Idena Chronicles

Epochs 116–119

Idena

Published in

Idena

12 min readSep 29, 2023

German edition by Ubiubi
Greek edition by TomThisIsIt
Hungarian edition by Viktor Mate Takacs
Italian edition by Kazeru Wakabayashi
Persian edition by Kasra D
Romanian edition by Zen
Russian edition by IDENA World
Serbian edition by NPC69

Network metrics

Epoch #0119

Active miners — total number of actively mining identities running their own mining nodes or delegated into mining pools.

Mining nodes — total number of full mining nodes run by individual identities or pool owners who activated online status.

Newcomers — number of addresses that validated for the first time

Success ratio — share of users attended the validation and successfully validated

Active wallets — unique wallets that made transactions during the last epoch

Competitors

Network stats

Number of validated identities by status

Last validation stats

Nodes on VPS — users running their nodes on VPS
Built-in nodes — users of the Idena Desktop App with build-in node
Shared nodes (web) — Web App users renting shared nodes via marketplace
Unknown shared nodes (web ) — Web App users who connect to shared nodes that are not listed in the Idena shared nodes marketplace

To have a smooth and reliable validation ceremony experience, we recommend using VPS or built-in nodes if you have fast Internet connection and good router, or the nodes listed in the node marketplace in the official Idena Web App in other cases.

Markets

Idena Core Team Update

Secondary node on the Idena web app
Shared node proxy update
AI-based tool for challenging easy flips

Secondary node on the Idena web app

As per the community’s request to mitigate possible failure of the shared node during validation (e.g. https://github.com/idena-network/idena-docs/discussions/156), we have introduced the option to connect to a secondary node. Secondary node is used during validation in parallel with a primary node. This ensures that in case of any technical difficulties with one node, the second node will allow continuing validation.

This functionality is currently in beta testing mode.

Join the testing for the next validation using this version of the web client:

Go to the web app using the link: https://idena-web-git-secondary-node-idena.vercel.app/
Import your encrypted private key
Set up the primary and secondary nodes (Settings>Node)
Use this client on the validation

If you encounter any issues related to this functionality, please let us know: https://github.com/idena-network/idena-web/issues

Shared node proxy update

There’s a new release of proxy for shared nodes. If you are a shared node operator, please update your node proxy: https://github.com/idena-network/idena-node-proxy/releases/tag/v1.2.1

This version of the proxy supports batch requests, which are utilized by the new Idena web app version with a secondary node (see above).

AI-based tool for challenging easy flips

Over the past months we have been working on an AI-based tool that evaluates whether a flip is easy to solve. The goal is with the help of a friendly AI to identify and exclude the most straightforward flips during the flip creation stage, thus increasing the difficulty of solving flips during validation by an unknown hostile AI. We assume that even if the hostile AI is stronger than the friendly AI, it won’t let it reach human level success ratio since easy flips are filtered out. Such friendly AI has to be evolved over time using the newly created flips thus increasing the difficulty of flips overtime.

For now, this tool is implemented as a standalone non-public web site (only for development purposes). As an input data this tool requires flip data in JSON format. For the convenience we have added a Copy to clipboard button to the flip editor, allowing us to copy the flip data in this specified format and test the tool.

After inputting the flip data into the AI, it undergoes image recognition processing and subsequently assigns scores to both sequences of images. Using these scores, the AI determines if a flip is easy to solve or not.

At the moment, we are in the R&D stage and will keep you updated on the progress.

Q&A from IDENA dev team

Q: “Could you give us more information regarding collateralized identity loans? Can such a smart contract be created?” (by Zen)

Identity loans require the protocol to have the capability of transferring control over the identity status to a specific contract. For example, a user can delegate control of their identity to a contract, which can terminate the identity and receive its stake. Such contract can return control to the identity owner or even transfer control to another contract. This opens up the possibility for a user to obtain loans from other users, using identity as collateral, with the full or partial loan amount covered by the locked IDNA stake.

For instance, a borrower-user seeking a loan would delegate control over their identity to an intermediary contract. A creditor-user provides money to the borrower by sending it to this intermediary contract. The borrower withdraws the money from the contract, committing to return it within the agreed-upon period. If the money is not repaid, the creditor, through the contract, terminates the borrower’s identity and receives their stake as compensation for their losses.

