Welcome to a fresh series of Biweekly reports on IOST, one of the most scalable and decentralized public blockchains in the crypto world! IOST is able to support millions of users and thousands of nodes on the network. IOST creates a scalable network with high throughput through the original Proof of Believability (PoB) consensus mechanism.
We’re always thrilled to share the latest updates on IOST’s recent development, nodes activities, partnerships, mainnet statistics, dApps, finance and more! Let’s get this exciting journey started!
First and foremost, IOST official launched its updated Mainnet Olympus v3.3.2!
Olympus v3.3.2 is now running steadily with over 400 Partner nodes, reaching more than 66,276,577 block height and 255,310,050 transactions as of March 13, 2020, voting ratio stably close to 37%, 770 tokens issued and 706 smart contracts. The IOST mainnet Olympus v3.3.2 further completes the cryptographic library, laying a good development base for cross-chain technology and atomic swap. The dev team have added new tools for cropping block data to reduce disk usage while ensuring the stable operation of nodes, which greatly reduces the threshold for nodes to join IOST. In addition, they optimized the code quality to improve the stability of the mainnet when running programs, improved code testing to ensure security, and designed a better code management.
What’s more, 7,350,000,000 ERC-20 tokens were burnt by the Foundation on March 12, 2020, marking it the eighth successful batch of IOST ERC-20 tokens burnt.
Moving on to the valuable news on the flourishing IOST node ecosystem!
On February the IOST Foundation representative successfully held a Node Conference with a focus on a number of important topics concerning IOST recent development and progress. The foundation expresses their gratitude to all partner nodes for their participation. In the future, IOST will hold a partner node conference every month for better communication, engagement and progress updates with their valuable partners. Moreover, IOST has recently presented the Node Program v2.0, which has been be in effect from March 10, 2020.
Please, don’t forget to check out IOST Nodes Showcase to learn about the progress and outstanding contributions of IOST Nodes.
Now it’s time to mention the latest partnerships, collaborations and meetups.
Firstly, IOST Co-Founder Terry Wang and Professor Claudio Tessone (Ph.D., Co-founder and Academic Director of the University of Zurich Blockchain Center Blockchain Center), have signed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on data analysis, IOST platform research. IOST looks forward to wider scales for cooperation and collaboration with the Swiss University.
Secondly,IOST Co-founder Terry will Lecture at the Blockchain Summer School Program on ‘Deep Dive into Blockchain’ at the University of Zurich Blockchain Center in July 2020.
Another great news! Iost.Africa node has recently held an offline meetup at Christian university college Kumasi in Ghana. The event witnessed attendants from different faculties and departments who wanted to be part of the Iost.Africa campus movement initiative.
Furthermore, IOST Enterprise Arm-Aiou Technology is becoming the new member of Hyperledger. According to Terry Wang, CEO, Aiou Technology, they are glad to join the Hyperledger community and are committed to constructing a consortium BASS (Blockchain-as-a-service) platform and providing professional and targeted blockchain solutions for enterprises and governments.
More collaborations to follow!
IOST strategically collaborated as a partner node with TROY’s “Brokerage Reward and Staking Program.” IOST is providing support to the TROY staking program and will stake a certain amount of TROY’s as an important partner node. Both firms have been focusing on collaborating to develop technologies regarding computer processing and providing highly efficient solutions for the same.
Last but not least, the Debrief team announced their partnership with IOST. Debrief and IOST both hold data privacy at its core, and by working together, Debrief and IOST will ultimately secure communications and revolutionize data privacy around the world.
Stay tuned!
Development
GitHub metrics:
Developer activity (from Coinlib.io):
Mainnet Statistics
As of March 13th, 2020
IOST Updated Mainnet Olympus v3.3.2 Official Launch
Two Major Updates
1. Further improvement of the cryptographic library
In the previous version v3.3.1., they had added a new hash function to the on-chain cryptography library: ripemd160.
