Komodo: Approaching 2020 Notary Node Election, DEXP2P, AMA for Komodo, Blockchain Training

Paradigm
Paradigm
Published in
16 min readMar 12, 2020

Biweekly update 27th February — 12th March

Hello to all blockchain communities! It’s time we updated you on the latest news about Komodo Platform!

The philosophy behind Komodo’s multi-chain architecture relies on four pillars: security, scalability, interoperability, adaptability. Komodo has the greatest advantage over most existing blockchains — a blockchain security solution to protect chains with Delayed Proof-of-Work (dPoW). Komodo’s dPoW is a second layer consensus mechanism. dPoW security protects every integrated blockchain with the power of the Bitcoin network. Approximately every half hour, a hash of the developers blockchain is notarized to Bitcoin. All transactions included in the hash are considered to have achieved finality. A series of cross-chain notarizations, carried out by Komodo’s Notary Node network, make leveraging Bitcoin’s hash rate possible. Komodo’s multi-chain architecture is unique and is surely suitable to become an important player in a great number of industries!

Let’s now focus on the latest news from the Komodo high-tech world!

Those who would like to run in the 2020 Notary Node Election must submit a proposal to announce their candidacy by 12:00 UTC on March 16. The elections start with the airdrop of the Vote2020 tokens and end on April 6th. The Komodo Core update is planned for April 13th and the hardfork activation for May 31st, 2020. The top 30 NNs will be auto-elected and announced on March 15th. 30 Notary Node spots are available in the 2020 election. The Komodo Notary Node Elections are stake weighted, meaning that those who hold more KMD have more voting power in the election. More detailed information on the upcoming election can be found in the report.

You’ll also be interested to learn about DEXP2P tech for P2P file sharing. DEXP2P works as a real time decentralised P2P orderbook. Millions of orders can be displayed without clogging down the P2P network. It’s a great solution for AtomicDEX orderbook and it opens up new possibilities including live streaming of videos or any other files.

Last but not least! AMA for Komodo platform was held on Binance channel. The guest speakers from the Komodo team were: Kadan Stadelmann, CTO, Audo Kowitz, Marketing Manager, Daniel Pigeon, Content Lead, Torsten Sandor, Technical Marketing Manager, and Charles Gonzalez, Business Developer.

More news to follow!

Development

GitHub metrics:

Developer activity (from Coinlib.io):

DEXP2P

DEXP2P works as a real time decentralised p2p orderbook and millions of orders can be displayed without clogging down the p2p network. It’s a great solution for atomicDEX orderbook, it opens up great possibilities. One of them is live streaming of videos or any other files.

Testing the DEXP2P based real time P2P betting App

Simple GUI interface mockup to demonstrate Filesharing (based on dexp2p) Komodo technology

Go to Komodo discord to join the latest discussions about the platform’s development

How Komodo is different from Ethereum?

Komodo’s Technical Marketing Manager, Torsten Sándor, has created a video about the differences in the architecture of the 2 platforms: Komodo and Ethereum. He explains it using a very a simple analogy, highlighting the fact that Komodo is multi-chain whereas Ethereum is single-chain. Projects on Komodo’s platform are built on their own chains. Komodo doesn’t need gas, this means you don’t have to pay fees to use the Platform.

Visit Komodo’s new Community Portal to watch the whole video! Follow the link here

Those who haven’t checked out Komodo’s 2019 Annual Report, summarizing all of the milestones and progress made throughout the year, please read a brief recap of last year’s major developments here.

Finance

Source: DexStats

Komodo’s Fourth Annual Notary Node Election

Those who would like to run in the 2020 Notary Node Election must submit a proposal to announce their candidacy by 12:00 UTC on March 16. The Komodo team would like to encourage everyone who is interested to run.

The elections start on March 16th with the airdrop of the Vote2020 tokens and end on April 6th. The Komodo Core update is planned for April 13th and the hardfork activation for May 31st, 2020.

The top 30 NNs who will be auto-elected will be announced on March 15th. 30 Notary Node spots are available in the 2020 election. Starting with season 4 the automatic re-elections are reduced to 3 spots per region.

There are a total of 64 nodes in Komodo’s Notary Node network. There are four Notary Node regions: Europe (EU), Asia-Russia (AR), North America (NA), and the Southern Hemisphere (SH). Each region contains at least 13 notary nodes, boosting the physical distribution and security of Komodo’s Notary Node network. In 2020, each region will have an even 15 Notary Nodes.

Those running for election must declare in which region they intend to operate their Notary Node. If anyone is discovered to be running a node in a region other than the one for which they were elected, this operator will be immediately disqualified and the NN spot gets assigned to the next candidate in the election result list. This keeps things fair, as different geographic locations offer Internet connections at varying costs and speeds.

