Koinos Update: Governance, Randomness, New CTO!

Summary

We have a lot of exciting updates!

• AssemblyScript is now first-party software on Koinos
• The governance smart contract is nearly complete
• The randomness work is complete
• Steve Gerbino is now the CTO of Koinos Group!

AssemblyScript

We cannot overstate how impressed we are by both AssemblyScript itself, and the incredible work that community-developer @Roamin has done on the AssemblyScript SDK which makes Koinos smart contracts accessible to over 12 million developers who are proficient in TypeScript and JavaScript. AssemblyScript smart contracts are, in general, much easier to write, and because @Roamin was able to focus on that SDK (and he is a very talented engineer), we are not embarrassed to say that it is much easier to use than the original C++ SDK that we created.

Not only is the AssemblyScript SDK far more accessible to developers, but smart contracts created using this SDK take up far less space on the blockchain and even run a little faster! For example, the governance contract we had written in C++ took up 200kb of space, whereas the same contract written in AssemblyScript took up only 50kb, for a 75% reduction! In one comparison, an AS smart contract ran 2% faster than the C++ comparison, which means it also consumed less compute.

Official Support

In case you missed it, not only is the governance smart contract nearly complete, we rewrote it in AssemblyScript! The governance smart contract was very large, so by rewriting it in AssemblyScript we were able to free up more network resources for user smart contracts. Widespread use of AssemblyScript will have a very tangible impact on users by dramatically reducing the cost of transactions in mana in comparison to widespread use of the C++ SDK.

It is for that reason that we did additional work last sprint to support the AssemblyScript SDK as first party software! Our goal is to make the AS SDK the premiere smart contract development toolkit on Koinos with all the tooling, automation, and integration necessary to make the developer experience insanely great.

It has been a pleasure working alongside @Roamin to make this happen and we couldn’t be prouder that, even at this early stage in development, we are already achieving a level of decentralized development that few projects ever experience throughout their lifespan.

Governance

While the governance smart contract is nearly complete, we have learned a great deal from the process of creating it that has revealed some additional work we will be doing to improve related parts of the system. We also developed a generalized continuous integration testing framework for smart contracts that will significantly reduce the development work related to testing the proof of burn contract. So while this work pushed back development of the proof of burn contract, we will likely make up that time during the testing phase.

While the governance system is actually quite simple, I will leave the details of that system for a dedicated post, so be sure to subscribe to our newsletter through koinos.io or follow us on social media if you’d like to learn more about that system.

Randomness

We have completed the work necessary to add a Verifiable Randomness Function (VRF) to the blockchain framework! VRFs leverage mature cryptographic primitives and have been battle-tested on major blockchain platforms with billions of dollars in value behind them, which speaks to the security of the solution.

The work needed to add the VRF to the framework is complete. The VRF thunk in the framework will enable blockchain developers and dApp developers alike to access a random seed that they can use to insert randomness into their smart contract. In the case of the Koinos system, the proof of burn smart contract will leverage this random seed to ensure that rewards are randomly distributed to block producers and proportioned entirely based on the size of their burn, as opposed to how much computational power they control. This is key to ensuring that proof of burn delivers on its promise of having the economics of PoW, the efficiency of PoS, while being provably egalitarian.

CTO

Finally, we are excited to announce that Steve Gerbino, one of the co-founders and blockchain architects at Koinos Group, will now be the Chief Technology Officer at the company!

Developers, Developers, Developers

As you can see, things have been progressing very rapidly since the release of testnet V3 which is why now is the perfect time for developers to begin building their Koinos applications.

So tell every entrepreneur and entrepreneurial developer about the Koinos Labs program and that now is the time to start building on Koinos, otherwise they risk missing out on the biggest opportunity since the release of Ethereum!

Koinos Group

If you or someone you know is considering building a blockchain-based app but needs help, don’t hesitate to send them to koinos.group where they can book a free consultation with our team.

We’re here to help as many people as possible build insanely great applications and accelerate decentralization through accessibility!

Be Free!