Cross-chain atomic swaps are an increasingly widely-used requirement. At the moment, the most common implementation of the atomic swap is Hash Time Locked Contracts, being the ripemd160 protocol is one of its most important cornerstones. Projects like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Decred, etc., also make use of ripemd160 for Atomic Swap.
References:
https://github.com/decred/atomicswap
https://github.com/AltCoinExchange/ethatomicswap
After IOST integrates ripemd160, third-party developers will be able to implement atomic swaps with other mainstream chains. Furthermore, a completely decentralized cross-chain exchange will also become a reality.
2. Expired data cleaning
When a new node joins the IOST ecosystem, it is often a requirement to download a blockchain snapshot to start it. The current snapshots are over 200GB which requires massive data traffic and disk storage. This massive data requirement is a potential obstacle to limit new nodes from joining.
In version 3.3.2, the team developed a tool for cropping block data that can delete early block data. It can reduce the disk usage by 20 times, from about 240GB to just 13GB, without any side effects to a node’s regular operations.
For nodes that will not produce blocks, it is recommended to use the simplified snapshots to start the blockchain.
Related documents:
https://developers.iost.io/docs/en/4-running-iost-node/Deployment.html#snapshot-with-pruned-history
Three Main Code Quality Improvements
1. Improved program stability at runtime
In the previous mainnet version v3.3.1, they have already fixed a minor but persistent memory leak. This fix improves the stability of the program operation.
2. Test boost
In v3.3.2, the team updated the testing and continuous integration of the code. Stronger testing results in better reliability.
3. Better code management
In v3.3.2, the team switched the Golang dependency management to Google’s recently launched Go Modules, among other external dependencies that were also upgraded. This will simplify our code and let us implement the improvements proposed by the community more easily. The points described are beneficial for the long-term evolution, bugs fixing, operating efficiency and maintainability of the IOST mainnet.
Future Plans
The short-term focus will be to improve IOST’s cross-chain technology with third-party partners. The team will implement IOST’s light nodes in a well-known cross-chain ecosystem. This requires to make some corresponding changes to the IOST main chain, such as generating a receipt every time a block producer node is rotated and implementing a progressive Merkel tree to facilitate block verification on light nodes. This may require one to two incompatible version upgrades.
Constant iteration and updates are the solid foundation for IOST mainnet’s stable operation.
IOST Comparison Series: IOST Interoperability
Check out this comprehensive and highly informative article on IOST interoperability by IOST watch.
IOST Blockchain Explained Part 1: Network Specifics
In the first part of this Blockchain Explained series, there is a detailed explanation of technological aspects of the IOST ecosystem. In this article you’ll find out the main info about the consensus algorithm, Distributed Randomness Protocol, Leader Election with Back-up Protocol and Inter-Shard Transactions.
IOST Blockchain Explained Part 2: Network Participants
In the second part of this Blockchain Explained series, you will find more information regarding the network participants that play key roles in the consensus mechanism (validators, voters and rewards).
FAQ — Most Frequently Asked Questions in IOST Official International Telegram Group
Social encounters
February Node Conference
On February Node Conference, the IOST Foundation representative delivered a speech on a number of important topics. The foundation expresses their gratitude to all partner nodes for their participation. In the future, IOST will hold a partner node conference every month for better communication, engagement and progress updates with their valuable partners.
Topics discussed:
Technical Development:
- IOST’s cross-chain bridge is under construction and will be finished by the end of Q2
- The ledger hardware wallet integration is also under development and will be finished in early March
- The one-click token launch tool was released last week, which has attracted hundreds of users to engage. IOST also welcomed our Jetstream wallet, developed by the QED team from Korea last month and received overwhelmingly positive feedback.
