Idena Chronicles

Epochs 100–102

Idena

Published in

Idena

12 min readFeb 24, 2023

Network metrics

Epoch #0099

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

Node type stats for the last validation

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

N/A — users running outdated versions of nodes (VPS/built-in nodes)

Unknown shared nodes (web ) — Web App users who connect to shared nodes that are not listed in the Idena shared nodes marketplace

The data is given for the latest validation.

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

Corea hard fork release
Staking calculator update
Training validation update
Idena desktop app update
Idena community representative at ETH Devcon
Q&A from IDENA dev team

Corea hard fork release

Mainnet node version 1.0.0 is released. Corea hard fork activation will start on March 1st 2023. Corea hard fork will enable you to create custom smart contracts.

Read more about all the hard fork changes in the blog post.

Staking calculator update

We have updated the staking calculator in accordance with IIP-6 & IIP-7 by adding the following estimated rewards:

Extra flip premium — the amount of coins you will get for 1 extra flip in addition to the basic flip reward
Reward for invitation — the amount of coins you will get for 3 successful validations of 1 invited user

The APY (annual percentage yield) takes into account that a user has 1 qualified extra flip and 1 invitee that has successfully validated for 3 subsequent validations.

We’ve also updated both Idena clients (desktop and web app) so that the APY estimate in the client is more accurate, as it takes into account the number of extra flips (1 or 2 extra flips) and invites available for your identity.

Training validation update

The set of training validation flips has been updated and now it includes flips with adversarial noise and generated nonsense images so that new users are aware of these kinds of images and they do not falsely report them. Please encourage your invitees to pass the training validation to learn new types of flips and new reporting rules as well.

Idena desktop app update

We have released several versions of the Idena desktop since the last issue of the Idena Chronicles.

The following changes have been made:

New Flip editor which allows making flips with 3 regular images and a generated nonsense image
New reporting rules
Some updates to Validation report that include separate rows for extra flip rewards, candidate rewards and invitee rewards
Removing a red warning text that encourages users to spend all available reports on validation. We see that reporting activity has been significantly improved and now only 15% of participants do not report any flips (compared to 40% of users in epoch 76). To mitigate false reporting we decided to remove this banner.
To help users resolving issues with outdated node versions or corrupted blockchain data the troubleshooting screen is now shown when the built-in node fails

Idena community representative at ETH Denver

We are happy to share that our active community member TravCrypto will officially represent IDENA at ETHDenver which is held from February 24 to March 5, 2023. If you see Trav at ETHDenver, be sure to say hello and ask him any questions you might have about Idena or send him a message @TravCrypto on socials.

About Travis “TravCrypto” Wade

Travis Wade has been involved in the crypto space since 2016. Since then, he has been actively participating in, building, and growing various web3 communities. As an active member of the Idena Community since 2020, “TravCrypto” has been both a Community Delegate and has represented Idena on multiple podcasts.

Q&A from IDENA dev team

In the last issue of Idena Chronicles we encouraged you to ask questions to the Idena dev team. We appreciate your comments. Here are our answers:

Q: “Thanks for the update & excited that custom smart contracts are coming! Can you share your thoughts on state growth after custom smart contracts are enabled? How big will smart contracts be (e.g. on the example of a minimal hello world contract)? How much will it cost to deploy them?How is prevented that current validators fail to adopt to the sudden increase of state?” (by Ligi)

Thank you for the kind words. There are two examples of Idena smart contracts:

1. Hello world contract. Size of the compiled version is 18kb. Gas needed to deploy the contract is 211971. Deploy transaction fee is about 0,977275 iDNA.

2. DEX contract. Size of the compiled version is about 34kb. Gas needed to deploy the contract is 374985. Deploy transaction fee is 1,728838 iDNA

Idena node may consume about 10–20Mb of extra memory to execute smart contracts. Due to the high efficiency of the webassembly runtime the time needed to validate an entire block with a maximum gas consumption will be less than 1 second.

At the current stage we do not expect significant growth of the state. In the future to minimize the state of the node we plan to introduce a mechanism to suspend inactive smart contracts. If a contract is not used (by validated users) then it might be suspended. After N epochs the state of suspended contract might be deleted. Only Merkle root will be saved so anyone who saved the state of the suspended contract offchain could initiate its recovery.

Sharding 2.0 will also help to minimize the state of the node. Idena dapp developers are encouraged to create smart contracts with shared state. You can see an example of a shared fungible token. This is an implementation of ERC20-kind of token with the state shared across many wallets (this is opposite to ERC20 where the state is stored at a single contract address). With Sharding 2.0 the state of such a token will be shared across different addresses in different shards. It will diminish the state of a node linked to a single shard.

Q: “Keep up the good work! I have a question regarding the team’s decision to remain anonymous. Could you provide some insight on the reasoning behind this choice?” (by honey gain bsc)

Thanks for supporting us. By remaining anonymous, we want to minimize our impact on the protocol. Satoshi Nakamoto is an inspiring example of the role anonymity plays. Trust in the protocol should not be based on excessive trust in the team. However, we may step out of the shadows if circumstances so require.

