IRISnet gallops: we have to cross not just the blockchain

A public chain can not solve all distributed collaboration problems has become the consensus of more and more people, and with the main online line of Cosmos and IRISnet, the cross-chain horn is officially blown. Since the launch on March 1, IRISnet has not stopped in the footsteps. On the chain, self-evolution, clear-cutting programs, multi-asset management, and iService cross-chain services, IRISnet is on the road to building a distributed business infrastructure. Babbitt interviewed IRISnet co-founder Yan Haifeng to take you through the acceleration of IRISnet.

Cross-chain double stars, IRISnet is different from Cosmos

Cosmos and IRISnet often appear in a series of cross-chain news, and many people will be confused. What is the relationship between the two?

Yan Haifeng explained that the name Cosmos actually has four levels of meaning: first, it is an open source cross-chain project supported by the Interchain Foundation; secondly, the Cosmos SDK is a development tool based on the Go language that can achieve “one-click chain”. Package ; the third layer of meaning Cosmos Hub is currently running a BPoS public chain , with a native token ATOM; finally is the Cosmos Network, which is a cross-chain network including all Hub and Zone. IRISnet's main network, IRIS Hub, is a public chain based on the Tendermint consensus engine developed using the Cosmos SDK and one of the first two Hubs in the Cosmos Network.

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The same Hub in the network, the saying that “one mountain can't be two tigers” does not apply to IRIS Hub and Cosmos Hub. The two are more collaborative, not competitive, and work together to build a Cosmos cross-chain ecosystem. Yan Haifeng said that the setting of multiple Hubs can be understood as a strategy for network expansion, not competition .

“Compared to Cosmos Hub's main focus on Token's cross-chain transfer, IRIS Hub is more focused on commercial issues and strives to become a distributed business infrastructure .”

Zero inflation BPoS, self-evolving BPoS

Like the Cosmos Hub, the IRIS Hub is also based on the Tendermint consensus BPoS (Bonded-PoS) chain. Compared with the inflation model of Cosmos Hub and the previous PoS blockchain, the current IRIS Hub has embarked on a “ zero inflation ” path.

The total initial IRIS certificate is 2 billion, and the creation consensus set an annual inflation rate of 4%. On June 5th, the IRIS Foundation announced the opening of a one-year certificate-breaking plan. The Foundation will regularly destroy IRIS certificates equivalent to the same period of inflation during the first year after the IRIS Hub goes live to achieve the total IRIS certificate. After each destruction, it will remain at the initial level of 2 billion, that is , the actual inflation rate for the first year will be zero . The first destruction was also completed on June 28.

Since the destroyed IRIS certificate comes from the Ecological Development Fund (initial total 30%), the verifier and the principal are equivalent to obtaining the staking income from the foundation, and can enjoy the benefits under the original inflation ratio under the actual zero inflation. “ We will continue to destroy in the first year, and may even continue into the second and third years to promote the healthy and sustainable development of IRISnet .”

Facing the future, Yan Haifeng further envisioned:

“With the increasing number of applications and participants in the network, verifiers rely more on transaction fees to generate revenue. If the network inflation parameter is changed to zero, then it is the same deflation model as Bitcoin.”

If the zero-deflation BPoS makes us shine, then the self-evolving BPoS allows us to see the future of governance on the PoS chain.

The self-evolving blockchain is a platform that won't hard fork, and the platform will be upgraded based on user suggestions and votes. On July 2, 2019, the first on-chain parameter governance proposal was launched on the IRIS Hub of IRISnet's main network, and was officially voted on July 7. This proposal modifies the three parameters related to the Downtime behavior. The modified parameter values ​​are valid on the chain immediately after the proposal is passed, and the self-evolutionary era of the BPoS blockchain is successfully opened .

Yan Haifeng introduced:

"At present, IRIS Hub has more than 20 parameters for modification. The user can initiate the proposal and modify it after the proposal. Under the promotion of the community consensus, the self-evolution of the network is realized through the modification of the core parameters."

So, does the way in which the results of this vote take effect immediately will bring more risks to the blockchain? Yan Haifeng said that the IRIS Hub main network line has been iterated by 8 versions of the FUXI test network to ensure that the core functions themselves have no bugs. At the same time, before the parameters were modified, the proposals were fully discussed in the community forum, and it was basically possible to reach a consensus before voting. Moreover, all parameters have a range of valid values . Even if the vote is passed, the modified parameters are checked for validity before they become effective.

“Actually, we did it on the Nyancat test site before the main network vote, to ensure that nothing is lost.”

DeFi cross-chain, IRIS Hub creates a distributed business infrastructure

Positioned as a distributed business infrastructure, IRISnet has been actively exploring commercial development. The current point of development is multi-asset management . This year's open fire (DeFi) is also an area that IRISnet is actively deploying.

