Telos Blockchain Network — Weekly Report — November 8th, 2018
Competition = Survival
(Update: the Community Rewards Program mentioned in this report is now closed.)
When I was a kid, my favorite animals were the giant Galapagos tortoises. They were the kind of big, bizarre creatures that only exist on islands isolated in the Pacific Ocean. A couple of tortoises found their way to those islands long ago and with no competition, they expanded into crazy environmental niches, just like Darwin’s finches. But when people showed up and their dogs and rats came along, it was a slow game-over for the tortoises. Many are extinct or will be soon. The lesson is, it’s easy to feel safe because you’re enormous and have a hard shell, but if you’ve never had any competition you may not realize that you’re slow as hell and won’t last long.
If I were to get my childhood wish and have one of these giant tortoises for my own right now, I would name it Ethereum. Big and slow and unaware that the mammals are coming. It grew up without any real competition, so now all it has is its massive size to protect it.
I mention this in our weekly report because Telos is ramping up the competition in the blockchain space. A lot of chains simply won’t be able to keep up. But the ones that will, like EOS will be made all the stronger for this competition. EOS and Telos will force each other to be smarter, faster, better. We will be like the lions and antelope on the veld that each get faster and smarter together in what’s called the Red Queen’s Race where prey and predator are forced to keep up with each other’s advancements generation after generation. Animals that don’t take part in the race have to hide in the shadows because they don’t have a chance.
The Telos launch was delayed a bit on this week’s Go/No-go call. It’s another week’s delay, but because a lot of the development team is going to the San Francisco Hackathon, not much work will get done during that time. So we’ll come back for another vote on the following Tuesday.
What’s exciting is what we are delaying for. We’ve completed the system improvements Telos promised: rotating BPs to test readiness, inverse-weighted voting, non-gameable rewards, removing BPs for failing to produce. These system improvements, though important, are still incremental. We are delaying the launch for revolutionary improvements: a real ability to ratify and amend the governance documents, a system for approving worker proposals to improve the network, and smart-contract-based arbitration with arbitrators elected by the token holders. No blockchain in the world currently has these as we are deploying them. Dash and a few others have a WPS system, but it is only voted by the whale masternode owners (full disclosure: I’ve been one for quite a while). Ours are voted by any TLOS token-holder who chooses to. And because of the revised tokenomics, most people will have a statistically meaningful vote.
These features are a revolution in blockchain governance. And there’s a reason for that: they are hard and time-consuming to create. If they were easy, EOS would have them already. They have none of these, and as it stands, the best way for EOS to get these features is almost certainly to adopt them from Telos (which we would welcome) through some blockchain-style lateral gene transfer. What’s more, in order to implement these features, we are working on adding IPFS (Inter-Planetary File System) as a new Telos feature. IPFS is a type of decentralized storage network that has long been expected for EOSIO, but is not yet implemented (or promised any time soon). Telos is about to have it. We are pushing the envelope hard. EOS and any other EOSIO chains will need to evolve quickly to keep up, adding their own important new features in the future that will keep Telos on its toes, too. Telos will be able to adapt and respond quickly by voting on the direction of the network’s growth via WPS funds and using Ratify.Amend to change our governance when it does not work. This is the biggest reason that we won’t launch without them. Promises are important, but the reason we made these promises is because the network’s ability to survive will determine its value for years to come. EOS will have to work hard to keep up. Ethereum? Well, they’re tortoises.
— Douglas Horn
Checklist Updates at a Glance
Functional/In Testing → Complete & Tested
- Include snapshot accounts
- Removal of non-producing BPs
Here’s what we accomplished this week:
- New Testnet with Genesis Accounts
- Swap.Online Partnership Brings Atomic Swaps to Telos
- Telos Network Launch ‘Go/No-Go’ Vote
- Telos Improvement Proposals (TIPs)
- New Features in Sqrl version 0.5.3
- Development Updates
- ‘Telos Foundation Interim Charter and TFVT Token Distribution Process’ Published
- Community Rewards Pool Registration Closed
1. New Testnet with Genesis Accounts
On Friday, November 2nd, Stage 3 of the Telos testnet was launched. For the first time, the EOS genesis accounts were injected into the network so that any user could examine their balance through the testnet block explorer or even perform transactions from their account using a wallet like Sqrl. Other users can create new accounts and receive testnet TLOS using the Create Account and Faucet features of the block explorer. The first 1–3 people who participated in the Telos Key Recovery program could also see their accounts and control them with their new keys. This launch was necessary because the Telos key prefix had changed from TLOS back to EOS. Three stagenets launched on Tuesday, November 6th that tested new code changes such as establishing new voting rules before 30 BPs are registered and a fix for some kicks that were occuring improperly.
