Idena Chronicles
- German edition by Ubiubi
- Greek edition by TomThisIsIt
- Hungarian edition by Viktor Mate Takacs
- Italian edition by Kazeru Wakabayashi
- Romanian edition by Zen
- Russian edition by IDENA World
- Serbian edition by NPC69
Network metrics
Epoch #0115
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
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
- Jarrett hard fork release
- Node synchronization bug fix
- Idena Docs update
- Roadmap update
- IIP-13
- Gitcoin Passport integration
- IDENA in Vitalik Buterin’s article
Jarrett hard fork release
Jarrett hard fork was successfully activated at the block number 6238045 on July 10. The main changes include:
- shifting validation time to 15:00 UTC
- increasing the cost of 51% attack by excluding votes from identities with stake amount below the certain threshold (which is calculated after each validation)
- locking invitee’s rewards for 10 epochs
- adding stake protection for Zombies in case of missing validation
Read more about all the hard fork changes in the blog post.
Node synchronization bug fix
With the influx of new users, an issue with node synchronization was detected: https://github.com/idena-network/idena-go/issues/1138#issuecomment-1644077075
The problem is resolved with the node release 1.1.1
Idena Docs update
The IDENA docs website has been migrated to the new platform, Docusaurus 2.0. It offers convenient and user-friendly navigation, along with advanced features for formatting text and editing documentation.
Roadmap update
Please find the updated IDENA roadmap for 2023 here.
IIP-13
Zen, one of the most active community members, has made a proposal to send rewards of penalized identities to the zero wallet. The additional funds accumulated from the penalties in the zero wallet can help fund more initiatives in the future.
Read the proposal here: https://docs.idena.io/docs/iip/iip-13
The Oracle voting on IIP-13 has been already launched. If you have a validated identity, we encourage you to participate and cast your vote.
Gitcoin Passport integration
After a long process of integration and onboarding, Idena has been introduced as a stamp by Gitcoin Passport. The Idena stamp can award users the highest points based on their identity status, age, and stake amount. This integration enhances Idena’s credibility and is expected to attract a steady influx of new users. We kindly ask for your assistance in converting these users into Idena validators, thus ensuring the maintenance of decentralization.
We also encourage you to join Gitcoin Passport and participate in various airdrops and the upcoming Gitcoin Round 18, scheduled for the middle of August. It’s a great opportunity to get involved and become a part of the Gitcoin family!
IDENA in Vitalik Buterin’s article
With the recent launch of Worldcoin, Vitalik Buterin has published an intriguing article sharing his thoughts on biometric proof of personhood, with a specific focus on addressing the potential risks associated with Worldcoin. He also mentions IDENA and other projects operating in the proof of personhood field.
Based on his own experience of participating in a few Idena validation ceremonies, Vitalik wrote about Idena protocol:
“…you play a captcha game at a specific point in time (to prevent people from participating multiple times); part of the captcha game involves creating and verifying captchas that will then be used to verify others…”
Vitalik acknowledges the importance and complexity of the proof-of-personhood problem.
“…The concept of proof-of-personhood in principle seems very valuable, and while the various implementations have their risks, not having any proof-of-personhood at all has its risks too: a world with no proof-of-personhood seems more likely to be a world dominated by centralized identity solutions, money, small closed communities, or some combination of all three…”
We are really glad that proof-of-personhood has gained a lot of attention, as it is the missing element in the fight against domination and plutocracy in the crypto world. However, PoP by itself is susceptible to puppeteering attacks; therefore, it should be combined with PoS, as staking provides incentives for proper coordination.
Q&A from IDENA dev team
Q: “What do you think about the position of the nonsense image on the flip? Does it make any difference if the nonsense image is in different position on both sides?” (by NPC)
The nonsense image is treated as any other image in the flip. It may be in any position if the regular images are shuffled. Otherwise, it could potentially trigger AI to identify this image as adversarial.
