Securing the Crypto App Space

As the cryptocurrency market grows, so does the rate of malicious activity. Scammers are taking full advantage of the cryptocurrency market, trying to trick you out of your money. How do you know if a currency or crypto app is legitimate or reputable? How do you know if it is useful or secure?

You will need to undergo a research process about each currency or crypto app you hear about. At the end of the day, will the research be worth your time?

Probably not.

Worry no more! Magic Square is securing the crypto space and establishing a new standard of trust in the decentralized world.

How? Through the power of community.

What is Magic Square?

Magic Square, the first community-driven multi-chain crypto app store, is building a community that will guide both investors and developers to form a symbiotic ecosystem to benefit the entire crypto space.

How Magic Square is making crypto secure

Magic Square ensures that you are reaching the most secure, best quality apps through its unique community validator system. Before an app posts on the Magic Store, it must be validated by two tiers of validators:

• Standard validators
• Qualified validators

Validators score apps based on:

Magic Square’s community validation ensures that apps posted on the Magic Store are safe, high quality, and useful. Here’s how:

Blending PoW and PoS for a breakthrough approach

Up until now, mining firms represent an aspect of crypto that has become more centralized over time. Mining firms have become huge, powerful entities with interests that do not always align with the interests of the investor community.

For this reason, among others, we are beginning to witness a shift from the Proof of Work (PoW) model to a more decentralized Proof of Stake ( PoS) model. Ethereum, for example, is currently in the process of switching to PoS. What we haven’t seen yet is a decentralized model to filter the crypto apps we use.

Critics of PoS claim that it is less secure than PoW.

So, Magic Square has integrated both concepts to create a unique approach to app validation

Think of Magic Square’s app validation model as a cross between PoS and PoW:
It is more decentralized and inclusive than PoS, because users do not need to stake any coins to validate apps, but it simultaneously requires validators to prove some degree of PoW.

Note: PoS and PoW here refer to scoring apps for whitelisting, not validating the truth of blocks in the chain. A potentially malicious user in our case would be trying to push a scam through the system.

Let’s explore the measures that have been instituted to prevent malicious activity in the Magic Square community.

Standard Validators

Magic Square’s validator model allows community members to participate in the validation process without staking any coins. In this way, the system implements the wisdom of the masses. At the same time; however, Magic Square avoids flooding the system with too many uninformed or malicious voters by:

• Capping the standard validator vote at 500 per app validation
• Implementing a Proof of Work validation model, which requires each validator to invest effort in each validation process.

Qualified Validators

Qualified validators prove their aptitude and investment in the process by:

• staking 5,000 SQR tokens
• passing a qualification test

Qualified validators earn 80% of the validator fee paid by the app creator. Standard validators earn the remaining 20%. These funds are distributed via smart contracts: fully automated and deterministic mechanisms governed by code that is stored on the blockchain.

Why this system works to block attackers

Would malicious app creators and users be able to flood the system and push scams through?

Probably not.

Although this system is remarkably inclusive, the reward system ensures that users have plenty of incentive to work within the system’s parameters.

Furthermore, attackers would need to gain control of the qualified validator vote in order to accomplish this. This would be nearly impossible.

Another measure to counteract malicious activity is the Magic Karma score system.

Magic Karma

Magic Karma is a system that tracks all activity of users and quantifies their reputation in the form of a personal score. Like a credit score, a higher Magic Karma opens financial and community opportunities to a user. A lower Karma would block certain user privileges and thereby help prevent ill-intended individuals from damaging the system.

Final Thoughts

There will always be inherent risk in investing. But: Magic Square’s validator and Magic Karma systems are guiding users towards the safest and highest quality crypto apps. Stay tuned on our blog to see how this emerging platform changes the crypto investing game as a whole.

Originally published at https://magicsquare.io on November 4, 2021.