Technicals on Olympus
Olympus will become the new Polis Blockchain protocol, with a codebase that completely separates our development from Dash and Bitcoin.
The main principles to cover by Olympus will be:
– A quick and scalable blockchain.
– A user-friendly blockchain environment.
– A highly functional DAO system.
As it would be a protocol created by us, POLIS will then stop being a DASH fork, which should help us have increased control on the code and a more efficient innovation method on the coin itself.
The Olympus blockchain is moving towards a new and complex consensus mechanism. Despite the advantages of Bitcoin Proof-of-Work and PeerCoin Proof-of-Stake, those mechanisms still have flaws in scalability/security. For that reason, we are moving towards using the Casper consensus.
This post will attempt to cover every technical detail about the Olympus protocol, some statistics, and some basic concepts.
General Information
First and foremost, it is essential to clarify that Olympus will be the name of the protocol, but the name of the digital asset will still be Polis (POLIS). As previously stated, Olympus will employ a different consensus mechanism than the traditional Proof-of-Work or Proof-of-Stake named Casper. Casper is a partial consensus mechanism that uses Proof-of-Stake algorithms with Byzantine fault-tolerant consensus theory.
Building a code from the ground up allowed us to innovate in some key aspects and set us apart from other blockchains and projects. For instance, the block time will always be 30 seconds. Contrary to other coins and blockchains where the block time is approximate, it will always be fixed to 30 seconds in Olympus, no matter what. The new code will also keep the block reduction of 20% every year, leading to a max supply of 25,000,000 POLIS. The protocol will take into consideration the previously issued coins and allow for a smooth migration into the future of Polis. In other words, community members and overall Polis users will retain the same amount of coins from the past protocol.
The new protocol will also introduce a new block reward distribution that will be as follows: 80% to validators and 20% for the governance. Although governance was already part of the previous protocol, in Olympus, it will be redefined to be able to achieve a genuinely functional DAO. On the other hand, validators are a new concept that will be introduced alongside the features mentioned above.
Validators
By utilizing the CASPER algorithm, the blockchain will no longer employ masternode and will replace them with block validators. Validators function very much like a masternodes, but the key difference being the coins locked for each validator.
Unlike the past protocol where a masternode consisted of 1000 POLIS collaterals, validators will now require 100 POLIS each. This will, in turn, allow any user to contribute to the blockchain, effectively making it more accessible, democratic, and decentralized. Setting up a validator will be far easier than a masternode, allowing to create a bulk of validators all at once from the Olympus wallet.
Some key aspects to know about validators:
– Each validator consists of a 100 POLIS collateral that will be locked.
– To spend the 100 POLIS, users must first unlock the collateral and wait for a confirmation time to be able to use it. Instead of the masternode collaterals that can be used immediately, the validator deposit must wait some time to be able to be spent.
– Validators can be created in any environment with a good internet connection; the old requirement of static IP with pre-configured port access is no longer required.
– Once you have the node downloaded, you will need to set up a validator in a process very similar to that of the masternode so that it will be very familiar. Once the test network is up and running a series of videos and easy to follow guides will be published.
– Upon testing, the team decided to define a standard to make sure the node process is optimal; for that reason, we decided to configure a client-side limit of 128 validators per node. This means the maximum recommended amount of validators per node is 128. Still, users are free to increase that limit if they want. This limit may change upon following testing on different environments.
– The CASPER consensus mechanism suggests that validators are working maliciously on the network to be penalized. The penalization consists of reducing the balance of the collateral used to activate a validator on a certain amount. If the collateral balance drops below the threshold (80 POLIS), your validator is removed, and your coins unlocked.
– The penalizations are mainly focused on two scenarios: double voting and inactivity.
– The double voting means a validator is using the collateral to vote two times upon block selection. This is highly penalized and will remove the 30% of the validator balance and remove it from the validator registry immediately.
– The inactivity penalization means your validator is not participating in consensus because your node may be unreachable or any other technical problem. This penalization is really low and will not impact the validator rewarding, but is highly recommended to monitor the validators activity.