Currently, Idena does not allow for the delegation of identity control to any contract. However, through smart contracts, it is possible to implement staking of custom tokens, which would function similarly to IDNA staking and be tied to the status of a validated identity (the contract can store the age and epoch of relevance to monitor the identity status). With staking of custom tokens, it is possible to implement identity loans backed by the stake of custom tokens. Additionally, staking custom tokens can be used in a manner similar to IDNA staking (for earning token rewards or for community voting using a sublinear formula).

Q: “How is the writing of that paper about dynamic sublinear staking coming along? I’m quite anxious about it.” (by NPC)

The article is now in its final stage. We invested a substantial amount of time writing it. The review and publication will take some more time, but we are doing everything possible to expedite this process.

Q:“Adding to NPC69 question: are there co-authors? Will it be an anonymous paper, or do you consider publishing it under real name / reputation?” (by Ubiubi)

The article is collaboratively authored by leading experts in the field of identity. At the moment, we do not want to disclose the names of authors.

Q: “What are you working on right now?” (by EDM)

Currently our primary focus is now on R&D. For example, we are working on creating AI capable of filtering out flips that are easily solvable.

As the protocol is currently operating reliably so we do not have immediate plans for active development. Nevertheless, we warmly welcome initiatives and pull requests from community developers, both concerning the node (via IIPs if needed) and for enhancing the UI/UX on the client side of Idena. We also encourage you to develop projects based on Idena smart contracts.

The protocol is only as good as the real applications built on top of it.

Q: “Right now it isnt profitable for newbies to run a mining node, but they also have no stake protection to replenish stake to make it more profitable. This lack of stake protection mitigates the abuse by human farms, but also keeps real people at distance. Also there is no stake-protected way for investors -who dont like to do the flipgame themself — to invest into quadratic staking. Do you think it would be possible to change that? ( one idea: https://discord.com/channels/634481767352369162/647573315640098817/1150365551462449252 )” (by Ubiubi)

Hitchhiker is an interesting proposal aimed at incentivizing staking by investors who either do not want to be validators or do not want to validate their identity.

It is difficult to predict how the proposal will affect the number of validated accounts and the number of mining nodes. From an implementation standpoint, there are several uncertainties and complexities that should be unpacked. For example, it is not clear from the proposal how to apply sublinear staking (stake^0.9) to hitchhikers’ stakes. It’s not possible to distinguish the unique addresses of unvalidated investors (for instance, if one large investor divides their stake among many accounts). Such fragmentation might lead to a reduction in IDNA-rewards for all accounts, despite the proposed allocation of 2/3 of the rewards to validated accounts (although it might lead to IDNA price increase).

Perhaps a simpler and more straightforward approach would be the implementation of a single “virtual identity”, which does not require validation, and whose stake would be equal to the sum of the stakes of unvalidated investors. This “virtual identity” would then compete with validated identities using a sublinear formula for its entire pool of stakes (with a large stake, its yield would be lower than APY of individual validated identities). The rewards from this “virtual identity” could be distributed to the addresses of unvalidated investor’s wallets in proportion to their stake (without using a sublinear formula as we cannot identify unique accounts).

Since Idena Chronicles is not a suitable format for discussing such proposals, we would suggest you formalize an IIP and continue the discussion on GitHub.

Q: “Is the quadratic transition done in your point of view? Or should the community expect for example quadratic (coin)voting on IIPs? As much as i want to stick with “one person, one vote”, i can not ignore the possibility of OEV (Oracle extractable value) and manipulated IIPs at this small network size. Only a few percent of eligible identities are voting in Oracles, so a shadow farmer with bad intentions and a few dozen of not officially delegated IDs can have a much higher impact on all decisions related to oracle votes than he could have on the automatic task of verifying or proposing blocks. His share of the network has potentially a 100% voter turnout, while the majority of unique and individual people often ignores oracles? Will this risk of manipulation become smaller at growing networksize thanks to oracles sortition?” (by Ubiubi)

In accordance with IIP-11, the stake of an identity is taken into account during voting: the votes of accounts with stakes below the threshold are not considered in oracle voting, fork updates, and in block consensus. However, the principle of “one account = one vote” is still preserved. This means that for an attack on the network, it is necessary not only to validate some number of accounts for voting but also to stake the minimum amount of IDNA on all these accounts. This discourages the attacker from devaluing their investments in the coin.