Q: “Can you tell us more about votes sent for different blocks and about the block consensus? By watching the node for a bit of time it looks like only vote type=255 rewards the identity (for block verification). However the node sends other types of votes too without necessarily receiving a reward. This suggests more than 100 identities (the committee that gets rewarded) are participating in the validation of a block. This seems something fit to have in Idena docs.” (by Zen)
A vote with type=255 indicates that the node is selected in the committee to vote for the final block. Only addresses chosen in such a committee are rewarded. However, there can be multiple block proposals in the network. Therefore, before a block is brought to the final voting stage, two rounds of voting take place to select one candidate block (type=253 and type=254).
Q:“There have been a lot more high-quality flips last several epochs, do you have any plans of expanding the “Best Flip” functionality (aka Grading System) to allow rewarding more good flips?” (by EDM)
We do not currently have plans to expand this functionality. The main concern is that some people may prefer unique and AI-resistant flips, while others may give stars to flips that are easy to solve.
Q: “Where does the number of pairs of keywords per identity come from? Is it an arbitrary value? Premium flip rewards incentivize identities creating more flips. A human identity that wants to create all 5 flips chooses for every submitted flip out of roughly 2 pairs. What effects would increasing this value have?” (by Zen)
Extra flips are more challenging to create, which is why they are rewarded with a premium. If we increase the number of keywords, people are more likely to choose the simplest pairs for their flips which may lead to a higher number of template flips.
Q: “Idena currently has one major problem that causes projects like Gitcoin Passport to lack trust in it. The problem is that one person could potentially pass the validation using multiple accounts. There is an idea being discussed on GitHub ( https://github.com/idena-network/idena-docs/discussions/148 ) to link Idena and Humanode identities. These linked accounts could then be marked with a special designation that services like Gitcoin Passport could use for verification. This connection could be represented as a two-factor proof-of-person verification system. I am confident that this could provide a solid solution against projects like Worldcoin, which seem quite dystopian. What does the development team think about it?” (by IDENA World)
We think that biometrics-based protocols do not provide additional security as as one can pay workers for scanning their biometrics.
Q: “So far, the shared node marketplace is facing two major problems. One problem is related to the shared node operators’ side: the API key updating process sometimes takes months due to the key update centralization process. Is there a chance to make the process automatic?
The second problem is related to the first one: the users do not have any statistical information that could represent the validation success to get a picture of the quality of the shared node. It would be great if the users could see the success of the shared node users, at least for the last validation. There are many ways to achieve this, and one of them has been described here: https://github.com/idena-network/idena-docs/discussions/156/” (by IDENA World)
Indeed, this is a manual process, and we will try to update the list of nodes more frequently. We would also advise submitting keys for several epochs ahead. Node validation statistics are an unreliable source of information. For example, an account may purchase a key but still do validation on its own node (and potentially fail validation). Additionally, one account could buy multiple keys and distribute them to unknown addresses.
One possible solution to increase the reliability of the validation is to allow renting, for instance, two nodes and duplicating all requests to these nodes.
Q: “Do you have any plans of fully integrating the invitation flow into the Idena client? Similarly to the shared nodes marketplace, newcomers could list their request together with their training certificates. And the validated identities would be able to simply choose the most dedicated entries to issue an invite to, optionally combining this with a messenger system to talk to the potential invitee. That would simplify the onboarding process and reduce reliance on centralized services for acquiring an invite (Discord, Telegram, etc.)” (by EDM)
No, we do not have plans for this. However, we will be glad if someone from the community develops this kind of solution, and we will add the link to the app.
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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 Humans! Tons of news as Idena website got a rebranding and Jarrett Hard Fork passed with the support of the community.
But we also got some recognition after the recent buzz around Worldcoin! Indeed, in the previous edition of the Chronicles, we already discussed about Worldcoin and why Idena network shines as a superior alternative, especially regarding users’ data privacy. Since then, Worldcoin launched and has caused quite a stir, which allowed, on the bright side, to turn the spotlight on proof of personhood projects like never before, with of course Idena being mentioned even by Vitalik himself. So with no further ado, let’s dive into it.
