Babbitt Exclusive | Conflux Long Fan: Cross-chain is a subset of the oracle, the core is to let the real world data on the chain

On May 10th, on Conflux Media Open Day, Conflux founder and CEO Long Fan, CTO Wu Ming, and Technical Director Yang Guangqi appeared to introduce the recent progress of Conflux and answered questions from everyone.

When I interviewed Long Fan in February this year, he told me that Conflux's goal was to achieve the path that Ethereum did not go out of. In fact, it is based on the POW, and the security under high TPS is realized while ensuring decentralization. On April 4th, Conflux tested the online line. According to official data, the current TPS is stable at 700 or higher, which is significantly higher than other POW-based projects. For example, BTC (7TPS), ETH (15TPS), Grin (30TPS), BCH (100TPS).

On the media open day, I asked Long Fan, what can be done in Ethereum now, can Confux still do after the main online line? He said with great confidence: "Conflux can do everything that can be done in Ethereum, but the amount of trading in Ethereum can be processed in one hour."

Not only the throughput rate, Conflux also made a breakthrough in confirming the time. Conflux CTO Wu Ming said, “Bitcoin confirms that a transaction takes 10 minutes, Conflux only takes 30 seconds, and this will inevitably lead to Conflux's future practical application scenarios. More broad." He also told us that Conflux's main network will be online from Q3 this year to Q1 next year.

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The following is a live interview with Babbitt.

Babbitt: When you just said that the main online line, there will be some cooperation to be released simultaneously. What kind of application is it biased?

Long Fan: The current blockchain world is a “casino”. It is a game of drumming and flowering. Why is this happening? The reason is that the blockchain world and the real world are out of touch.

We want to use Conflux's higher throughput to connect the real world to the virtual world. For example, if I want to install mutual insurance for PM2.5 on the blockchain, is this a bit related to the real world?

But the question is, who tells you in the blockchain, what is the PM2.5 in Beijing that day? In fact, to solve this problem, the application can land on the blockchain. How to link the real world information, this is the key, is a key, when the real world information on the chain has a breakthrough, there will be more meaningful applications can go to the blockchain, this is our direction. Babbitt: Linking real-world data to the blockchain. Now the industry is through the way of prophecy. What is the difference between what you do and the predictor?

Wu Ming: There are still some problems with the predictive machine's mainstream solution. It is common practice to deploy a new distributed protocol around the main chain, execute it with some nodes, and then deliver it through the smart contract of the main chain. The distributed protocol is mainly used to collect real-world data. But I think there are some problems, such as distributed protocols made by small collections, which are not secure enough, so they will design very complex distributed protocols to punish the bad guys. The delay in real processing will be very long and there are many steps. We also want to do it through the oracle, but we will use some new methods to solve the existing problems.

Long Fan: The prophecy machine is a problem that has not been solved in the blockchain. It is just a noun. Wu Ming speaks more professionally, let me translate it. First, the person who provides the data is called a oracle. For example, we write a smart contract. Regarding the insurance of PM2.5, the distributed protocol runs on Conflux and will be executed by all the nodes of Conflux. No one can do evil. However, if the data is provided by one person, this matter is meaningless.

For example, if we look for the Beijing Meteorological Bureau to provide this data, it seems to be very reliable, but it means that it has become a trust in the centralization of a single point before going on the chain. If the weather station server is attacked, then we are on the blockchain. Everything you do to decentralize your efforts is meaningless.

So usually we need a decentralized oracle, many people vote together to decide what PM2.5 is yesterday, remove the highest point, remove the lowest point, and take the average, which is the most basic idea. If you look at this issue from the perspective of game theory, and under what circumstances you can guarantee that you are getting real data, we must analyze this and build the model. We need to know what the penalties are for these people to collude together. For example, if you buy an insurance, the insurance payment will eventually be only 1,000 yuan, and the penalty is far higher than this. You can believe that he will not take this risk to lie.

