JURA ICO Review: the Paradigm Shift
4 features that can really change the game
Iwould like to start with a quick notice. I have decided to act more as an individual on Medium. Still I am the editor-in-chief of ICO of KOREA, and am still actively writing my reviews in Korean as well. Today I want to talk about Jura, which is listed as 2nd on our spreadsheet as well. Jura is starting to be more out on the open. I have decided to take a look, and it definitely is an interesting project.
Decentralization vs. Transaction Speed
There is a common dilemma in the practical application of blockchain technology: Decentralization and Transaction Speed. To be precise, these two are trade-offs, meaning if you choose one, you have to give up the other. If you want to set up a decentralized system through blockchain, it was too slow for the best user experience. On the other hand, if you want to have a fast working system, you had to have some level of centralization to do so. Jura, however, is a blockchain that provides a solution to this trade-off.
Feeless, Ultrafast, Decentralized Security
According to Jura, it has no fees, it is very fast, and has a decentralized security. With Jura’s technology, the blockchain system can now achieve both decentralization and transaction speed. Jura in its early stages will focus on IoT. From that it will continuously improve its framework so that it can be applied in various fields such as finance, insurance, medical & public institution etc. If we look at Jura’s value proposition so far, it really is not different from other ICOs. “Feeless”, for example, is a common advantage that numerous ICOs claim all the time. In this case, the “how” part is very important. So how does Jura realize its proposed benefits?
The 4 innovations of Jura: Fusus, PoU, DMDS, AI Security
There are four core technologies of Jura: Fusus Data Structure, Proof of Utility (PoU), Dynamically Monitored & Distributed Sharding (DMDS), and AI Security.
- Fusus Data Structure
The Fusus data structure is a combination of DAG, Lattice structure, and Blockchain. It is a data structure that takes the advantages of the technologies mentioned above. Personally I think the Fusus data structure has some resemblance to Vite and its asynchronous model. For example, Fusus treats Send and Receive transactions separately, and each account is the structure that forms its own blockchain. The difference is that Fusus is more flexible when it comes to traffic. If there is low traffic, the transaction resembles a “blockchain” structure in which the Send and Receive blocks are written to the Genesis Block in order. If there is high traffic, a “DAG” structure is created in which the Send and Receive blocks form a Genesis Block that acts more like DAG.
The reason to this approach is mainly due to storage. DAG offers solutions to transaction speed and scalability, but at the same time they take up a large amount of storage. Therefore, it is less efficient to use DAG when the level of traffic is low. In this case, it is better to use a blockchain structure. Jura uses the term “DAG Pruning” for this process. Using the DAG only when it is absolutely necessary minimizes storage and provides an efficiency that is easier when tracking blocks.
Jura also adopts PoVRT, Proof of Verifiable Random Time in the block formation process. Personally, PoVRT is my favorite aspect of Jura. Before I delve further, let’s have a quick glance on how hacking attempts work. Once the hack is initiated, the supercomputer overrides any validation to take over the node before it can validate the block with a proven method such as PoW. In a way, time is of the essence since the hacking process has to be much faster than the time for verification.
To address this, PoVRT designates randomly selected waiting times when transactions are sent. After a fixed waiting time, the transaction will pass for verification. This is important because hacking attempts should be made quickly by ignoring the waiting time set by the PoVRT. Ignoring this process will be quickly noticed, and the system and immediately address to this malfunction. The system finds nodes that are out of latency and quickly blocks them to prevent spam and double spending problems. Think of it as your iPhone password. The first stage of wrong password attempts you wait for a couple of minutes to try unlocking again. Then it takes hours, and then eventually forever.
2. Proof of Utility (PoU)
PoU is responsible for evaluating the creditworthiness of the account. For example, the existing Proof of Stake, PoS, has increased decision impacts based on equity and has the ability to arbitrarily control the system as soon as it achieves a 51% stake. With this in mind, Jura offers a modified PoS method called PoU. Account age, average interstaking time, last staking time, and size of stake are applied to calculate the score for the account. Therefore, based on comprehensive PoU scores, the system evaluates accounts that are actively participating in consensus in a more reliable way than PoS. In addition, it is said that the points in each of the four categories are between 0 and 1, so that it is not possible to greatly improve the PoU score by concentrating on one category. Finally, although there are currently four areas, more research will be done to establish new categories or adjust the existing ones.
3. Dynamic Monitoring & Decentralization Sharding(DMDS)
Simply speaking, it is a more systematic way to manage sharding. Instead of dividing the network into shards, you create a hierarchy to manage the shard, and you can build an environment that allows for parallel processing. This is a more systematic way to ensure that the correct shard is validating transactions correctly. Especially, it is said that emergency measures are taken so that the backup shard can be used when the shard is inoperable. These shards are operated by “Judgers”, which is a type of node in the Jura ecosystem.
4. AI Security
On the later part of the roadmap you can expect AI security. The purpose of using AI is to manage wallets safely and filter transactions to distinguish malicious nodes. However, Jura is at its early stage, so it is going to take some time to see this actually in place. There is a lot of machine learning involved to study the transactions and habits of malicious nodes. Once AI security is established, you can expect a powerful system of PoU, DMDS, and AI governance.
My prediction on Jura’s token usage
There are Judgers, Storagers, and Coordinators in the Jura ecosystem. Judgers verify the shards and transactions. Storagers offer storage in exchange for certain rewards(I am guessing, Jura tokens). Finally, the Coordinators manages the shard information collectively. So far, there are no apparent demand factors for tokens. Reading the whitepaper, there is a system that has low barriers to participate in staking so that more people can participate in staking to increase their PoU score. I think the value in Jura tokens could be more towards staking rewards than direct demand for the tokens. There is token sale information going around, but I will not disclose that on this post. If you are interested, feel free to join my telegram channel.
Final Remarks
I have done a lot of analysis as part of my work in ICO of KOREA, and I think the contents of Jura are very attractive. I think Fusus, PoU, DMDS, and AI fill up the empty aspects of other projects comprehensively. Jura has adopted a flexible approach rather than just one method. There is not a lot of sale information disclosed at the moment, but I will definitely keep watching the project.
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