Jungfrau Release — All You Need to Know
After almost a year of hard development work and testing, we’re very excited to announce the first public release of the HOPR protocol: HOPR Jungfrau.
We need to begin this post with a few warnings, disclaimers and caveats. These are to protect you and the HOPR Association, so please don’t be alarmed, but DO take them seriously.
HOPR is an incredibly early-stage technology that you use at your own risk. The HOPR Association can in no way be held liable for funds lost or locked using the HOPR protocol in its current state.
First, ONLY send wxHOPR to your node address. If you send xHOPR or HOPR to your node address they cannot be recovered at this time. Full details on how to convert HOPR and xHOPR into wxHOPR are included later in this post.
The wxHOPR token wrapper can be found here: https://wrapper.hoprnet.org/
Second, please do NOT put more than the minimum 10 wxHOPR into your node at this time. Jungfrau does NOT implement staking rewards, so there is no financial incentive to having more wxHOPR in your node, and there is a risk that you will lose your funds. In particular, if you lose access to the db folder you will not be able to recover it and your funds will be locked in your wallet. The smart contracts controlling payment channels in the HOPR protocol have not yet been audited and we cannot guarantee their security (the smart contracts for the token itself have been fully audited).
Finally, please read and appreciate the full disclaimer at the end of the post, courtesy of our wonderful lawyers.
With that out of the way, we can discuss the HOPR Jungfrau release!
Getting wxHOPR
As part of ongoing development, HOPR nodes currently run using mHOPR. Do not send wxHOPR to your node. You can learn more amount node running and mHOPR in our docs.
The first thing to understand is that HOPR nodes will run on wrapped xHOPR (wxHOPR), a wrapped version of the xHOPR token that lives on xDAI Chain. wxHOPR exists because gas fees on mainnet Ethereum are currently prohibitively expensive, but HOPR nodes need an ERC-777 compatible token to run, and xHOPR is an ERC-677 token.
It’s important to understand the three versions of the HOPR token which currently exist and the relationships between them. The addresses of the tokens are included here so you can add them as assets to your wallet, e.g., on Metamask:
- HOPR: This is an ERC-777 token that lives on Ethereum mainnet. It was available in the Balancer LBP and is currently available on Uniswap. HOPR cannot currently be used in HOPR nodes.
HOPR Token contract address: 0xf5581dfefd8fb0e4aec526be659cfab1f8c781da- xHOPR: This is an ERC-677 token that lives on xDAI. It was available in the presale and can be converted to and from HOPR via the Omnibridge. xHOPR cannot currently be used in HOPR nodes.
xHOPR Token contract address: 0xD057604A14982FE8D88c5fC25Aac3267eA142a08- wxHOPR: This is an ERC-777 token that lives on xDAI and can wxHOPR can currently be used in HOPR nodes, and indeed is the only type of HOPR token which you should send to your HOPR node. Even then, please don’t send more than the minimum of 10. wxHOPR is wrapped xHOPR and can be converted to and from xHOPR using our wrapper app at https://wrapper.hoprnet.org/
wxHOPR Token contract address: 0xD4fdec44DB9D44B8f2b6d529620f9C0C7066A2c1To convert between HOPR and xHOPR, you should take them across the Omnibridge, found at: https://omni.xdaichain.com/
A fuller explanation of the process can be found here.
To convert between xHOPR and wxHOPR you should use the HOPR wrapper, found at https://wrapper.hoprnet.org/
Switch your wallet to xDAI Chain and press “Connect Wallet”. Once connected, enter the amount of xHOPR or wxHOPR you want to wrap or unwrap.
Remember: We don’t recommend sending more than 10 wxHOPR to your node, as there is currently no benefit to funding it more than the minimum amount.
Downloading and Running HOPR Jungfrau
To get started with HOPR Jungfrau, visit
https://docs.hoprnet.org/en/latest/src/install-hoprd/index.htmlIf you’re following the script install instructions, you’ll need to enter “1.70.8” when you’re prompted to enter the version you want to install.
Please be aware that our docs are very much a work in progress and will be receiving a significant overhaul in the coming weeks and months. If you have any concerns or questions, please ask an Ambassador in our Telegram Channel.
If you have an AVADO node, the IPFS hash is
/ipfs/QmTh7VJJVourUMx2GiQdHeSjjb7CoUSMQBADftTZbAvHvVYou can also use the installer link:
http://my.avado/#/installer//ipfs/QmTh7VJJVourUMx2GiQdHeSjjb7CoUSMQBADftTZbAvHvVUsing HOPR Jungfrau
If you’re familiar with previous releases of hoprd, you should have no problem using our Jungfrau release. However, there are some things to note:
You’ll need to fund your node with xDAI as well as a minimum of 10 wxHOPR. (Once again, we do not recommend funding your node with more than the minimum at this time.)
If you send tokens to your node, you should not delete or overwrite the db folder your node creates. If you do, you will lose access to your private key and the ability to withdraw your funds. Installing a new version of your node will create a new address and delete this folder, so don’t do this unless you’ve backed up or withdrawn your tokens.
Your node won’t automatically open payment channels. This behaviour is set to passive. You can set it to promiscuous to turn on auto-opening, but be aware that this will lock funds in those channels. Your node will continue to auto-open channels and lock wxHOPR until it runs out of funds or there are five opens channels.
