever been apart of that makes all the tribulations worth while. One thing I enjoy is being able to work hands on with individuals outside of my immediate professional background. This allows me to be able to see through a different lens when collaborating on new assignments. Being able to see enthusiasts from various professional backgrounds come together under one umbrella at Cypher Core, helps showcase what really makes this space special to me. I feel a lot of this has to coincide with our passion for the blockchain/crypto community’s well being, everything that it strives to be, and for those it aims to help along its course of maturity. Becoming an organization that focuses on delivering educational awareness, and expanding opportunities favoring consumer interests are all things that really excite me for the future at Cypher Core. Majority of our team is based out of Silicon Valley and Southern California, but we do have a few members on the East Coast and overseas as well.
Outside of Cosmos/Tendermint, how have you been involved with blockchain so far? What projects have you participated in? What projects do you find particularly intriguing?
Ken:
We’re currently helping scale up several project communities across the United States and Egypt by hosting educational events. A big focus we’re working on this Spring is our awareness campaign with Primas. During such our goal is to help spread the project’s message, which is focused on bringing quality and credibility back to the Internet. Although they carry a very ambitious goal in mind, I personally like what they are doing with their application and how their DTCP protocol aims to build a trusted high-quality content ecosystem. Our team as a collective has had a great amount of experience with a deep list of other projects as well, delivering off and on support in various roles. We’re extremely excited to see how this year unfolds for several projects, and hope to see PoS protocol projects open more doors for the industry as a whole.
How did you get into blockchain space initially and what keeps you interested? Where do you see the blockchain space evolving in the next 1–3 years?
Ken:
Blockchain peaked my interest when I was in high school. My friends and I had been going through some rebellious phases and bitcoin was pretty punk at the time so we just latched onto it. We all thought it was a tool to live a life with no borders, and being that a lot of us had families overseas it was something we could expand on and get behind. After being an enthusiast for several years I decided to take on a role in helping a project with their whitepaper in the winter of 2017. From there I was fortunate enough to be offered a position within Cypher Core. You know it’s pretty funny reflecting on the time I’ve been attempting to keep up with this space as a whole; I’d say what keeps me going is not only being able to discuss a passion of mine with others relating to blockchain technology, but also being able to introduce them to the solutions that a certain project may offer and not only expand their perspective on the technical side of things, but show them that they too can be proactively involved in that same projects agenda. From a community member to potential employee, the sky is the limit and expanding on that is what matters the most to me. This space has surprised me tenfold throughout the years so it’s hard to say but, I know the team is excited for the future and I see this space maturing more throughout the years to come.
With regards to Cosmos, what do you think will be the biggest challenges faced by the project overall?
Jay Jie:
(short term) Operational Maturity of Validators on Mainnet:
Current testnet validator participants have demonstrated great ability of operating the Cosmos software. Will the people who participated in Cosmos’ fundraiser be able to match the same level of operational maturity as current testnet validators to keep the network secure and stable?(long term) “Car(tel)(in)ception” (more on Tendermint than Cosmos):
In Tendermint a cartel of validators can be formed at any given point if they get a hold of more than 2/3 of the security deposits, as no participation from the non-cartel validators is required to finalize blocks. The non-cartel validators are essentially censored by the cartel members in this case, which will eventually lead to the non-cartel validators being removed from the validator set. This will ultimately put the network into a cycle where each round we will end up with a smaller validator set, and a new cartel will be formed again since they had more than 2/3 of the security deposits (which are now smaller too) to begin with.
With regards to being a validator in Cosmos, what do you think will be the biggest challenges you will face?
Ken:
Staying on pace with our competition and trying to find our fit is probably going to be our most challenging experiences ahead of us. Ultimately I’d say we’re just excited to be apart of such a revolutionary movement, and can’t wait to see how everything plays out over time.
You can find more on Cypher Core at their website: http://cyphercore.io/
Jay is also active on Twitter (jim380): https://twitter.com/jim380