Furthermore, to increase the cost of an attack, it is possible to raise the threshold for the minimum stake.

The option of sublinear voting is also possible. However, it must be acknowledged that in certain scenarios, the cost of an attack on sublinear voting without a threshold on the minimum stake may be even lower than with IIP-11 (for example, if a malicious user has a large pool of low-paid workers while IDNA price is high).

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If you have more questions post it in the comments below. We will pick the most interesting questions to answer them in the next Chronicles.

Community

Global community channels

Community updates

Edited by Syd

Hello Idenians! I hope you have enjoyed the summer’s pleasures and perhaps treat yourself some well-deserved holidays. These past few weeks had a steady stream of news, so without further ado, let’s dive right in.

Idena Open Wiki unveiled by Community Member @Morienzo

Last month, @Morienzo, the community builder behind the Holismo App, gifted the Idena community with another awesome project: the Idena Open Wiki.

The Wiki will be expanded over time, with the goal of becoming a comprehensive resource for all things Idena related.

This collaborative platform welcomes contributions from all, so feel free to chime in!

Holismo’s Latest Update: Join the movement and get involved!

Speaking of Holismo, the project recently made an announcement, inviting everyone to participate in shaping the project’s future. This will involve a series of open debates on the project’s whitepaper: don’t hesitate to join and participate!

Find out also the full announcement and all the details in this article: https://medium.com/@holismo/announcement-debates-on-the-whitepaper-holismo-decentralized-human-democracy-51483dbaf909

Idena and Gitcoin: A productive collaboration

Once more, Gitcoin is shining a spotlight on Idena, and there’s always some buzz surrounding our unique stamp within the community.

In fact, @eloyn made a Spanish thread to help folks understand what Idena is about to curious Gitcoin users.

Is Idena perhaps the coolest stamp in the Gitcoin Passport collection?!

It’s also a particularly Sybil-resistant one, as we all know!

Last but not least, many users are discovering Idena also through Gitcoin Grants Program:

Idena vs Worldcoin: News from the front!

By now, you are probably used to it, but as we know that Idena always shines when compared to Worldcoin, it’s always great to find some good illustration of it. Indeed we had another great example, amazingly illustrated by our community member @mr_ligi, who went auditing an orb from @worldcoin.

The great information from this this action is that it proved that Worldcoin is not auditable, it’s just a locked safe, a protocol functioning through an enclosed hardware, with no way to peek inside without permission. Whether it’s functioning or not is beside the point: no one can verify the process permissionless, which is exactly the opposite of Idena.

Don’t trust, verify, and if it can’t be verified, it’s not trustable!

So far, as @mr_ligi puts, Idena is the only implementation that respects privacy:

Notable tweets

· A nice thread on Idena from @Asyl101021

· Is Idena… Proof of Poop?

Community Wallet and Community Proposals

Address: https://idenawallet.community/wallets

Previous and on-going proposals: https://idenawallet.community/proposals

Current delegates: Elections ongoing (check #community-delegates for updates)

REMINDER regarding Community Proposals:

ICYMI, the Community Wallet is now controlled by 5 delegates who execute decisions made on Oracles through multi-sig. For more details, please refer to the Chronicles #89.

As the Community is now empowered to build and get funded/rewarded through a democratic governance leveraged by Idena Oracles, please remember that everyone can make a funding proposal.

To be updated, or if you want to give your input on this topic, feel free to join the Discord. Please join the Community Discord (https://discord.gg/UrsDEHMs) and reach #community-proposals-and-discussion or #community-delegates.

Governance Rules are:

· https://ubiubi2018.medium.com/proposal-for-governance-mechanism-for-idena-community-wallet-1d3f42819a50

· Amendment: https://medium.com/@Zen-44/community-wallet-governance-protocol-23a0e331b5eb

Top active users

Community Discord leaderboard:

Telegram — Global community leaderboard:

Telegram — Idena Balkan leaderboard:

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Telegram — Idena France leaderboard:

If you want to feature your telegram community leaderboard in the Idena Chronicles, please add ComBot to your telegram group and add @AndrewIdena to the list of group admins to give the Idena core team access to your group stats.