It’s very important to be aware that your node has the ability to automatically complete transactions, and the financial risks associated with this.
Automatic Transactions and Their Associated Risk
Most decentralized applications require a signature from your key to be able to execute operations on the blockchain. This is done to guarantee that only you can authorize transactions on your assets while allowing anyone to participate in the web3 ecosystem. The concept of permissionless is critical here, as there’s no central authority needed for you or anyone to participate in the Ethereum network. You only need a private key to broadcast transactions connected to a particular Ethereum address.
So how can automatic transactions happen in HOPR? In short, upon startup, we create a private key in your HOPR node (see the code here) which the HOPR node has access to, and uses to sign and broadcast transactions on your behalf. This way, your node can engage with other nodes on the network, open payment channels to them, and close these when needed.
What are the risks associated with this approach? Gas costs for sure!
In the Ethereum network, the gas fees have increased to an extent that simple transactions can cost a great deal of money. Based on our previous testnets, the most important operations for a HOPR node have the following costs:
- openChannels — ~40,000 Gas
- redeemTickets — ~80,000 Gas
- initiateChannelClosure — ~40,000 Gas
- claimChannelClosure — ~200,000 Gas
This means that for just settling a single HOPR ticket, currently worth 0.001 HOPR tokens, it would cost roughly 0.036 ETH in gas at a 100 Gwei gas price to execute these transactions. At current market prices, this is the equivalent of over $50 USD. If that wasn’t bad enough, at peak gas prices (e.g. 300–400 Gwei), this could mean over $200 USD for just getting your HOPR node to settle a transaction. Not only this is unsustainable, but it’s also highly risky for users, especially when many of these decisions are automated.
During our testnets, we were constantly weighting these economic costs as part of the development of the protocol. During the summer of 2020, the same operations cost only a fifth of the current market prices, something we could argue would be ineffective yet not an impediment. Nowadays, gas prices make the Ethereum network the most liquid in terms of value-added, yet one of the networks with the highest entry barriers in terms of cost.
Our research from past testnets, however, paid dividends. After debating and seeing these gas costs affect our user base when participating in the Liquidity Bootstrapping Pool (LBP) during our token launch, it was clear that Jungfrau would have to be launched in a network where the economic costs of simply publishing a transaction would not hurt the end-user. After all, the blockchain is only a means to an end, and ensuring the privacy and security of the protocol is our main objective. Thus the wxHOPR token was born, and it was decided that we would use the xDAI chain as the platform to settle payments for HOPR nodes, at least for the next few months while we continue testing and work on implementing features such as staking and cover traffic.
We are disclosing the current situation of the protocol for the sake of transparency. HOPR Association will continue to develop the HOPR protocol, ensuring the funds of the nodes and privacy of their users are taken care of.
Wrapping Up
Today is an exciting time for HOPR Association. HOPR Jungfrau is the first instance of an incentivized, decentralized, privacy-first network of its kind. Hobbyists and researchers are welcome to give the software a spin, and HOPR Association will proceed to sponsor the development of applications, bounties, and other tasks on top of the network.
In the upcoming weeks, we’ll provide more information about the next steps of the protocol, and a rough roadmap of the features to come. One of our most important incentives, cover traffic, will pump HOPR tokens to HOPR nodes connected to the network, providing both metadata privacy and rewards for node runners. We’ll also be announcing more information about the liquidity mining incentives on top of Uniswap, and our bug bounty process for securing the network by locking HOPR tokens in specific nodes in the network. Thank you for following the HOPR protocol, we look forward to sharing the rest of our journey with you.
Jose Aguinaga
HOPR Head of Engineering
HOPR Jungfrau Full Legal Disclaimer
By using the HOPR software protocol or accessing the HOPR network you acknowledge that the HOPR software protocol has been released under GNU General Public License Version 3 and that:
- the HOPR software protocol and the HOPR network are provided “AS IS” and the developers as well as the HOPR Association hereby disclaim all warranties, whether express, implied, statutory, or otherwise, and the developers as well as the HOPR Association specifically disclaim all implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and non-infringement, and all warranties arising from course of dealing, usage, or trade practice. Without limiting the foregoing, the developers and the HOPR Association make no warranty of any kind that the HOPR software protocol and the HOPR network, or any other related software or results of the use thereof, will meet your requirements, operate without interruption, achieve any intended result, be compatible or work with any software, system, or other services, or be secure, accurate, complete, free of harmful code, or error-free.
- to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law: in no event will the developers and the HOPR Association or any related parties be liable for any direct, indirect, special, incidental, consequential, punitive, enhanced or exemplary damages of any kind (including, but not limited to, where related to loss of revenue, income or profits, loss of use or data, or damages for business interruption or diminution in value) arising out of or in any way related to your access or use of the HOPR software protocol or the HOPR network, regardless of the form of action, whether based in contract, tort (including, but not limited to, simple negligence, whether active, passive or imputed), or any other legal theory (even if the party has been advised of the possibility of such damages and regardless of whether such damages were foreseeable).
- the intention pursued by the HOPR software protocol and the HOPR network is new and untested. You understand the high-risk nature of using the HOPR software protocol and the HOPR network and are able to afford an entire loss or decline in value (also to zero) of the cryptographic tokens you are using in connection with the HOPR software protocol and the HOPR network.
