分类: Whiteboard

Accountability in Voltaire Funding

Who Pays, Who Decides

Project Catalyst is based upon the question of “Who Pays, Who Decides”. 

Its main challenge is the fact that the blockchain (Cardano) lacks agency. It is not a real thinking person, and has no ability to judge good RO”I”, or Return on Intention, on the grants it gives out.

After the submission and discussion phases on Ideascale, we go into the phase of Final Ballot, before voting takes place. There are two “who” questions here:

  1. Who gets the money?
  2. Who holds them accountable?

On the accountability portion, a separate entity/person (such as PWC or equivalent) can come in on a ballot-by-ballot basis to provide the oversight function. They would ensure regular reports are produced, audit the code, and verify the claims made by the fundee. 

Essentially, they act as a stand-in for the fact that Cardano lacks agency, and act as the eyes and ears of the community.

For smaller projects where the funding outcomes are clear to the community, such as a podcast, it is not necessary for this entity to step in. But for larger projects, it is essential to have this counter-party mechanism to hold the person receiving funding accountable.

Structures of Accountability

After the ballots have been approved, the business and social structures that are required to maximize project successes involve different contractual relationships among custodians, auditors and clients.

And to address project failures, there will be feedback loops to both the Structures of Accountability and the initial ideation phase in Ideascale, to remove ballots with historical high failure rates. 

These feedback loops will form part of the learning phase to fine-tune project suitability. As a result, Project Catalyst evolves and improves in execution, and funding can increase gradually as the process stabilizes.

Over the coming years, with inputs from a dedicated group of academics, entrepreneurs and consultants, Cardano will have a best-in-class innovation management platform built right into the global system.

Cardano Updates

Goguen to the Fore in September

August is almost over, and it has been a busy month for Cardano.

We have had the release of Shelley, an upgrade to node version 1.19.0 which brings significant performance improvement, and hours earlier, an update to Daedalus mainnet wallet 2.2.0 (which is based upon node version 1.19.0).

For September, IOG (and Charles himself) is concentrating on Goguen. We can expect these features to crystallise:

  1. Native Asset (move from Single Asset Ledger (SAL) to Multi Asset Ledger (MAL)
  2. Plutus Foundation
  3. Plutus Application Framework

(1) and (2) might be scheduled for a bundled release as a Hard Fork Combinator (HFC) event, while (3) should just require a node version update.

More information on the Goguen rollout schedule will be discussed during the September month end product update by Tim and Aparna.

IOG is also looking into a collection of apps that can run as DeFi foundations, such as stablecoins, oracles and DEXs.

On Daedalus, these are the upcoming product features/improvements:

  • Multisig
  • Hardware wallet center
  • 1 to many delegation (partial delegation)
  • Delegation portfolios
  • U2FA (Universal 2FA) and Yubikey
  • QR code generator center
  • Shielded paper wallet
Running in parallel,  we can look forward to a voting center (first iteration on a cell phone app, then on Daedalus) for Voltaire. DC Fund submission is starting 7 Sep and Fund 1 (focus group side) has already begun.
 
September will also see a scale up of Marketing efforts for IOG. Cardano Foundation has already partnered with McCann to revamp their website, and we will see a similar ramp-up of marketing strategies on the IOG side.
 
One final key takeaway from this whiteboard video is this: 
 
Correctness and Security before Performance Optimization
 
IOG is now working hard to pay off the technical debts by improving the performance of the Shelley network and Daedalus back end. 
 
KOPI identifies with this mission of first doing the right things, then doing things right.

The Shelley Hybrid Era

On d and alpha

The d parameter represents the proportion of blocks made by stake pool operators (SPOs), not by the OBFT protocol.

When d=1, the network is in a static and federated mode, where the OBFT pools are making all the blocks for no profit or reward.

When d=0, the network is fully decentralized, where the stake pool operators are making all the blocks with rewards.

(1) Moving from d=1 to d=0.5

  • Majority of the blocks are made by OBFT, minority by Praos
  • Increase in SPO participation
  • Increase in active stakes up to ~60%
  • P2P governor to be turned on
(2) Bookend at d=0.5
 
  • Goguen Hardfork Combinator (HFC) event planned when d=0.5 (Native Assets, Plutus Foundation, etc)

(3) Moving from d=0.5 to d=0

  • Majority of blocks are made by Praos, minority by OBFT
  • Disaster recovery in place
(4) Bookend at d=0
  • Voltaire HFC event planned
  •  Replace current update system with dupdate (decentralized update)

Alpha Parameter

Alpha (constant decay) parameter will be explained in more details on 14 August. 

Every epoch, d is decremented, at minimum, by alpha. Hence, knowing alpha will give you the maximum time it takes to get to d=0.