Important Progress
The launch of the AIOU Charity Information Disclosure Platform was a huge step in IOSTs collaborative effort to battle against the coronavirus outbreak. In partnership with Wuhan Red Cross and the local government, IOST is now storing all donations and distribution information in our consortium blockchain and disclosing them on the platform in a real-time manner. It is now integrated with Wechat for people to check and will be shown on AIOU’s homepage soon. Moving forward, Aiou will continue its exploration in charity together with more cities in order to increase transparency in this field using blockchain technology.
IOST (IOST), Chinese Authorities Battle Coronavirus with Blockchain Technology
IOST Nodes Showcase (Sonata, Paradigm Fund, IOST TOOL, Liebi, Crypto Stache, Jetstream, IOST.BEST.NODE, IOST Watch, Metanyx, Everstake)
IOST X University of Zurich Blockchain Center
Professor Claudio Tessone (Ph.D., Co-founder and Academic Director of the UZH Blockchain Center), and IOST Co-Founder Terry Wang have signed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on data analysis, IOST platform research. IOST looks forward to wider scales for cooperation and collaboration with the Swiss University.
in March 2019 the UZH established a Competence Center on Blockchain. The UZH Blockchain Center’s mission is to strengthen the positioning of the University of Zurich as a center of expertise in blockchain and to reflect its growing presence in the field.
IOST Co-founder Terry will Lecture at Blockchain Summer School
IOST Co-founder Terry has previously participated in the research and teaching of Algorithms & Data and Distributed Storage Systems at Princeton University. This time, he will lecture at the Blockchain Summer School Program on ‘Deep Dive into Blockchain’, to be held at the University of Zurich Blockchain Center in July 2020.
Blockchain and Energy EBEC (Energy-Blockchain Enterprise Coalition) Kickoff Events
ElDesign, as the founder of Energy Blockchain Enterprise Coalition EBEC, invited energy companies, blockchain developers and people who care reusable energy to the EBEC Kickoff events in Tokyo and Osaka of Japan. This event strengthens the cooperation with energy companies and blockchain developers as well as keep the group well-informed of the latest blockchain technology and its applications in the energy industry.
In 2019 IOST collaborated with its node partner EverSystem and the energy consulting and retailing company ElDesign to introduce a P2P electricity trading project on IOST, and to empower the energy industry. The launch of this P2P electricity trading project on IOST, reported by 5 leading local media in Japan, has gained enthusiastic participation, support, and appreciation from the Town Major as well as the local residents.
Related articles:
IOST x Fujimi Town | Blockchain Deployment In The Japanese Energy Market, Powered by IOST
IOST Hackathon in Japan
On Feb 20 and 21 2020, IOST jointly hosted a 2-day “Education x Blockchain” HIVEHack hackathon with the well-known private university Kindai in Japan, who provided the venue and incentivize professors and students to participate in the Hackathon.
Follow the link to get more information about the event
IOST CAMPUS MOVEMENT,CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE KUMASI GHANA
Iost.Africa node has recently held an offline meetup at Christian university college Kumasi in Ghana. The event witnessed attendants from different faculties and departments who wanted to be part of the Iost.Africa campus movement initiative.
Chidi Olisa, the Iost.Africa partner node, made a presentation and highlighted the need for the attendants to get involved in the IOST project and the campus movement initiative.
Recap of IOST AMA on Huobi Nigeria
Huobi Nigeria telegram group held an Ask-Me-Anything session with IOST International Marketing Manager Jade Wang and IOST Watch’s Oladayo Oladipupo, the session was anchored by Joe (Huobi Nigeria Knight).
Finance
Token holders and the number of transactions dynamics (information from iostabc.com )
IOST Mainnet Token Burn. 7,350 Million ERC-20 Tokens Successfully Burnt
7,350,000,000 ERC-20 tokens were burnt by the Foundation on March 12, 2020, marking it the eighth successful batch of IOST ERC-20 tokens burnt.
IOST has completed the destruction of all ERC 20 tokens except for some exchanges and users who have not taken the initiative to swap and destroy tokens. For the exchanges pending with the destruction of IOST ERC 20 Token, IOST will publicize it to community members in a timely manner.