Yan Haifeng believes that DeFi is still a self-entertainment in the small circle, and the user experience is not good for those who do not understand the private key and the mnemonic. In response to this problem, IRISnet chose to work with Axonomy, an investment community dedicated to lowering the DeFi threshold. As the underlying public chain, the main network IRIS Hub will support the certification of Axonomy products, provide random number, Uniswap and other functions support for Axonomy chain services, and provide stable, secure, high performance and sustainable upgrade blockchain foundation for DeFi applications. facility. In the future, users can freely use Axonomy's DeFi products (such as wealth management and lending) on ​​IRIS Hub. At the same time, with the launch of IRIS Hub's own decentralized exchange, users can freely trade on the chain.

At the same time, IRISnet will also cooperate with GDEX, a well-known gateway and exchange project on the BitShares Network, to introduce bitCNY stable currency on the BitShares Network to the IRIS Hub through the GDEX Gateway. After the implementation of the cross-chain communication protocol IBC, bitCNY will enter the entire CosmosNetwork via the IRIS Hub, becoming a stable currency for anchoring the RMB that can be used throughout the network . Yan Haifeng said:

"The reason why bitCNY was introduced is also to expand the use of the RMB anchor in the blockchain world."

Of course, with the GDEX gateway, IRIS Hub will also introduce a variety of main circulation certificates for DeFi applications, including BTC, ETH and USDT . With the maturity and development of IBC, the main circulation certificate can realize free cross-chain transfer, and the GDEX gateway will gradually evolve into an IBC relay network in the Cosmos Network.

Obviously, IBC is crucial to IRISnet's multi-asset management vision, which is the biggest advantage of IRISnet compared to Ethereum. Since IBC is primarily connected to Cosmos Hub and IRIS Hub, the IRISnet team is also deeply involved in the development of IBC. Yan Haifeng revealed that the cross-chain specification has come to an end and has completed the basic implementation of this agreement. It is expected to release the V1 version before the Cosmos hackathon in November this year . But more complex, advanced features will have to wait for subsequent versions. "Like the Internet's protocol standards, IBC will continue to evolve and iterate."

For multi-asset management, IRISnet's exploration and expansion does not stop there. Yan Haifeng said that the team is currently facing a choice in one direction. First, develop more modules on top of the Cosmos SDK, such as modules for some common financial products (borrowing, etc.). Second, the introduction of virtual machines and smart contracts to support more complex applications beyond the current cross-chain transfer.

"In the next version, we need to make a choice of two."

iService cross-chain, IRISnet has to span not just the blockchain

In fact, IRISnet's core development team's boundary intelligence focuses not only on blockchain, but also on in-depth research on artificial intelligence and big data.

Yan Haifeng believes that the blockchain is by no means a panacea, not all things are suitable. "The main role of the blockchain is to solve the problem of lack of trust in a lack of trust. It is most suitable as a trust machine." In the face of actual business application requirements, IRISnet provides a service-oriented architecture. The external calculation is introduced into the chain, providing calls to other complex calculations such as Oracle (Prophecy Machine) to implement alternative "cross-chain".

The cross-chain service iService provided by IRISnet is a very flexible development interface and does not rely on IBC. When the IBC is not developed, the Service Provider can call the smart contract on the public chain or the alliance chain, or even the service in the traditional information system, and package it into a service binding on the IRIS Hub for ordinary users to use . The trusted interaction between the chain and the chain is verified by the IRIS Hub, but the specific service business logic is running in the chain or centralized system of the Service Provider connection, and does not bring too much computing burden to the IRIS Hub.

With IBC and cross-chain services, applications can be developed more efficiently. At present, IRISnet and Fosun are collaborating on the medical data under the guarantee of privacy, which is somewhat similar to the alliance chain. The service provider for privacy computing on PlatON on IRISnet is posted on the main network IRIS Hub. If there is data for proxy re-encryption, the privacy calculation provided by PlatON can be enjoyed by IRIS Hub on BEAN.

Yan Haifeng said that on the one hand, the team has the ability of artificial intelligence and big data. On the other hand, the team also has a blockchain platform like IRISnet. "In the future, more service providers will be introduced to AI and big data, and they will join the IRIS network through the iService service."

It is worth mentioning that in the new version of IRIS Hub August, a new random number generator will be introduced. In the past, random number generators often relied on data on the chain to generate random numbers, and the security level may not be high. The new random number generator introduced by IRIS Hub will use the Oracle implemented by iService to introduce random factors outside the chain to enhance the security of random numbers.

In the face of the future, Yan Haifeng is also actively thinking about the way forward for IRIS Hub. Is it to add more functional modules to upgrade to the IRIS network? Still introducing Turing's complete virtual machine and smart contract? What is the user wanting, what does the team develop? Or do you give the development autonomy of many functions to the project side on the network?

IRISnet is galloping, and the entire blockchain industry is also developing at a rapid pace. When it comes to the application of blockchain, Yan Haifeng believes that:

“If the blockchain really wants to get a large-scale application to penetrate into every aspect of life, everyone should pay more attention to how to lower the threshold for users to use, so that the aunt and aunt can also use it easily.”

Technological innovation is steadily advancing, and the practical concept is pragmatic. As iService and DeFi scenarios become more and more abundant, the future of IRISnet as a distributed commercial infrastructure is worth our expectation.

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