Fusion Technical AMA Summary (2/19/19)

Fusion hosted an AMA (Ask Me Anything) with Founder Dejun Qian and CTO Bret Schlussman at 9AM EST on the 19th of February 2019. We would like to thank the community for your enthusiastic participation, we look forward to many more interesting, engaging and challenging AMAs in the future.

Here is a summary of the conversation:

1. What is the issue with the consensus engine and how long will it take to fix?

Bret: The final piece of the puzzle for PSN 1.0 is to update our consensus engine to prevent new forks in the chain. We are proceeding with further testing to find the best way to calculate difficulty and avoid merkle roots. The consensus code is isolated to three directories in the git repository — https://github.com/FUSIONFoundation/efsn/tree/master/consensus

2. Why would banks use Fusion over its competitors?

DJ: Later today we are going to post a use-case video focused on time-based transactions that will describe a few reasons why a bank or business will want to build on Fusion. This will help to open your imagination on what is possible with Fusion.

3. When will PSN 2.0 be released?

Bret: The vast majority of improvements to PSN 1.0 have been tested and are ready to be shipped. This includes:

• APIs for time-locks, asset creations, and quantum swaps debugged and improved
• Update to Ethereum 1.16 stable (now in position to merge with new Ethereums updates)
• Better block explorer api support integrated into the transaction data saved.
• Preparation for full feature wallet and asset gateway to be delivered
• Knowledge Centre for support and troubleshooting
• Api site coming alive at fusionapi.readthedocs.io
• Formal announcement of bug bounty and tech help rewards

The last section of PSN 1.0 that we need to resolve is the consensus engine. We are making good progress on this front and anticipate PSN 2.0 to be delivered soon. We don’t want to attach a date to this release yet.

4. When will partnerships get announced? What’s the pipeline looking like?

DJ: We are still anticipating a partnership announcement in February and are very close with a few others. Things are progressing very well on the partnership front.

5. Will there be a Testnet for hybrid consensus PoW and PoS together anytime soon?

DJ: Not for PSN 2.0. PoWs application is related to Fusion’s interoperability solution, DCRM (Distributed Control Rights Management). When DCRM is integrated with main net, we will transition to a hybrid consensus model.

6. The ticket approach is quite unique, different from other PoS implementations and not easily understandable or proven. You’re still trying to iron out the quirks?

DJ: Yes, it is, we want to utilize PoS advantages and avoid the down side of POS at the same time. That’s why we use the ticket system.

7. Aren’t you worried that the network will behave unexpectedly, surely we should be testing hybrid consensus before going live?

DJ: We will be running on a two-layer solution and controlling two different type of assets. But yes, QA and code review, audit are necessary before main net and of course we have been testing internally and already begun this process.

8. Why aren’t the code improvements being shipped in small incremental releases?

Bret: PSN 2.0 has new state transition code that supports the financial APIs such as create asset and time-lock — is has been debugged. The new state transition is incompatible with PSN 1.0. We are aware the biggest thing people are worried about is making sure they receive their ERC20 staking rewards. We are not deleting ANY data from PSN 1.0 so all rewards can be calculated easily and accurately. We can even demonstrate how we calculate rewards by running a simple script. Running the chain for the last few weeks has been very helpful to learn and debug and if you review GitHub there are incremental improvements there.

9. Will there be an opportunity to earn rewards for non-technical specialists but ordinary people who don’t know how to maintain the node with PSN 2.0?

DJ: We will try to make maintaining a node easier and easier, we expect it to be significantly easier on PSN 2.0. On PSN 2.0 you will also be able to Quantum Swap P-FSN and time-locked P-FSN tokens for ERC20 FSN so there will be easy earning capacity for non-technical users.

10. With the way tickets are bought today it’s nearly impossible for stakers to reach a full amount of tickets. @arkivix dug through the code and he explained the reason for this being that whenever a ticket is chosen all tickets older than the chosen one are moved to retreat and then removed. Is this true and if so intentional? Will it change with PSN 2.0?

Bret: We have learned a lot about the math related to consensus on PSN 1.0. The team is confident that we will see a better distribution algorithm with PSN 2.0.

DJ: Current PSN 1.0 code is not functioning as well as it could be. That’s why we are making significant improvements for PSN 2.0.

11. Is there a decision for a PSN 2.0 upgrade path already? Will you craft a new genesis block?

Bret: The genesis block will be the same as for PSN 1.0. Of course, FSN ERC20 mining rewards will be carried over to PSN 2.0 via the asset gateway. The end result for mining rewards will be calculated by getting the miner from each block with a simple web3 api call of getBlock and getMiner. Anyone could run this and check that our calculation is accurate, we will post the source for this script on our public GitHub.

12. Can you update us on how many developers are currently working full time at Fusion?

DJ: Fusion currently has 12 full time developers, 2 security consultants, a UX designer and a product strategy consultant. We also actively interviewing for a technical writer and QA engineer.

13. Did you come up with a better solution for the ticket states or will we stick with the full non-pruning archive node requirement? That’s pretty hefty and will further increase the cost of running nodes?

Bret: It is extremely important that we do not to ship with non-pruning on. This is being tested in the new consensus code and we this will be fixed for PSN 2.0.

14. Are there any plans to work with other crypto code validator companies and individual parties to peer review all code for security issues and vulnerabilities? When will this be done? PSN 2.0?

Bret: We are first asking the open-source community to review our code as it develops. The plan is to find third party crypto security validators to do an audit of the code before main net.

