Cypherium | How Multi-level Governance Will Resolve Blockchain’s Disputes

By Sky Guo
Blockchain technology can greatly improve the transactions and data storage of many industries, but there are still some kinks to work out before it can break into the mainstream market. Blockchain technology is gaining in popularity, and the price of Bitcoin is constantly reaching a new record high. Unfortunately, as more companies implement this cutting-edge technology to enable secure online profiles and internet ownership, the more crowded the space becomes. The blockchains currently available are not capable of processing the levels of transactions coming in from the heightened number of users. There are various methods to increase scalability, but there are contradicting opinions on how to do so. These governance disagreements have led to a number of splits in the chain, known as “forks,” which is time-consuming to activate and controversial within the crypto community.
The controversy of forking splits the crypto community, as many have different opinions on legal boundaries and staying true to the decentralization that is the core of the technology’s mission. The recent Bitcoin fork in August 2017, as well as the recent threat of a November 2017 fork known as Segwit2x, was the result of governance disagreements, amongst other factors, and caused the value of Bitcoin to temporarily dip as the community braced for the worst. Bitcoin eventually came back up and has been on the rise ever since, but the skepticism of forking continues. Thus far, forking has been the only solution to increasing scalability and continuing to support the increased number of transactions on the Bitcoin Blockchain. In order for blockchain technology to become accessible on a global scale, improvements must be made.
We founded Cypherium to increase scalability and to create a blockchain that is adaptable to everyday life.
The Cypherium Blockchain provides a faster, more affordable alternative to currently available blockchains. Low transaction fees make it practical to apply to everyday purchases. Using our technology, the Cypherium blockchain will be able to process thousands of transactions per second, and will not need to fork in order to scale. The accessibility that Cypherium brings to the blockchain technology sphere will make widespread usage possible.
We have achieved this through a number of highly technical developments, including bringing together two of the most widely used consensus mechanisms. We are combining Proof-of-Work with Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance to create a hybrid consensus mechanism that is both highly scalable and decentralized. By creating a hybrid chain, we are able to combine the strengths from each consensus method. We are leveraging Proof-of-Work’s security and permissionless access and PBFT’s low latency and historical dependability. The result is a blockchain that is as open and usable as the Bitcoin Blockchain that leverages the scalability enabled by PBFT.
We have also employed a completely unique multi-level governance test system. This separates the application protocol from the main protocol, allowing the main protocol to operate at optimal speed. By doing this we enable freedom for application and protocol developers to control their code and data respectively. The test sandbox allows smart contracts to run on a temporary mini-fork until they are fully operational. Once debugging is finished, the result is transmitted onto the main protocol and the mini-fork is deleted. This basically gives us the opportunity to develop without interfering with the main chain, which in turn gives it the bandwidth to operate more efficiently.
Blockchains, by nature, aren’t capable of massive data storage. To combat this, Cypherium’s protocol enables smart contracts to read data from external storage or remote data sources instead of congesting the main protocol. Changes to the protocol (e.g. block size, transaction fee, stack depth, network protocol, mining algorithm, etc.) are adjusted by voting and requires approval by more than two-thirds of the computing power to become effective. These technological advances enable Cypherium to produce a blockchain that is capable of handling transaction numbers that will allow blockchain technology to enter the mainstream market.
Our open source platform encourages democracy, as no single node is above any of the others. Nodes are free to join and leave the network freely, creating an ever changing validating committee. Validation committees are responsible for collectively verifying transactions. If a validator commits fraud, they are immediately removed from the group. By implementing a unique validation committee, we are able to achieve the apex of scalability and decentralization.
Controversial cases, like that of the recent Parity freeze, are mainly a byproduct of lack of governance. We utilize our unique multi-level governance to provide a solution to governance disputes. By doing so we mitigate the need to fork and bypass negative consequences such as token value fluctuations and the freezing of user’s cryptocurrency. By developing a method to resolve conflict over the blockchain decreases the chances of community disruption and provides a more stable foundation to build a cryptocurrency on top of.
Blockchain technology is quickly integrating itself into everyday life whether people notice it or not. However, in order for it to really take off blockchain needs to become more convenient and practical to use. We created Cypherium to broaden blockchain technology’s reach into the global market by making it more scalable and adaptable for modern day use. The implementation of a hybrid consensus mechanism combined with multi-level governance can resolve many of the grievances that blockchain has faced. To learn more, read our white paper or join our Telegram channel.