Idena Chronicles

Epochs 106–108

Idena

Published in

Idena

13 min readMay 10, 2023

Network metrics

Epoch #0108

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

Markets

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.

Idena Core Team Update

Testing FLIPs with ChatGPT4
Blockchain explorer update
Smart contract verification
Corea hackathon results
Q&A from IDENA dev team

AI-resistance of Idena flips

With ChatGPT-4 now accessible via a paid subscription ($20 per month), we have conducted tests on a sample of 50 randomly selected, qualified flips from prior validations, including 13 flips with nonsense images.

First, we used an image recognition tool like CLIP Interrogator, which is capable of identifying objects as well as detailing the actions happening within the image. As expected, nonsense images content was recognised as something meaningful. On average, processing a single image took approximately 60 seconds, but occasionally it could last 2–3 minutes per image.

Then we input this prompt into ChatGPT-4:

I will give you two sequences of 4 things: “Sequence A” and “Sequence B”. One sequence forms a logical story and the other sequence makes a meaningless story.
Sequence A: 1 … 2 … 3 … 4 …
Sequence B: 1 … 2 … 3 … 4 …
Which of the two sequences “A” or “B” the majority of the people would think is more logical in chronological order?

The response time was about 10–15 secs per flip. To ensure the stability of the results, each flip was executed twice in different chat sessions.

We have categorized the answers into 3 types:

Correctly solved two times. In both instances, ChatGPT produced the same accurate sequence of images.

For example, the logic of this flip is very well explained by ChatGPT-4 and it consistently delivers the same outcome each time.

2. Randomly solved. In these cases ChatGPT offered one sequence in one session and a different sequence in another chat using the same prompt. Additionally, it could assert that there is no solution, as both sequences are nonsensical.

Here’s an example where ChatGPT-4 provided varying responses:

3. Incorrectly solved. Both times ChatGPT-4 produced incorrect answers

Hence, the results for the examined sample are as follows:

Correctly solved flips: 54% (C)
Randomly solved flips: 18% (R)
Incorrectly solved flips: 28% (I)

To calculate the overall success rate, we use this formula:

Success rate = C + 0.5 * R = 63%

As mentioned earlier, the sample contained a mix of regular flips and those with nonsense images. By splitting the sample into two separate groups and evaluating their success rates, we found that flips containing nonsense images had a success rate of 50%, equivalent to random guessing. Meanwhile, the success rate for the other group was 67.6%, which, although relatively high, was not sufficient to reach Human status (a minimum of 92%).

Clearly, the inclusion of nonsensical images has a significant impact on AI confusion.

Does shuffling affect GPT4?

Another important aspect is shuffling of the images. Let’s take a look at this example.

The objects in the images were detected accurately. The flip with initial shuffling was successfully solved by ChatGPT-4.

If we change the shuffling as follows:

The shuffled story on the right still makes less sense than the correct story on the left. However, ChatGPT-4 fails to solve this flip.

Make your flips AI-resistant

In the time of rapid AI development it is important for every IDENA participant to make AI-resistant flips as they are the basis of network security. Spend some time and use your imagination to create unique stories using collages and hand drawings, add nonsense images and avoid shuffling that makes the flip too obvious to solve.

Blockchain explorer update

Pool’s history tab

We have added a new “History” tab on the pool’s page. Now you can see what the pool size was at different epochs, which helps when analyzing pools.

Identity’s pools tab

We’ve made some updates to the identity page too. In the new “Identity’s pools” tab, you can see all the pools this identity has delegated, along with the dates and transactions for when they delegated or left the pools.

Smart contract verification

Smart contract verification is added to the Blockchain explorer. This helps confirm that the source code of a smart contract was really used to generate the bytecode on the blockchain. By checking if the provided source code matches the code at the contract address, anyone working with the contract can trust its logic.

To verify your smart contract, follow these steps:

Create a zip file containing project files with your contract.

2. Upload the zip file to the Blockchain explorer.

3. Once the process is completed successfully, the contract will receive a “Verified” status.

After that, anyone can download the archive with the code of your contract to check the logic of its operation.

Corea Hackathon results

Since the last Chronicles, the Corea hackathon’s winners were selected by IDENA oracles and the core team.

The winner of the hackathon is www.phaos.app

The team of developers (Fireshift, Toni and Zen) has won the 1st prize of 100,000 iDNA.

Other two projects have earned third place prizes: inft.bus.bz developed by Bus and idexchange.tech created by Chainpioneer. They have received 30,000 iDNA each.

The distribution of prizes:

1. 100,000 iDNA — www.phaos.app

2. 60,000 iDNA — not distributed

3. 30,000 iDNA — inft.bus.bz

4. 30,000 iDNA — idexchange.tech

5. 30,000 iDNA — not distributed

We would like to thank all the participants for their hard work and dedication.

We look forward to hosting more hackathons in the future, and encourage all participants to continue pursuing their passions in the field of Proof-of-Person DApps. If you develop something after this hackathon, you could also qualify for a reward. We are ready to run retroactive funding of the DApps development based on Oracle voting.

Q&A from IDENA dev team

Q: “Can you tell us more about Idena’s fast sync? How are sybil attacks prevented while fast syncing? Are there any negative aspects of truncating the blockchain and generating new genesis blocks?” (by Zen)

What is fast sync? Fast sync allows a node to synchronize its state with other nodes without fully downloading and verifying all transactions in each individual block. Instead, the node checks signatures of a supermajority validators committee for each block header. To do this, during fast sync, the node takes into account changes in the list of validators (for example, going offline/online, penalties, or termination of identity).