Candidates may choose to run for one seat in one of the four regions. That means that, at the most, any individual candidate can seek 1 Notary Node position in their first election participation.

If that candidate proves his reliability and ability to operate a NN by making it to the top 3 rankings for his region at the end of the season, he is able to apply for up to two additional NN spots in different regions for the next elections. Three is the maximum number of spots that any one candidate is permitted to seek.

Important dates for Season 4:

  • KMD snapshot: March 13th, 2020
  • Autoelection announcement: March 15th — cutoff time: March 15th 2020, 12pm UTC
  • Proposal deadline: March 16th 2020, 12pm UTC
  • Vote2020 airdrop: March 16th, 2020
  • Season 4 Election start: March 16th 2020, 12pm UTC
  • Season 4 Election end: April 6th 2020, 12pm UTC
  • Public Komodo update announcement: April 13th, 2020
  • dPoW season 4 start: May 31st, 2020

Every year, the Komodo community elects a new cohort of Notary Node operators. The first Notary Node Election was in January 2017 and the previous annual Notary Node Election took place in April 2019.

Notary Nodes perform cross-chain notarizations to provide security, scaling, and interoperability features. Cross-chain notarizations are transactions that store a small piece of crucial blockchain data from one blockchain on the ledger of different blockchain.

Notarizations are required for Delayed Proof of Work (dPoW) security, which recycles the hash rate of the Bitcoin network to secure third-party blockchains, as well as Platform Synchronizations, a technology that makes scaling and interoperability features available to all Smart Chain projects.

The Voting Process

The Komodo Notary Node Elections are stake weighted, meaning that those who hold more KMD have more voting power in the election. The process works as follows.

A special voting token will be airdropped to KMD holders at a 1:1 ratio. If you have 1000 KMD, you will receive 1000 voting tokens. The current supply of KMD is around 120 Million, so roughly 120 Million voting tokens will be airdropped to the Komodo community.

It’s important to note that you must hold your private keys in order to receive these tokens. If you hold your KMD on a centralized exchange, then you do not hold your private keys and you will not receive any tokens. If you’re a KMD holder and you wish to participate in the election, now is time to withdraw your coins into a private wallet.

All candidates will publicly post an address in which they can receive voting tokens. Once you’ve received them, you may cast your ballot by sending them to the candidate(s) of your choice. The only rule for voting is that the sale of voting tokens is strictly prohibited. Anyone caught buying or selling them will be disqualified from participating in the election. Apart from that, community members may vote for any candidates in any region.

How To Run For A Notary Node Operator Position

Anyone with the required hardware and knowledge can run in the Notary Node Election. Candidates don’t need to own a single KMD coin to become a Notary Node Operator. In fact, candidates don’t need to be a current member of the Komodo community or know anything at all about the inner workings of Komodo’s technology.

The technical requirements:

  • OS: Linux is mandatory. Ubuntu 18.x or Debian 10.x recommended.
  • CPU: A High-Performance CPU, e.g. Xeon, i7/i9, Ryzen, EPYC, etc.
  • RAM: 64GB or more
  • Disk: 1TB SSD or greater
  • Bandwidth: 100Mbps or higher

The hardware requirements for the 3P NN server are as follows:

  • OS: Ubuntu 18.x or Debian 10.x is recommended.
  • CPU: A High-Performance CPU (e.g. Xeon, i7/i9, Ryzen, EPYC, etc.)
  • RAM: 32 GB or more
  • Disk: 500 GB SSD or greater
  • Bandwidth: 100 Mbps or higher

In order to run in the Notary Node Election, candidates must submit a written proposal to the Notary Node repository on Github. Proposals can contain, among other things, a brief bio, motivations for running in the election, and planned contributions to the Komodo ecosystem.

At a minimum, a candidate’s proposal must state which region they are running in and post an address to which KMD community members can send voting tokens. Candidates may choose to run for one seat in one of the four regions. That means that, at most, an individual candidate can seek 1 Notary Node position in their first election participation.

For more information about running in the election, please see this guide to setting up a Notary Node. This guide will explain how to setup your Main Server, then go through the process of setting up the 3rd Party Server separately. After that there are instructions on how to create your Notary Node pubkeys, import them to your servers and then, create a basic start script for each server. Having a second server (or VM) is now a requirement for Komodo Notary Nodes. There are ways to have a single server and then creating separate virtual machines on it, instead of having two separate servers. This guide won’t touch on how to do that. Join the #notarynode channel on the Komodo Discord Server if you face any problems.

You’re also encouraged to read the Notary Node Bible, which contains more information about the duties and responsibilities of a Notary Node Operator.

If you’re interested in becoming a candidate in the Notary Node Election, please join Komodo’s Community Portal to connect with the team and other community members.