Now there is a theory on the machine that is not perfect. Everyone just talks about it, and it is not systematically connected with the public chain. There are not many cases. And other public chains don't have the carrying capacity of data, and Conflux has it, so we are thinking about how to design a good predictor based on Conflux. Babbitt: Conflux had previously said that he wanted to do a better Ethereum. So what can Ethereum do now, can Conflux's main online line be able to do it? What can ETC do now, what can Conflux do?

Long Fan: Conflux is all that can be done on Ethereum, and our smart contracts are compatible with Ethereum. Internal experiments have taken all the historical transactions in the first year of Ethereum. The first three or four million transactions in the first year are processed by four or five hundred nodes on the Conflux network, which can reach 2000-4000 TPS, that is, The amount of trading in Ethereum in one year can be processed in one hour.

So, what can Ethereum not do and we can do? When the throughput is increased by 2 orders of magnitude, the transaction cost of using this chain will decrease. For example, when submitting a transaction on Ethereum, the handling fee may be 10 RMB when congestion occurs, and 3 or 4 RMB when not blocked.

So imagine what would happen if there was a taxi application on the blockchain? People have mobile phones, press a button to transfer the location to the blockchain, I want a car. The driver over there will have to transfer its position every time, and then the system will send a order according to his position. You pass a position of 5 dollars, the driver then pass a position of 5 dollars. In the city of Beijing, the average taxi is also thirty or forty. Using the blockchain to take a taxi on the Ethereum, even if it is made, in the most ideal case, the cost per order is about 15 yuan, and you can't pass it frequently. Location, can only be transmitted once, how does this land?

Conflux goes online, and because throughput can be increased by two orders of magnitude, the transaction cost per unit can be reduced by two orders of magnitude in the same usage scenario. So what can Ethereum not do and we can do? That is, real-world information comes to the blockchain in an orderly way, using our throughput advantages to achieve new applications. Babbitt: But we noticed that there are a lot of DeFi projects around Ethereum, but there is no good cross-chain solution. These smart contracts can only interact on Ethereum. Do you have a solution? ?

Long Fan: The cross-chain thing is actually a subset of the prophecy machine. What the prophecy machine does is bring all the real world information to the chain, and the cross chain is to bring the information on one chain to the other chain, which is directly related to the prophecy machine. We are advancing and we can definitely do this.

Babbitt: The scope of the blockchain concept is too large, and the problems that people often discuss are not at one level. The Internet we all know that it has seven layers, and each layer is specifically doing what. But for the structure of the blockchain, it seems that everyone is still vague, I don't know if you think about it?

Long Fan: We have never officially discussed it. I think the underlying public chain like Conflux is actually the lowest level of agreement, which solves the problem of achieving consensus more efficiently. On top of this, there may be some grafts for security trade-offs, such as layer2, which is now discussed more. There will be an application connection layer up.

Suppose Conflux is an operating system. There may be some accelerators on the operating system, like layer1 and layer2. There may be some drivers that are not related to the operating system but important, such as the oracle, which is not part of the public chain, but many Applications need such a function, and then up to some applications that you can think of, the real application scenario implementation layer.

Wu Ming: The seven layers of the Internet you just mentioned are the protocols for the network system. But in fact, when we discuss the layer, it also has a level. For example, when we talk about applications, the application software takes up several layers. These layers have nothing to do with the seven layers you said. Blockchain systems also have different hierarchical relationships. For example, the node needs to communicate, there is a P2P network layer, and there is a consensus layer and a storage layer. If we discuss some specific technologies, we can still say things about a certain layer.

Long Fan: Let me add that in addition to the acceleration of performance, there is also a need to provide anonymity, which can also be a layer on the public chain. For example, we all have data, but my data only wants you to verify and I don't want you to know. You can do another thing to do this because it is too inefficient to do this in the public chain, and the existing technology is difficult to reach us. The effect you want.

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