Where alpha=0.025, it will take 200 days for d to decrement to 0. Again, decrements of 0.025 is a minimum, and the actual decrement depends largely on network health.

Hence, 200 days to d=0 is the maximum expectation, and it can be accelerated with strong network health.

Postponement of first d decrement

The first decrement of d has been postponed by one epoch to 13 August.

This is due to two issues:

  • Daedalus bug where 1/3 of stake pools were not showing up on dashboard (resolved)
  • Some exchanges experiencing difficulties in transitioning to Shelley due to their particular infrastructures (ongoing)

KOPI Thoughts

The Cardano project continues to be transparent and Charles’ communication to his followers is exemplary as usual.
 
Whiteboard videos by Charles are wonderfully informative, but as pointed out by others previously, I wish that there is an official single point of communication to all ADA holders. This postponement has real-life monetary consequences, so while SPOs and community members can help to spread the word, official announcements on cardano.org or similar will inspire much more confidence.

Cardano has no CEO. With decentralization, the official channel of Cardano gospels needs to shift away from Charles. ADA holders should not need to sift through Twitter, YouTube, Telegram and reddit just to find the information they need.
 
The postponement of SPO block-making is a little disappointing, since KOPI’s system has been purring along smoothly and raring to go. But we stand by our principle of fairness and community, and re-iterate that the well-being of the Cardano eco-system remains top priority.

Rest of 2020 for Cardano

ERC-20 Converter and More

As we accelerate toward Shelley mainnet hardfork on 29 July, Charles has explained in a little bit more details on Cardano’s path ahead for 2020.

August is the month of clean up for the core engineering team after the hard work of Shelley mainnet launch. But other teams running parallel projects will still go full steam ahead.

August will be the month of Voltaire, with topics of balloting and dcfunds coming to the fore. The big question here will be “Who should get the money, and for what?”.

We can also expect developments on Ledger, Trezor and Yubikey (firmware, etc) to be announced.

Moving on, in September/October, Native Assets and related topics of security tokens and stable coins will be the focus. In addition, Charles has revealed that there will be a ERC-20 converter built by an external party on a fixed cost contract. This is exciting news because this converter will allow current ERC-20 tokens on the Ethereum platform to be redeployed easily onto the Cardano platform. The issue of high gas price might prove to be a push factor for ERC-20 tokens to migrate to Cardano.

Hydra (scalabililty) and Cross-chain communications (inter-operability) will be the focus for the remainder of 2020.

And this is merely the technical roadmap. Hopefully soon we will receive some updates on the commercial and regulatory fronts as well.

Tony and Jimmy Saga

Decentralization: BTC vs ADA

This is an important whiteboard video from Charles that illustrates the path to decentralization (or oops… federation) for both BTC and ADA.

To summarize a 40mins video into a few lines, three factors point in favor of ADA vs BTC:

  • Decentralization does not depend on patented technology (no need for ASICs)
  • Decentralization does not depend on power costs or geography (consume little power)
  • Decentralization does not depend on wealth (as long as you can afford some ADA)
It is crucial for Charles to provide a timely response to Tone and Jimmy’s accusation of Cardano printing free PoS money, for having no security, and for not being decentralized.
 
And to be expected, many Cardano (or PoS) fans are rallying and calling Tone and Jimmy stupid, or worse (or much worse).
 
However, I think that they merely act in a way that is (1) aligned with their BTC interests, and (2) out of fear of both their individual and their chosen tech’s (BTC) impending irrelevance.
 
Once you understand incentives vs outcomes, it all makes sense.
 
 
 

Internet of Blockchains

Of NiPoPow, cLitecoin and GaaS

This video by Charles is mind-boggling stuff.

I had to watch it twice to have any semblance of understanding, as my mind was swirling with endless possibilities during the streams.

As of July 2020, there is no dominant or large-scale practical cross-chain communications among blockchain projects. At least I admit I have not heard of any. And other than the proliferation of ERC-20 coins building atop the Ethereum platform, we have also not seen many popular instances of projects communicating with and riding on services provided by others.

Now we have a grand vision for the future.

Harnessing NiPoPows, blockchain projects can communicate with the Cardano platform if they opt to, and this opens up potentials that are currently unavailable. For example, Litecoin owners can leverage upon Cardano’s governance and voting system and use is for their own cause, and in doing so pay for the services using wrapped Litecoin (cLitecoin) on the ADA blockchain.

Hence we can build an Internet of Blockchains (IoB) to bring out the best in all projects. I do believe that blockchain projects can co-exist, just like fiat and cryptocurrencies can co-exist. This vision by Charles and Cardano simply brings this beautiful and vibrant coexistance into reality.

The possibilities are endless.