To find out more information about Cross-Chain Notarizations, the Limitations Of Notary Node Capabilities, please, read the article on Komodo website and go to Komodo Github.

Delayed Proof of Work

Komodo’s delayed Proof of Work (dPoW) security is a secondary consensus mechanism that recycles the giant hash rate of the Bitcoin network through a series of cross-chain notarizations.

A Second-Layer Consensus Mechanism

Delayed Proof of Work (dPoW) does not act as a blockchain’s primary consensus mechanism. Every dPoW-protected blockchain’s decentralized network still validates each transaction.

Cross-Chain Notarizations

dPoW security protects every integrated blockchain with the power of the Bitcoin network. A series of cross-chain notarizations make leveraging Bitcoin’s hash rate possible.

These cross-chain notarizations are carried out by Komodo’s Notary Node network. Notary Nodes are dedicated servers that perform notarization transactions for the Komodo ecosystem.

dPoW is a second-layer mechanism that provides an extremely high level of security in addition to a blockchain’s normal consensus rules. It is available to both PoW and PoS blockchains.

dPoW Security in 7 Steps

The dPoW process is rather straightforward. While it provides an incredibly high level of security, dPoW is an elegant and simple security solution that can be explained in 7 steps.

  1. Choosing a block to notarize

The Notary Node propose a particular block to notarize from a dPoW-protected blockchain onto the KMD chain.

That dPoW-protected chain’s network then comes to consensus on the fact that the block is valid and ready for notarization.

2. Choosing which Notary Nodes will notarize

Next, the Notary Nodes must come to consensus on which nodes will participate in the notarization.

Each notarization transaction is 13-of-64 multi-signature transaction, with the 13 signature- transaction, with the 13 signature-providing nodes chosen randomly before each notarization transaction.

3. Notarizing to the KMD Blockchain

Once the notary Node network has reached consensus on which 13 nodes will participate in the notarization, they make a transaction on the KMD blockchain.

Using the OP_RETURN command, this notarization transaction saves the block hash of the block choses in Step 1 onto the KMD ledger.

4. Notarizing to the BTC Blockchain

Now, the Komodo network comes to consensus on which block will be notarized to the Bitcoin blockchain.

Using the same procedure as Step 3, the Notary Nodes execute a transaction on the Bitcoin chain, thus saving a KMD block hash onto the BTC ledger.

5. Back Notarization to KMD Network

After the Bitcoin network has confirmed the notarization transaction in step 4, the Notary Nodes broadcast the info to the KMD network.

This provides complete immutability to the notarized block and all blocks that preceded it. The network will not accept a re-org that moves or alters a notarized block.

6. Back notarization to each dPoW protected chain

The Notary Nodes also announce to the networks of each dPoW-protected chain that a notarization has been completed.

Just as in Step5, once a dPoW-protected chain’s network learns that the block has been notarized, that block and all blocks that came before it become immutable.

7. Repeat the entire dPoW process

Komodo’s Notary Node network repeats the entire dPoW roughly every ten minutes. This provides BTC-level security around the clock to all dPoW-protected blockchains.

Even if an attacker gains control of a network, they cannot re-organize any blocks that have been notarized. Since notarizations occur every 10 minutes, 51% attacks are both infeasible and unprofitable.

source

Social encounters

Binance AMA Series KOMODO

AMA ( Ask Me Anything ) for Komodo platform was held on Binance channel

The guest speakers from the Komodo team:

Kadan Stadelmann, CTO, @cryptoanarc333 ( ca333 )

Audo Kowitz, Marketing Manager, @AudoKowitz ( Audo Kowitz )

Daniel Pigeon, Content Lead, @daniel_komodo ( Daniel CP )

Torsten Sandor, Technical Marketing Manager, @torsten1 ( TS )

Charles Gonzalez, Business Developer(@ptyx11) ( PTYX )

Read the full AMA here and join the Komodo revolution

Roadmap

2020 ROADMAP REPORT

See Komodo’s technical roadmap here

There are 3 primary areas of focus for the Komodo Team in 2020: Komodo Core, Antara Framework, and AtomicDEX.

Partnerships and team members

MintFlint airdrops to all KMD holders

Start date for Komodo’s IOS holders was 28th February 2020

In order to receive your Flint tokens, you must hold your Komodo on Binance or Bittrex.

1 Komodo = 1 Flint

Follow the link to find the instructions on how to claim

The platform allows traders to subscribe to other traders and get instant buy/sell signals. Traders can also challenge each other based on portfolio performance.