– To prevent inactivity penalizations, there is a fallback validator server configuration possible on which you can set up a second node that participates in the consensus on the scenario of the first server being unreachable.
Roadmap for Olympus Migration
At the moment, we are entering the final stages of Olympus coding. The ETA for the Olympus release is Q3, although this might be subject to change. These will be the three Olympus release phases:
Phase one: Private Testnet
In this phase, a private test network will be launched alongside the Polis support team and the DAO managers. The goal in this phase is to achieve a week in Olympus without any issues. The corresponding official documentation will be created alongside the existing ones that you can find here:
This phase is already ongoing, which means we have already developed multiple private test networks, and the results are really promising.
For experienced users that want to start familiarizing with the network on their own, they can check the public codebase of the Olympus Protocol on the GitHub organization: https://github.com/olympus-protocol
Phase two: Public Testnet
In this phase, public nodes on the Olympus network will be opened for the community. Guides and video tutorials on creating validators will be produced during this phase.
Users will be able to interact with the network with the official GUI Wallet and the Ogen codebase.
Documentation will be sent to exchanges and third-party services for them to start integrating it into their systems. The Olympus code will also be added to both the PolisPay and PolisNodes backend, with hardware wallet integration being also added.
Phase three: Public Release
For phase three to be initiated, the following tasks must be accomplished beforehand:
– Exchanges have fully transitioned to Olympus
– PolisPay transition to Olympus
– Trezor integration (hardware wallet)
– The frontend of the Olympus wallet finished
– Block explorer up and running
– Guides and video tutorials finished
Once all of the previous tasks are completed, the migration into Olympus will begin. To migrate to the new chain, we will follow the next steps:
1. We will issue a new Polis Core update with some migration tools implemented.
2. Blockchain will stop at some point (Block not decided yet).
3. All the UTXOs on the blockchain will be calculated so that we can get the utxoMerkleRoot.
4. We will add an RPC function to the Polis Core Wallet so you can get your MerkleRoot and a RawTX.
5. We will add a function to the Olympus Wallet so you can import your coins to the new Olympus Protocol using your Merkle root and raw tx.
This might sound overwhelming at first, but we will create video guides, written guides, and offer a dedicated support team to help with the migration to the Olympus protocol.
FAQ
We gather some questions from the community about Olympus; if you have more questions, be sure to ask them on the Discord, and we will cover them.
Why does Olympus move from 1000 POLIS to 100 POLIS collateral?
The amount of 100 POLIS per validator allows more community members to participate in the essential task of keeping the network secure. By lowering the amount required to participate, it enables a much more democratic, accessible, and decentralized network where anybody can contribute in their own way, whether with a single validator or several.
Does Olympus plan on dividing the existing number of coins by ten, or does it plan on having ten times more validators than masternodes? Will you need ten more VPS or the same amount?
No, the number of existing will not be divided by ten. The 1000 POLIS collateral will be scrapped and replaced with 100 POLIS; this will, in turn, allow users to create up to 128 validators per VPS. That’s the equivalent of 12,800 coins compared to the past, where it was limited to only 1000 POLIS per VPS.
In other words, you would need less VPS, and the hosting costs will go down significantly. While in the past, you would need 12.8 VPS for 12,800 POLIS, you will now only need 1 VPS.
How will the migration be done once we move to Olympus?
We will provide a tool that imports your coins to the new chain. This tool will be built-in with the new Olympus wallet and designed to work forever; there will be no timeframe for this tool to be used.
What about pricing from PolisNodes?
We are aware that a VPS can hold 128 validators, this would mean a decrease by a factor of / 12,8 number of VPS needed to host your coins. However, we still need to do tests and implement the new protocol to the platform to see how much we can charge. However, we do plan to reduce the pricing per validator, and we want to offer an insurance fund in case you lose POLIS because of the validator slashing.
Can you tell us a bit about the difficulty of running a validator?
Unlike a masternode that required some knowledge (DIP3 / NODE CONFIG), a validator will be very easy to setup. You can also set up multiple validators at the same time using the Olympus Wallet. We also have plans to integrate PolisNodes into the wallet, so it is easier to set up, along with guides and video tutorials, on hosting on your own.
