TestNet 1.0.0 is Formally Launched

Published in

Vite Labs

7 min readNov 9, 2018

We are proud to announce that Vite TestNet 1.0.0 will be launched on November 9, 2018. Going along with the timeline of our current roadmap, it seems likely that MainNet will be launched ahead of schedule.

Core Functions

DAG Ledger Structure
Built-in Smart Contract
HDPoS Consensus
Asynchronous Communication
Snapshot Chain
Vite Token
Trading Quota
SBP (aka supernode) Registration & Election

Function Explanation

Free Transactions

In the Vite system, the user does not pay a required gas fee for a transaction. Instead, Vite generally implements our TPS quota-based model which dictates that the amount of Vite tokens staked directly correlates to the amount of quota or TPS facilitated. For low-frequency users, Vite allows a quota to be obtained through a simple PoW (Proof of Work) mechanism. High-frequency users, however, will garner high quotas through their ability to stake a corresponding amount of Vite Tokens.

Within Vite user accounts, a built-in function has been additionally configured in order to provide assurance that all valid transactions are received automatically. The support shown for the facilitation of these transactions and the quota allocation mechanism is not possible within Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Built-in Smart Contract

Vite lays the foundation for timed scheduling, decentralized exchanges as well as other functions through the TestNet’s built-in smart contract capability. Built-in contracts that have already been implemented include: SBP registration, SBP Voting, token staking and token forging. Vite will soon be able to assist users capability to compile smart contract code and deploy smart contracts themselves.

SBP Registration

SBPs are able to be elected in the TestNet. At the time of MainNet launch, all Super Nodes on the TestNet will automatically become Super Nodes on the MainNet. Users who are interested in operating an SBP, you will be able to register in advance. The election process is as follows:

stake 500,000 VITE (this requirement will become 1,000,000 VITE for the MainNet)
run a server & have the necessary skills to maintain said server
have community influence and be able to solicit votes from VITE holders

SBP Voting

User accounts can start a transaction to vote for an SBP. One user may only vote for one SBP at a time. When counting votes, the user’s current balance will be used as the number of votes sent to the SBP. Submitted votes can be modified at any time. In the TestNet phase, voting for the Vite official SBP will have its own voting reward. The collective reward yield is dependent upon how many users participate in the voting process. As more users vote, the return will be diluted.

Vite Token Stake

In the Vite network, the user can stake VITE to obtain a certain amount of quota. The minimum stake value is 10 VITE with no maximum limit. The “lock-up” period will be around 3 days. After the user applies for a stake, those VITE will be automatically sent to a smart contract address rather than to any other user. Vite has ensure that only the staker himself or herself will have the authority to use the staked tokens.

Stake VITE: The staker will designate a beneficiary account, the amount of Vite tokens to stake as well as the expiration time in a stake request transaction. The beneficiary account attains the corresponding quota during the staking period after the response transaction has been snapshot.
Stake Cancel: The staker is able to retrieve the deposit after the stake time expires by specifying the specified beneficiary account & token amount to be retrieved; this cannot be greater than the total amount staked for the beneficiary.

One-Button Forging

Unlike Ethereum users who have to write and deploy their own ERC20 contracts, Vite users only need to send a transaction to a built-in token forging smart contract address which has been designed to be inherently user-friendly. This feature should effectively reduce the high cost of token issuance on Ethereum & will enforce heightened security.

Vite Characteristic

High Performance

DAG Ledger: Vite uses the DAG ledger structure. Transactions are grouped by accounts and each transaction only changes the status of a single account. The output is separated from the input transaction. Each consecutive transaction does not need to wait for confirmation to be reached regarding the previous transaction. The hierarchical design of the consensus algorithms provides a notable, horizontal scalability by consensus group.

Asynchronous Architecture: Inter-contract communication reflects a message-based asynchronous model. Whether it is a transaction or a call, two transactions will be generated on the ledger. A transaction pair splits the transaction into “request-response” mode. Asynchronously decoupling the writing & confirmation of the transaction will support ultra-high throughput.

Security

Snapshot Chain: Vite compensates for the innate security flaws of the DAG structure with the introduction of our innovational snapshot chain technology. The snapshot chain itself relies on a consensus algorithm. If the snapshot chain is forked, the longest fork becomes the chosen ‘accepted’ fork. When the snapshot chain is switched over to the new fork, the original snapshot information will be rolled back. The consensus reached on the original ledger is overturned, being replaced by the newer result. From a comprehensive standpoint, the snapshot chain is the cornerstone of the overall system security.