MintFlint leverages airdrops to release Flint tokens into public circulation. If you currently do not have an IOS device, wait until MintFlint is launched on Android.

source

Komodo Blockchain Training in Panama

At the moment The ChainZilla team are in Panama to hold negotiations with The Data Science Institute. The team are now developing a new blockchain model based on Komodo technology for the institute. The model can be used for educational purposes to teach enterprise in companies to employees. The dates for the training haven’t been announced yet. The detailed information will soon appear on the official channels.

Earlier this year ChainZilla partnered with Panama’s Government Innovation Agency (AIG), a government-backed entity to jointly launch a training program for developers and government officials on the Komodo blockchain.

In late August 2019, the Panamanian government announced its plan to implement a blockchain-based bidding platform for government contracts. This move will increase traceability and transparency for government projects and spending.

On January 22 and 23 they trained 40 government officials on blockchain-based solutions for real-world applications. The first phase of the training program was a success and a second phase will be rolled out in the second quarter of 2020.

Komodo is constantly working on training resources and marketing initiatives that improve awareness of the ecosystem.

source

Don’t miss a splendid opportunity to become a member of Komodo’s progressive team!

Follow updates on the official site of the Komodo Platform

KOMODO team

Ecosystem

Hush Coin

  • Hush is an implementation of the Zcash protocol with custom additions, offering a high standard of privacy preserving confidentiality of transaction metadata.
  • Hush Messenger and HushList are state of the art private communications leveraging zkSNARKS technology.
  • Using dPoW (delayed Proof of Work), making blockchains much more secure and attack resistant at 51%.
  • Hush is often one of the most profitable EquiHash coins to mine. Mining is possible with GPU and ASICs. For help, join us on the ‘Mining’ channel of our Discord or connect to a pool.

VerusCoin

  • Verus uses VerusHash 2.1, a new cryptographic hash algorithm allowing mining with x64 CPUs while equalizing GPUs and offering a credible ASIC solution.
  • With provable 51% hash attack immunity, Verus’ 50% proof of work/50% proof of stake consensus algorithm provides unprecedented blockchain security.
  • Verus leverages zk-SNARK zero-knowledge proofs in a modified Zcash Sapling fork for optional private addresses that are completely opaque to the outside world.

Hemp Coin

PirateChain

PirateChain (ARRR) is a 100% private send cryptocurrency. It uses a privacy protocol that cannot be compromised by other users activity on the network. Most privacy coins are riddled with holes created by optional privacy. PirateChain uses ZK-Snarks to shield 100% of the peer to peer transactions on the blockchain making for highly anonymous and private transactions.

Pirate Chain February 2020 Update

KMDLabs

KMDLabs finds its origins in the testing conducted on the PoS64 staking algorithm created by jl777 for staking on KMD assetchains.

This algorithm was tested and improved by jl777 and the members of this PoS64 test group. From these experiments the need for a state of the art, dedicated testing platform became very clear.

Testing expanded its scope and STAKED was born. STAKED furthered its experience with incentivized testing while developing and refining the STAKED software over various cluster networks through its seven iterations.

Pungo

Pungo offers an open source blockchain wallet along with a whole set of modules & services attached to it which give users a complete blockchain experience.

Utrum

Utrum is a decentralized platform providing reputation-based and quality-curated Crypto Reviews, Insights, and Market Predictions for cryptocurrency investors and newbies.

Utrum brings together the best of both traditional business and agile crypto models, forming a platform which operates as “Freemium.” It is a revolutionary approach in which the platforms shares revenue with the user community. Utrum’s $OOT is the utility token powering this community.

Einsteinium

The Einsteinium Foundation’s mission is utilize blockchain technology to generate funds for scientific research.

There are two ways this is accomplished. The first is through a mining tax which creates a pool of funds providing grants to deserving applicants. The second is maintaining a currency which allows for a more transparent and trustful way to support causes. Einsteinium coin is designed to reduce waste and eradicate corruption where it is needed most: charity and politics.

The Einsteinium blockchain is secured by Komodo’s Delayed Proof-of-Work security service.

GameCredits

GameCredits (GAME) is a digital currency based on blockchain. Its purpose is to become a universal currency for 2.6 billion gamers worldwide, to empower both large and small game developers in order to further propel the 100 billion dollar gaming industry, and to accelerate the wide adoption of decentralized cryptocurrencies as a better alternative to government-issued fiats.

GameCredits is secured by Komodo’s Delayed Proof-of-Work security service.

Other

Social media metrics

Social media activity:

Telegram

Twitter

Reddit

Discord

Social media dynamics:

The charts above illustrate a small decline in the number of both Telegram followers and Reddit subscribers. In general, Komodo experiences an average level of social activity.

The graph above shows the dynamics of changes in the number of Komodo Reddit subscribers, Twitter followers, and Facebook likes. The information is taken from Coingecko.com.

This is not financial advice.

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Medium. Twitter. Telegram. Reddit.

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