Also your node downloads the state of balances from the nearest snapshot, which is saved in IPFS by all nodes every 1000 blocks. After fast sync, the node verifies the consistency of the loaded snapshot and the loaded chain of block headers. If the snapshot corresponds to the latest loaded block header, the node updates the state of balances from the snapshot and starts a full sync for the remaining blocks, verifying transactions in each block.

If you want the node to load all the transaction information from the skipped blocks, you should launch it with the parameter — fast=false.

Is fast sync safe? Every block that has been voted on by a supermajority of a randomly selected committee of 100 validators is considered final. “Finality” means that such a block cannot be rolled back or changed. This also means that the block is considered valid (since it was voted on by a majority of validators), and during fast sync, transactions within this block do not necessarily need to be verified.

Truncating the blockchain is made possible thanks to the finality of each block and offers several advantages:

For example, new nodes in the network do not need to download the entire chain of blocks from the very beginning of the network’s operation in 2019. Besides taking a lot of time, this would also require storing a large amount of historical data on each node’s side.

From a development perspective, truncating the blockchain allows for maintaining node code without legacy constructions, which would otherwise be needed to support synchronization of older protocol versions.

The only negative consequence of truncating the blockchain history is the inability (or difficulty) of users to synchronize their nodes starting from the early genesis blocks.

Q: “It was mentioned that IIP-2 could be activated without a 80% majority. Is that something we could expect in the near future?” (by Zen)

At the moment, shifting the validation time may lead to a greater reduction in the number of users. Therefore, we would suggest postponing this change for now.

Q: “What do you think about lowering the quadratic parameter from 0.9 to 0.8 or 0.7? Would that give way to the return of malicious pools?” (by NPC69)

The choice of parameter p for sublinear staking, where rewards depend on Stake^P (where p<1), is an interesting area for research. Some experts believe that the optimal value for p is 0.5. It is also possible that the choice of p should be dynamic.

At the moment, due to the fact that part of the rewards do not depend on the stake, the effective value of p is already lower than 0.9. Further reduction of p is very likely to stimulate the formation of pools. Decreasing the parameter p is only possible if there is an effective protocol against pools.

Currently we are writing a paper that introduces sublinear staking and the selection of the parameter p. After the paper is published, we anticipate that more researchers will engage with this topic. We are happy to share that sublinear staking has already captured the attention of leading experts in the field.

Q: “Do you have any stats on how much iDNA was burnt for the ads? Would be interesting to see the demand for this use-case” (by EDM)

Since the introduction of ads in IDENA, a total of 7,480 iDNA has been burned for ads. In addition, there have been 101 Oracle votes created to review these ads, resulting in the distribution of 8,547 iDNA as rewards for the Oracles.

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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

Greetings Humans, hope you are doing well! Just wanted to thank you for following the Chronicles and the Journey with Idena, and remind you that if you have any news to share, please feel free to contact me on Discord (Syd#9907) or Telegram (@Sydai). Now, let’s dive into the community news!

Idena announces Winners of COREA Hackathon

The winners of the COREA Hackathon have been announced!

Congratulations to Phaos Wallet (@Fireshift, @Zen and @ToniDev.idna), iNFT (@bus), and Idexchange for being selected by Idena and the Oracles and receiving a reward.

Check out their projects:

→ https://www.phaos.app/

→ https://inft.bus.bz/

→ https://idexchange.tech/

A big thank you to the Idena community for your participation and enthusiasm in these projects!

We also want to remind everyone that you can still develop on Idena and qualify for a reward Retroactive funding for DApp development is possible based on Oracle voting.”

Idena Sibling by Fireshift

Fireshift made an ansible playbook which is deploying a shared node from scratch, setting firewall, importing SSL certificate. Check out the complete guide to use it:

You can check the code out here: https://github.com/ltraveler/idena-sibling/

The project was funded by the community (https://idenawallet.community/proposals), thanks for everyone’s participation.

Idena, ChatGPT and AI

You are probably aware that there is a lot of discussion currently surrounding AI, particularly its impressive one of its impressive application: ChatGPT.

While some concerns have arisen within the community, it’s worth noting that Idena is one of the most sybil-resistant protocols in this context.

As AI is not yet ready to solve flips, Idena provides a reliable way to resist the « AI takeover ». Keep spreading the word about Idena and its potential to safeguard against AI!

Notable tweets

· Idena featured again in Web3earner with @TravCrypto1

· Can Idena pay your marriage?

Community Wallet and Community Proposals

Address: https://idenawallet.community/wallets

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

Current delegates: @nudesushi, @Egyptian Pharaoh, @Ubiubi2018 and @Fireshift.

Community Proposals

Thanks for your participation in supporting the projects through Idena Oracles:

· Idena Sibling Development https://scan.idena.io/contract/0x36dae7d35f442eb789d90e57a959cbb1acc5df4f

· Chronicles translations https://scan.idena.io/contract/0xb5f795b2bbe4d249714210bc81d9832b925d9e4b

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.

For that purpose, please join the Community Discord https://discord.gg/UrsDEHMs, reach #community-proposals-and-discussion and follow instructions in the pinned message.

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:

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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.