SKALE Crash Course

What is SKALE Network and how it works ?

SKALE — is a new ambitious project that started on 1st of July 2020. Website of a project: https://skale.network/. SKALE is an elastic blockchain network which gives the ability to develop decentralized and highly configurable dApps based on the Ethereum. SKALE makes it easy to develop, configure and run its own dApps in the decentralized module cloud.

SKALE also gives an ability to developers to create sidechains for particular applications, which are “protected” by validators of the blockchain network, and it also can speed up the development of smart-contracts.

So how does it work ?

The network of dApps works with a principle of Ethereum-as-a-Service. With the help of sidechain applications can get access to third party blockchains and their dApps, for example to improve performance and security. SKLAE performs with Ethereum blockchain through smart-contracts of a SKALE Manager.

This SKALE Manager is a series of smart contracts responsible for:

• The registration of validators with the SKALE Network
• The orchestration and creation of Elastic Sidechains
• The performance measuring of virtualized subnodes in the network

For the application (dApp) to run, it needs to get resources which validators can provide. Validators perform the key role in the security of the SKALE blockchain network. The protocol makes all the resources of the validators to be spread and optimized so it can make the best performance for the blockchain network to run. Elastic Sidechains run by independent validators located all around the world. Validators run “Nodes”, which contain a number “Virtualized Subnodes”, and can participate in multiple sidechains. Here is an additional info for validators: https://skale.network/blog/the-skale-network-validator-faq/

Developers can interact with the SKALE Manager directly or through the Developer Portal provided by SKALE. To create an Elastic Sidechain, users can rent space on SKALE nodes by depositing SKALE tokens into the SKALE Manager either directly or through the Developer Portal. Here you can read about the technical highlights of the SKALE Network: https://skale.network/blog/technical-highlights/

In this brief course we are going to look through 5 main tips of the SKALE Network: SKALE Network ( SKALE Manager ), Elastic Sidechains, SKALE Virtualized Subnodes, SKALE Protocol and SKALE Tokens.

SKALE Network ( SKALE Manager )

As it was said before The SKALE Manager exists on the Ethereum mainnet and serves as the entrypoint to all other smart contracts in the SKALE ecosystem. With the help of SKALE Manager those actions can be performed: Elastic Sidechain creation / destruction, Node creation / destruction, withdrawals, and bounties.

Node Creation: To be added to the system a prospective node must run the SKALE daemon. It will evaluate the prospective node to ensure that it is upholding network hardware requirements. If the prospective node passes this verification step, the daemon will permit it to submit a request to join the network to the SKALE Manager. This request will contain both the required network deposit. As well as node metadata collected by the daemon.

Node Destruction: When exiting the network, nodes must first declare their exit and wait a finalization period . This finalization period takes two days, so after that period of time the node will be inactive and there will be a chance to withdraw the initial stake. In the case that a user is unable to wait the finalization period and exits their node immediately from the network, it will be classified as a dead node by SLA virtualized subnodes, and the bounty for the node will not be paid.

Elastic Sidechains

The creation of Elastic Sidechain leverages a source of randomness (VDF of the mainnet, hash of the block number on the testnet) — in that way performs the selection of a committee of participating virtualized subnodes. It prevents any attempts by nodes to collude with each other and makes it really decentralized. With a SKALE elastic blockchain or sidechain, dApps will be able run with sub-second block times and with throughputs of up to 2000 transactions per second. They will be able to execute full-state smart contracts, make use of sophisticated storage and machine learning algorithms, and drastically reduce or eliminate gas fees and other user-facing transaction costs. The SKALE Network also offers interchain messaging which lets dApps perform state updates in coordination with the mainnet. All with high-grade security and safety. Lastly each SKALE chain provides File Storage functionality to dApps letting them run end-to-end decentralized apps, websites, games, etc.

SKALE Virtualized Subnodes

Compared to other protocols, Virtualized Subnodes are not restricted to a one-to-one mapping between participating nodes in the network . Each Sidechain is comprised of randomly appointed virtualized subnodes. They run SKALE daemon and run SKALE consensus. Containerized virtualized subnode architecture gives an opportunity for each node to run multiple Elastic Sidechains simultaneously. Subnodes within a SKALE Node are referred to as Virtualized SubNodes. Each Virtualized Subnode participates in independent Elastic Sidechains.

SKALE Protocol

SKALE follows a Proof-of-Stake system where each node must stake a predetermined amount of SKALE (SKL Tokens). Holders of SKL can also delegate their tokens to any node in the network that does not already have the maximum number of tokens staked / delegated.

Most sidechain protocols are insecure. The reason is that most solutions have a small set of nodes validating each chain which are usually fixed and do not change. With this type of arrangement, application developers can encounter some serious risks at the consensus layer — risks that include collusion, bribery, and other bad things that can impact the validity of your transactions.

SKALE Tokens

And the most interesting part now about SKL Tokens. At the moment SKL tokens are already tradable (Binance, Huobi, Digifinex). At the moment of writing this course the price is 0,077219 $. But the absolute maximum was 0,160187 $ and the absolute minimum 0,060829 $. The general offer of tokens is 4 140 000 000 SKL and the maximum offer is 7 000 000 000 SKL. The price of public ICO was 0,03$.

SKL Tokens are released on the Ethereum platform according to the standard ERC-777 which compared to ERC-20 gives a chance not to delegate them directly to the validator and just give him only a secure delegation key. At the same time, the SKL tokens themselves remain in the holder’s crypto wallet.

You can always check SKALE Network blog: https://skale.network/blog

Discord: https://discord.com/invite/uq3Nr6f

Telegram: https://t.me/skaleofficial

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SkaleNetwork/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/skalenetwork