Hello to the growing Komodo’s community, fans and other blockchain enthusiasts!
It’s our second March Biweekly update on Komodo Platform!
Due to the current situation around the COVID-19 epidemic, the Komodo core team decided to postpone the proposal deadline of and the election end-date by 4 weeks.
The Fourth Annual Notary Node Election will begin on April 13, 2020. Everyone who wants to run in the election must submit a proposal to announce their candidacy by 12:00 UTC on April 12.
The Notary Nodes who will be automatically re-elected for outstanding performance will be announced on April 12. Then, on April 13, the Komodo team will airdrop VOTE tokens to all KMD holders at a 1:1 ratio to the KMD coins they hold in a private wallet. The Komodo community will cast their ballots by sending the VOTE tokens to the address(es) of their preferred candidate(s). The voting period will last until May 4, 2020. The newly-elected Notary Node Operators will be announced on May 11.
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.
The Komodo progressive team have recently published dozens of highly informative articles in their Blockchain Fundamentals Series. They cover a wide range of topics: PoS blockchains, blockchain consensus, the ERC721 Token Standard, Bitcoin Script, Non-Fungible Tokens, the state of DeFi and many others! Choose one of the articles of your interest! Enjoy!
Do you know what’s the difference between Komodo’s Antara Modules and smart contracts on other platforms like Ethereum? Komodo’s team is here to trace the difference between Antara Modules and “traditional” smart contracts. Read on to find the link to the explanation video!
CoinTelegraph has published an article about Komodo CTO Kadan Stadelmann. It is a very personal story about his early years, family, first steps in the blockchain industry and as CTO of Komodo.
Last but not least! Komodo is looking for 2 new developers to join the team and help continue to innovate cutting-edge blockchain technology and deliver state-of-the-art apps. You can become part of it!
More news to follow!
Development
GitHub metrics:
Developer activity (from Coinlib.io):
Komodo’s Antara Modules vs smart contracts
A deep-dive into the difference between Antara Modules and “traditional” smart contracts
Do you know what’s the difference between Komodo’s Antara Modules and smart contracts on other platforms like Ethereum? Watch the video here to find it out!
Blockchain Fundamentals by Komodo Platform
The Komodo progressive team have recently published dozens of highly informative articles in their Blockchain Fundamentals series. They cover a wide range of topics: PoS blockchains, blockchain consensus, the ERC721 Token Standard, Bitcoin Script, Non-Fungible Tokens, the state of DeFi and many others! Choose one of the articles of your interest below:
What is Proof of Stake? An Overview of PoS Blockchains
Blockchain Consensus Protocols: Rules For Decentralized Agreement
ERC-721: An Intro to the ERC721 Token Standard
Non-Fungible Tokens: An Intro To NFTs & NFT Use Cases
P2PK: Pay To Pubkey Transactions Explained
P2SH: Pay To Script Hash Transactions Explained
P2PKH: Pay To Pubkey Hash Transactions Explained
Bitcoin Script: An Introduction For Beginners
Bitcoin Private Key: An Easy-To-Understand Overview
7 Blockchain Use Cases Primed For Serious Growth In 2020
DeFi Is Now A $600 Million Industry & It’s Expected To Keep Growing
More articles:
Can We Build a Post-Feudal Web 3?
By Kadan Stadelmann, CTO of Komodo
Building A Decentralized Internet & Opening Up The Web
subatomic-swap-testing.md
A list of several things Komodo’s community can do:
- Dexp2p2 community development project. As the team described in Komodo’s previous weekly update, there is this new community-led development project. Its future is uncertain as it will have to rely on community contributions. It is another way for a dev to get involved with the Komodo technology.
- Launch a KMD sidechain. Their technology allows someone to launch a sidechain without permission from the core team. The KMD coins would be locked and another coin issued, which would have more features than the original coin. That way, the functionality can be increased, or it can be used to demonstrate the scaling technology.
- Liquidity providing (when the time comes). The team needs the community to help bootstrap the DEX network once they have the AtomicDEX release candidate. They will provide market-making tools that allow anyone to help to provide liquidity. The more liquidity KMD has, the more value it also has.
- Community twitter project (idea by Alper). They had a plan to create an official twitter account for the Komodo community.
Finance
Source: DexStats
Komodo’s Fourth Annual Notary Node Election To Begin On April 13, 2020
The Fourth Annual Notary Node Election will begin on April 13, 2020. Everyone who wants to run in the election must submit a proposal to announce their candidacy by 12:00 UTC on April 12.
The Notary Nodes who will be automatically re-elected for outstanding performance will be announced on April 12. Then, on April 13, the Komodo team will airdrop VOTE tokens to all KMD holders at a 1:1 ratio to the KMD coins they hold in a private wallet. The Komodo community will cast their ballots by sending the VOTE tokens to the address(es) of their preferred candidate(s). The voting period will last until May 4, 2020. The newly-elected Notary Node Operators will be announced on May 11.
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.
Important dates for Season 4:
KMD snapshot: April 12th, 2020
Autoelection announcement: April 12th — cutoff time: April 12th 2020, 12pm UTC
Proposal deadline: April 13th 2020, 12pm UTC
Vote2020 airdrop: April 13th 2020, 12pm UTC
Season 4 Election start: April 13th 2020, 12pm UTC
Season 4 Election end: May 4th 2020, 12pm UTC
Public Komodo update announcement: May 11th, 2020
dPoW season 4 start: June 14th, 2020
Komodo Core and AC hardfork activation:
Komodo core hardfork activation: KMD block 1.903.000 (Sunday, May 31st, 2020)
SmartChain hardfork activation: Timestamp 1590926400 (Sunday, May 31st, 2020 12:00:00 PM UTC)
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.
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.
- 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.
Social encounters
Journeys in Blockchain: Kadan Stadelmann
by Darren Kleine
The CTO of Komodo Platform discusses the impetus behind his drive for decentralized systems.
Read the whole article to find out interesting facts about his childhood, his first steps in the blockchain industry and his early career.
Roadmap
See Komodo’s technical roadmap is here
There are 3 primary areas of focus for the Komodo Team in 2020: Komodo Core, Antara Framework, and AtomicDEX.
Partnerships and team members
Journeys in Blockchain: Kadan Stadelmann
CoinTelegraph has published an article about Komodo CTO Kadan Stadelmann. It is a very personal story about his early years, family, first steps in the blockchain industry and as a CTO of Komodo. You’ll surely like it!
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
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.
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.
Social media metrics
Social media 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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