Roadmap
IOST 2020 roadmap has been finally revealed! In 2020 IOST will surely continue to contribute to an open, efficient and rapidly developing blockchain network! A creative and progressive IOST team never fail to inspire the most advanced community! Check out what’s been recently unveiled!
Q1:
- IOST Node Program v2.0
- Cross-Chain Technology Mass Adoption And Application Showcase
- IOST Staking Mechanism v3.0
- Start Compliance Progress in Japan, Korea, The US, Singapore, Vietnam, etc.
- Start Organizing Offline Meetups In 23 Cities Worldwide
- Launch Three Top-Quality DApps
- Improve Ecosystem Services And User Experiences
Q2:
- Accelerate The Expansion of IOST Partners Program to 30 key countries, Forming An Ecosystem With Global Connectivity And Healthy Competition
- Fulfill Compliance Standards in Japan, Korea, The US, Singapore, Vietnam, etc.
- Develop Partnership With At Least five Leading Enterprises
- Built and Sustain a Better Community Ecosystem
- Plan Initiate Campus In 80 Universities Globally
- Popularize Blockchain Tool Applications
- Improve Ecosystem Services And User Experiences
Partnerships and team members
IOST Node Program v2.0
Since 2019, more than 400 partner nodes from about 20 countries around the world have joined the IOST ecosystem. With the joint efforts of everyone, IOST has achieved a total staking volume of more than 4 billion IOST and also recorded great achievements in multiple fields such as payments, public welfare, education, traceability, mass adoption and compliance progress.
To attract more partners to the IOST node ecosystem while ensuring the interests of the main contributors, IOST now presents the Node Program v2.0, which has been be in effect from March 10, 2020.
IOST Enterprise Arm- Aiou Technology is becoming the new member of Hyperledger
Terry Wang, CEO, Aiou Technology, said: “Aiou Technology is glad to join the Hyperledger community. As a company focusing on blockchain technology’s research and development, we are committed to constructing a consortium BASS (Blockchain-as-a-service) platform and providing professional and targeted blockchain solutions for enterprises and governments. We have accomplished substantial social and economic benefits since the establishment of Aiou three years ago, and successfully empowered the real sector with innovative blockchain technology in multiple fields, including anti-counterfeiting traceability, supply chain finance, data assets sharing, and recording. Aiou looks forward to working together with members of Hyperledger to strengthen the community and promote the development of the blockchain industry.”
Hyperledger is an open source collaborative effort created to advance cross-industry blockchain technologies. Hyperledger allows organizations to create solid, industry-specific applications, platforms and hardware systems to support their individual business transactions by offering enterprise-grade, open source distributed ledger frameworks, libraries and tools.
IOST Joins TROY’s Brokerage Reward & Staking Program
IOST, strategically collaborated as a partner node with TROY’s “Brokerage Reward and Staking Program.” IOST is providing support to the TROY staking program and will stake a certain amount of TROY’s as an important partner node.
IOST utilizes its mature and advanced scaling technology to assist TROY in developing a scaling solution on Layer 2 off-line trading layer in TROY network.
Both firms have been focusing on collaborating to develop technologies regarding computer processing and providing highly efficient solutions for the same.
TROY’s “Brokerage Reward and Staking program” aims at rewarding brokers and holders of TROY who are an essential component of the TROY eco-system.
IOST Joins TROY’s Staking Program; Becomes Its Third Partner Node
DBF x IOST Partnership Announcement
The Debrief team is proud to announce a partnership with IOST.
Debrief and IOST both hold data privacy at its core, and by working together, Debrief and IOST will ultimately secure communications and revolutionize data privacy around the world.
Find out more about Debrief here
Other
Social media metrics
Social media activity:
The graph above shows the dynamics of changes in the number of IOST Facebook likes, Reddit subscribers and Twitter followers. The information is taken from Coingecko.com.
This report is not financial advice.
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