15. Will Trezor users be compensated for lack of support almost 2 months after launch of stagenet?

DJ: sorry that we don’t have this plan.

16. Do you have a timeline for PSN 2.0?

Bret: As stated above, the last section of PSN 1.0 that we need to resolve is the consensus engine. We are making good progress on this front and anticipate PSN 2.0 to be delivered soon. We don’t want to attach a date to this release yet.

17. What is the one major thing that pushes Fusion above its competitors?

Bret: From a developers’ perspective, Fusion’s rich API environment drastically reduces reliance on highly technical, inefficient and inflexible smart contract writing. Time-lock, Quantum Swap and Create New Asset are simple API calls that are native to the Fusion protocol and easily accessible to developers. These innovative features can serve as the foundation for numerous Blockchain solutions across the finance industry and beyond.

18. Any comment on why a handful of wallets are gaining huge rewards, while others are barely getting any, if at all? Have they found a work around /bug or way to get more tickets? Most people are not able to buy more than 1–30 tickets at any given time.

Bret: The consensus algorithm on PSN 1.0 is not functioning 100% correctly. We are now correcting the faults in the distribution algorithm. That is why we ran a test net so we can identify problems and then work to resolve them.

19. How much are we expecting the node CPU consumption to drop with PSN 2.0 and is any reduction caused by general optimizations or a major overhaul of the consensus?

Bret: PSN 2.0 solves several CPU related issues with running transactions, related to the consensus engine and also our api calls. We also believe that by using a stable release upgrade of Ethereum other benefits will be realized.

20. How is Fusion looking financially at this stage i.e. how much runway is there?

DJ: We are not worried about our financial situation yet in this bear market. We are far away from the time to worry about it.

21. How do you plan on spreading the word, we have a small community, and no top tier exchanges? What’s the game plan to grow the community?

DJ: We are working on a marketing plan to increase awareness and anticipate an increase in traction as PSN 2.0 is launched, we begin releasing partnership announcements and ramp up marketing. We know that liquidity is an issue and exchange listings and awareness are both top priorities and we know these go hand in hand. We have brought in another resource who is focused on targeting top tier exchanges. We need the help from the community now more than ever for this

22. How does fusion plan to create awareness?

DJ: The team has been focused on technology, strategy and partnerships over the last few months. Now we are reaching a time to begin a major awareness campaign. We assigned a dedicate team to work on creating awareness for the project. Technology releases, real adoption, exciting events, lots of exciting news will be coming out soon.

23. Will we get a heads-up a few days before the PSN 2.0 upgrade takes place so we can prepare, like updating articles, checking the code and stuff?

Bret: There will be proper communication detailing the process of switching over to PSN 2.0 including the block height that this transition will occur. I Agree we should not just turn on PSN 2.0 without warning. Ample notice will be given

24. Any news on oracles? Is someone working on it or is it not a priority at the moment?

Bret: Multi-trigger Oracles are still being researched and designed, the code and theories are similar to the work being push forward in DCRM which deals with functionality of x over a decentralized architecture.

25. Will it be possible to run nodes on windows by main net or we will need a VPS/VM?

DJ: Yes, you will be able to run on windows. I remember I mentioned once in TG channel even mobile node would be possible for our ticket POS system

26. I have a tech question, does the team think that the ticket buying mechanism will have an adverse effect on the available transactions per second (tps) of the chain? Is this a concern?

Bret: On PSN 2.0 the JSON-RPC has been improved so that a gateway will not allow more than one ticket to be purchased per miner per block. This will reduce the transaction load on the nodes dramatically. Then optimization of the ticket purchasing has sped up transaction processing and decreased CPU load. Also from an economic perspective, as the system reaches steady state and the nodes hold their maximum numbers of tickets, there should only be one new ticket purchased per block.

27. Any plans for Dapp development on the Fusion platform?

DJ: we saw some big companies were building app on fusion.

Bret: Dapps are paramount, we are focused on building our development community. Current VM is being extended time-lock and assets ids. All Ethereum contracts will work natively.

28. What happens when the Fusion gateway goes down?

Bret: You can establish your own gateway. Gateways are easy to run like nodes. If you are not clear on how to run a gateway, we will improve our docs.

29. Can we get a consensus design document?

Bret: The short answer is yes, we need a design document and will deliver one to the open-source community. Currently the consensus engine is under revision as we test different ways to improve it. Fusion will provide in-depth documentation on the consensus model that explains how it works in the future.

30. What are the plans and goals to expand the external development community?

Bret: Fusion is incredibly focused on growing the development community, we believe this to be an imperative cog in the Fusion ecosystem. As mentioned above, we also believe that Fusion offers developers a unique and significant platform on which to build the applications of the future. Fusion’s rich API environment significantly improves efficiency and flexibility in smart contract production. Time-lock, Quantum Swap and Create New Asset are simple API calls that are native to the Fusion protocol and easily accessible to developers. These innovative features can serve as the foundation for numerous Blockchain solutions across the finance industry and beyond.

Fusion will continue to build out its documentation to enable developers to easily access and interact with Fusion’s APIs. As well as Github, Fusion is organising its developer documentation at https://fusionapi.readthedocs.io/ (this is a work in progress). Fusion has an upcoming bug bounty to drive interaction with core code base to reward participation. Fusion has plans to host a Hackathon focused on building applications on the Fusion chain as well as other growth ideas.

I can’t stress enough how important developer engagement is to the Fusion project, it is a major priority.

Thank you everyone for your participation in the Technical AMA. Please feel free to continue the conversation in the Fusion Telegram Channel, Subreddit and Twitter.