Multi-token Model: user-issued tokens share the same underlying protocol with VITE tokens-having the same level of security. Common security risks encountered within blockchain development (including integer overflow due to bad programming practices) will be eliminated. In addition, Vite will have its own built-in distributed exchange to trade the tokens.

Scalability

HDPoS Consensus: Vite adopts a HDPoS consensus algorithm to complete the block production in a coordinated manner through the delegated nodes. It is not necessary to compute the PoW and the block interval can be shortened to 1 second which reduces the delay usually taken with transaction confirmation.

Smart Contracts: Vite is a decentralized application platform that provides EVM-compatible virtual machines & Solidity++ language, an extension from the original Solidity. In due time, dAPP developers will be able to effectively envision & deploy applications on Vite with ease.

Cross-Chain Gateway: In order to support the cross-chain transaction of digital assets, Vite has designed the Vite Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (VCTP).

Usability

Virtual Machine: Vite’s VM is compatible with most Solidity syntax. Our VM supports asynchronous structuring/scheduling of contracts and collectively provides standard libraries inclusive of topics the likes of string processing, floating point arithmetic, basic mathematical operations, containers and sorting.

Naming Service: In order to label the address into contract deployment, Vite has a built-in naming service termed VNS (Vite Name Service). Users can register a set of easily rememberable names and inherently utilize them for the encoding of the actual address through VNS.

Contract Scheduling: We have added scheduling capabilities to Vite’s built-in contracts. Users can register their own scheduling logic within their contracts. The public consensus group will use the snapshot chain as a kind of makeshift timer to send a request to the target contract, in accordance with the user-defined scheduling logic.

Contract Upgrades: In order to solve the problem of immutability of smart contracts, Vite provides a solution to support smart contract upgrades. Contracts will be upgraded by deploying a new version of said contract; first inheriting the old contract states, then switching to the new address in the VNS, and finally deleting the old contract by the “Self Destruct” command.

Economical Efficiency

Built-in DEX: Vite built-in DEX provides users with dual-authorization technology to prevent any preliminary transactions which could falsely facilitate the circulation of digital assets.

Quota Model: Users can choose between a multitude of ways to exchange computing resources. They can also transfer additional quotas to other users through quota lease agreements to improve system-utilization efficiency.

Transaction Optimization

In order to retain security & meet the requirements of high throughput, low latency and scalability, Vite has put in considerable efforts into developing the system of modularization and inter-module communications. The following diagram shows a transaction process:

Description

Module POOL: responsible for determining local ledger state. It receives snapshot blocks from Producer; transaction request blocks from Vite-RPC/ On-Road Pool, as well as blocks sent from the network by other nodes(SYNC).

Transaction Request Node: In the Vite wallet or command line tool, the request node generates request blocks in module Vite-RPC and then sends them to POOL; this calls verification module Generator & Verifier to write the verified transaction data into local ledger and broadcasts through P2P-NET.

Transaction Response Node: Response node pulls transaction request blocks from other nodes when it connects to Vite network. If the node account is the transaction receiver, the request blocks will be passed over to On-Road Pool to produce relevant response blocks, broadcasting them to the network.

Mining Node: The super node(aka SBP) collects user blocks, packs all verified transactions into a snapshot block & broadcasts it to the network.

Update Instructions

The original VITE test token balance will be cleared. VITE on the TestNet 1.0.0 needs to be received through the function of ERC20 token migration.
The original VCP transaction record will be cleared. VCP balance will be migrated to the TestNet 1.0.0.
TestNet 1.0.0 will still retain the function of getting test token. The new test token will be called VTT (Vite Test Token).
After the TestNet launched, the Vite Web wallet, desktop wallet, and iOS client will also be updated.

In order to provide our community with a better user experience with the TestNet, in mid-November, a ‘VITE ERC20 token to VITE TestNet’ migration function available. You will be able to perform the function of SBP election, voting, token forge, etc. In the meantime, the Vite team will be methodically refining the TestNet until Vite MainNet is launched.

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Official: https://www.vite.org/

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