Q: “I have a suggestion regarding the transaction process. Would it be possible to implement a feature that allows for a preview of the recipient’s avatar before a transaction is made, in order to prevent the accidental sending of funds to the wrong address?” (by honey gain bsc)

This is a good suggestion. We encourage the community to make these changes on github as it doesn’t take much time to implement it. The desktop client and web client code is 100% open source. Pull requests are always welcome.

Q: “Can you give us an update on the roadmap?” (by UbiUbi)

Sure, we will update the roadmap shortly.

Q: “Will you build a decentralised exchange with idena or are you aware of someone else preparing it? (You told us elsewhere that you did realise very early that bitcoin lightning network can not at scale be used effectively with semi-decentralised exchanges. So will idena allow it? )” (by UbiUbi)

Our goal is to provide a scalable and decentralized blockchain that can perform both financial and non-financial transactions at scale. We have made examples of the DEX contract and encourage the community to use it to deploy DEX services together with issuing custom tokens.

Q: “Great progress from the team, working hard! My question is: what’s the status of IIP-2? The last oracle about it had a supermajority voting for implementing it, are you planning to include it into the coming hardforks?” (by EDM)

Thanks! The last Oracle voting on IIP-2 showed that ⅔ of voters support the change of time of the validation ceremony. But with the current criteria (80% of online mining nodes), it may not be enough to activate the hard fork.

For the IIP-2 hard fork we can lower this number to the minimal required 66%. But if a 1\3 of the validators do not support the new protocol, then after the activation of the fork, block mining will be troublesome for several hours or even a few days (until all validators that did not support the fork are penalized). Lowering the hard fork activation threshold can be a subject of Oracle voting. If it is supported by ⅔ of voters, then the IIP- 2 hard fork may be released.

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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 Idenians! It’s truly been an incredible journey as we’ve passed the 100th Epoch of Idena. And what better way to celebrate it than by releasing the long awaited 1.0.0 version of the node! With Idena’s true potential finally being unlocked and a bright future ahead, we hope that you share our excitement! Still Early.

Idena Mainnet Launch: The Community reactions!

It was indeed an amazing journey. Idena first Ceremonies and Epochs started in the summer of 2019. Since then, it has gone through many phases, evolving from a Testnet to an “Experimental Mainnet”. Along the way, it has experienced both highs and lows, battled against various challenges including market conditions and attempted attacks, and developed step by step to reach where it is today.

Finally, the experimental mainnet phase is coming to an end, and soon we will transition to the mainnet after the hard fork activation. Corea Hard Fork will officially mark the launch of the Mainnet, and with the release of version 1.0.0, Turing complete smart contracts will finally become available.

Anyway, you have already read all of that so let’s dive into the fun part: the community’s reactions! Indeed, the Corea Hard Fork has generated a lot of buzz and we’ve seen an overwhelmingly positive response from the community. Keep spreading the word and sharing the excitement!

Are you hyped for the first-ever dApps on a human-centric blockchain? Isn’t it an actual mind-blowing achievement by itself?

But let’s get specific: what kind of dApps are you most excited about? In the community poll, 73% of you voted for human-centric dApps (DeSoc), but there’s also a lot of interest in token-centric dApps (DeFi). Do you have any other ideas or are you interested in building your own dApp on Idena? Let us know in the tweet below!

Finally, the news has caught the attention in crypto medias. @AlexaBlockchain recently featured it in a thread, spreading the word even further.

Flip wars: Corea Edition by EDM (@Relight_Motion)

What better way to celebrate the Corea Hard Fork than with another round of Flip Wars?

To mark the occasion, a great article has been published by EDM, giving an in-depth look at the game’s entire concept and idea. Check it out!

Idena Flip Wars: Competitive flip-making game with real prizes

Flip Wars inspiring some serious discussions — Rioda

medium.com

The Tournament has already started, but don’t forget to choose the best flips through Idena oracles!

Remember to have fun in the community and spread the word about it! Good luck to all the participants!

Idna.bet: the 1st Proof-of-Personhood betting platform based on Idena

As we mentioned in our previous update, the i-bet.top experiment has continued and has now evolved into idna.bet. The platform now offers regular fixtures that you can bet on, with settlement results verified by Idena oracles.

Effectively, iDNA.bet is a sports betting platform and the first of its kind to use proof-of-personhood based on Idena blockchain. It’s a 100% KYC-free platform, allowing for anonymous bets. You can check out the GitHub repository at https://github.com/Toni-d-e-v/iDNA-BET.

Feel free to give it a try and let us know your thoughts in #idena-bet in the community discord.

Idena Sibling by Fireshift

Fireshift made an ansible playbook which is deploying a shared node from scratch, setting firewall, importing SSL certificate.

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

Also a funding proposal regarding this project is being discussed (see below in the Community Wallet section).

Notable tweets

The usual best flip from the flip master @cryptogeek555!

And the usual thread from the thread master @Spike who gave his insights on the Mainnet Launch

Community Wallet and Community Proposals

Address: https://idenawallet.community/wallets

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

The current delegates are @NCP69, @Zen, @georgiy, @hlolve and @EDM.

Governance Rules are:

NEW Community Proposal

Please consider showing your opinion regarding the new proposal on Idena Sibling (see above). The proposal is indeed being discussed on the community discord. You can follow and participate in the discussion on #community-funding-proposals-and-discussions.

REMINDER regarding Community Proposals:

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-funding-proposals-and-discussions and follow instructions in the pinned message.

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.