Idena community reactions to Worldcoin release
Worldcoin buzz made clear that there is a presing need of decentralized identity and proof-of-person protocols. On this point, everyone was in agreement. As mentioned in the last Chronicles, it’s the perfect opportunity and moment to highlight Idena. Indeed, with Idena, there is no central point of failure for data collection; it grants identities in a transparent and auditable manner, allowing everyone to verify the process without permission.
There were tons of positive reactions from Idena community, who pushed for Idena to get the recognition it deserves as well as from enthusiastic newcomers who had just discovered the potential of Idena.
Indeed Idena requires no biometric data to be collected compared to Worldcoin.
It is also borderless and KYC-less.
Idena is more than a mere “alternative” to Worldcoin, it’s actually an alternative consensus which addresses the blockchain trilemma.
Let’s keep going and amplify the message about Idena!
Idena mentioned as a decentralized alternative to Worldcoin by Vitalik
In a recent extensively debated article titled “What do I think about biometric proof of personhood?”, Vitalik mentionned Idena as a decentralized alternative to Worldcoin (https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2023/07/24/biometric.html). Interestingly, he even engaged with Idena community on Idena Telegram, demonstrating an interest in quadratic staking and other aspects of Idena.
Despite some inaccuracies regarding Idena in the article, there is a consensus that proof of Person(hood) represents an important step towards achieving true decentralization as it can mitigate the worst excesses of PoS (such as plutocracy and the concentration of mining power in the hands of mining pools).
Idena integration on Gitcoin Passport
Recently announced Gitcoin passport aims of countering sybils and bots. It relies on “stamps”, to demonstrate and validate the passport owner’s individual identity. You can find more details here:
One significant stamp featured in the passport is Idena thanks to which you earn many points on the passport, echoing Idena network strength.
This is a great and very pratical use case, worth sharing among the crypto community and beyond. Feel free again to spread the word!
The launch of the Holismo App — Decentralized Human Democracy on Idena
As mentioned in the previous Chronicles, there’s exciting news about Holismo — they have now released their website and whitepaper!
Holismo is an open-source and decentralized project that presents an experimental vision of democracy in the digital age, built on Idena. For a nice introduction to Holismo, check out this Twitter thread:
The project is currently in phase 1, and you can explore it out now and earn your first NFTs: https://holismo.org/
As the development progresses, there will be much more to discover. To stay updated, follow the project on Twitter (https://twitter.com/HolismoApp) or join the channel #Holismo on Idena Community Discord!
Notable tweets
· Check out this excellent thread by @Audiodidakt314 on Quadratic Staking, discussing Vitalik’s mention of Idena
· Check out and share also this reaction and great thread from @Spiketrains, on how Idena is a solid and elegant solution to the current issues in crypto space raised by Vitalik:
Community Wallet and Community Proposals
Address: https://idenawallet.community/wallets
Previous and on-going proposals: https://idenawallet.community/proposals
Current delegates: @EDM, @hlolve, @nudesushi, @Quickmythril and @Fireshift.
The situation is currently frozen following disagreements among delegates. Please read below to fully understand the situation.
It has been indeed brought to attention that the governance rules were not strictly adhered to and enforced correctly. Some liberties were previously taken in interpreting the rules to avoid getting stuck in governance bottlenecks. While these actions were mostly legitimate, it is agreed that this is an undesirable situation, and new rules must be established. Unfortunately, the old rules did not account for variations in the network size, making it very difficult to achieve the quorum needed for an oracle vote which would allow us to change the rules.
Although the arguments have been heated sometimes, the experimentation has been instructive, and we can grow as a community from it. Community governance is challenging, and the passion shown on this topic is something we can all learn from. The next iteration will undoubtedly learn from the mistakes that were made in order to move forward.
Nonetheless, thank you all for supporting the first Idena Community Governance iteration. We will keep you updated as new decisions are being made, or new tools allowing better governance are being built.
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.
Governance Rules are:
· 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:
Telegram — Idena Italia leaderboard:
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.
Idena website translations
Idena Web app translations
We invite you to join the idena translation community and contribute to the translation of the Idena website to your language!
If you want to take part in translation verification and funding, please contact Syd or Rioda to join the translation management workgroup.