2. Swap.Online Partnership Brings In-Wallet Atomic Swaps to Telos
In-wallet atomic swaps allow users to trade cryptocurrency tokens across different blockchains through fast and inexpensive transactions. Multi-cryptocurrency wallet Swap.Online offers navigable interfaces and complete decentralization with convenient and user-controlled B2B and B2C solutions. Upon launch of the Telos Blockchain Network, TLOS tokens will be listed as a Telos-Bitcoin atomic swap on Swap.Online. As with any exchange or DEX, trading is expected to commence only after the network activates and three days have passed so that unstaked tokens become liquid.
Read the full announcement here: https://medium.com/swaponline/swap-online-telos-collaboration-atomic-swaps-with-the-first-significant-eos-fork-294afb7c73ab
3. Telos Network Launch ‘Go/No-Go’ Vote
The TLG voted ‘no-go’ on launching the network on November 7th, 2018 with a vote of: Yes-0, No-22. As with previous ‘go/no-go’ votes, the decision was made because the Telos Launch Group has committed to vote ‘go’ only when all Launch Checklist items are completed. There are still a few items that need to be completed and tested including the Arbitration, Worker Proposal System, and Ratify/Amend contracts. The next vote is scheduled for November 20th.
Watch the most recent Go/No-Go vote here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtANiDnBoPE
View the Launch Checklist here: https://telosfoundation.io/launch
4. Telos Improvement Proposals (TIPs) Proposed
Two new TIPs have been proposed by EOS Detroit members Adam Zientarski and Rob Konsdorf. TIP-32 calls for establishing a vesting schedule for Telos Foundation Rewards Pool tokens that were awarded to Telos Launch Group contributors to ensure long-term investment in the Telos Blockchain Network. TIP-33 would restrict Telos Launch Group contributors voting with Telos Foundation Rewards Pool (TFRP) tokens to reduce the presence of whale accounts on the network. TIP-32 and TIP-33 will be voted on at the upcoming Launch Group Meeting on Tuesday, November 13th.
TIP-32: Vesting Schedule for Telos Foundation Rewards Pool Tokens. Introduced for consideration by Adam Zientarski and Rob Konsdorf of EOS Detroit.
https://github.com/Telos-Foundation/tips/blob/master/tip-0032.md
TIP-33: Voting Restrictions on Telos Foundation Rewards Pool Tokens. Introduced for consideration by Adam Zientarski and Rob Konsdorf of EOS Detroit.
https://github.com/Telos-Foundation/tips/blob/master/tip-0033.md
5. Development Updates
This week, the development team merged the trail.service and rafty.amend contracts into the ‘Contracts’ repository on GitHub to comply with the EOSIO Contract Development Toolkit (CDT). Trail functions as a DNS service for the network that can be used by any contract and be deployed on EOS or Telos, but it also functions as a system contract on Telos. The new features in Trail include mirror-staking on voting tokens, a vote levy and the ability of users to link custom contract proposals to their ballots.
In addition to the contract updates, the development team also fixed a vote weight propagation bug in the eosio.system contract. Currently, the development team is merging the workerproposal contract into the GitHub ‘Contracts’ repository and is in the process of designing the MVP of the arbitration contract.
Read more about Trail here: https://github.com/Telos-Foundation/telos/blob/master/contracts/trail.service/README.md
6. New Features in Sqrl version 0.5.3
Marlon Williams of Telos Miami made significant improvements to Sqrl, the Telos wallet, in version 0.5.3. New features include support for any EOSIO-based chain and a free and user-friendly account creation wizard.
Read more about the newest Sqrl release: https://github.com/Telos-Foundation/Sqrl/releases
Download Sqrl here: https://telosfoundation.io/downloads
7. IPFS Updates
The Interplanetary File System (IPFS) is a decentralized storage technology that will allow additional data and objects to be stored for use on Telos. It is an important part of the approach to certain contracts like Ratify/Amend and the Worker Proposal System. Stephanie Sunshine of GoodBlock has formulated a design/pattern for network-wide IPFS storage. Installing the bare metal machines is still happening, and we are currently running stability and penetration tests on the IPFS swarm.
8. ‘Telos Foundation Interim Charter and TFVT Token Distribution Process’ Published
The Telos Foundation seeks to promote the Telos Blockchain Network, underwrite expenses that increase network functionality and security, and maintain a published price guide for RAM trade and sales. This Interim Charter establishes basic governance and token distribution system to fulfill these goals and was adopted as amended on October 26, 2018 by TIP-26 with a vote of: Yes — 27 , No — 7.
Review the full interim document here: https://medium.com/@teloslogical/telos-foundation-interim-charter-and-tfvt-token-distribution-process-ca88b2ef1e1e
9. Community Rewards Pool Registration Closed
Account registration for the Community Rewards Program closed on November 6th, but enrolled participants will have up to to one week after network activation to complete the submissions form. TCRP participants are requested to only submit their claim once. In the meantime, you can continue to earn TLOS token rewards through community engagement and spreading the word on social media.
Review the rewards submission process here: https://telosfoundation.io/rewards
Join the Telos conversation and get more info!
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Twitter: https://twitter.com/HelloTelos
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TelosFoundation.io
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