Understanding IRISnet Chain Governance: The "Self-Evolution" of Cross-Chain Service Networks

On July 2nd, IRIS Hub initiated the first proposal for a modification of the parameters on the chain – a proposal to appropriately increase the difficulty of the certifier's operational node, and then opened the vote after meeting the mortgage condition of 2000 IRIS within the one-day mortgage phase, followed by a period of time After the 5-day voting period, the first governance proposal was successfully passed with the result of 69 votes in favor and 2 votes against.

This proposal is the first chain management proposal proposed by the IRISnet development team, which adds difficulty to the Slashing penalty parameters associated with the verifier node, mainly to raise the threshold for better certifiers to receive rewards, and to enable the certifier community. Familiar with and participate in the chain governance process to make the IRISnet network more secure and trustworthy. The IRISnet development team expressed their emphasis on governance in several interviews, and highlighted the series of chain governance systems that they launched. This article uses the "self-evolving" IRISnet as an example to talk about blockchain governance. Written by: Xiao Mao Ge

Foreword: What are we talking about when we talk about governance?

The core meaning of governance: a virtuous cycle of long-term development and economic incentives

How to make efficient and fair decisions that are conducive to long-term development on the basis of decentralized ecology has always been a problem that various blockchain projects have to face, and it is also the driving force for the vigorous development of communities. With the development of the blockchain industry, the decision-making process of decentralized organizations has gradually introduced and valued the concept of governance.

The governance of blockchain projects is complex and unpredictable, especially considering the development of this emerging industry for less than a decade. For projects and ecology, governance is primarily about long-term development and future vision. For the holders of money, governance also gives them the right to participate in democratic decision-making by means of currency pledge. Therefore, it is logical for IRISnet to call its governance framework “dynamic rights of democratic rights”. Obviously, the effective participation of stakeholders will in turn promote the development of the project and the consistency of community consensus, thus enhancing the security and economic value of the network. A good project can only achieve a virtuous circle through good governance.

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Economic incentives are an indispensable reality dimension for project stakeholders. Therefore, the ultimate goal of blockchain project governance is to “improve the long-term value of project certification”.

The Holy Grail of "Governance on the Chain"

High-quality blockchain projects are bound to work hard in governance, but not all quality projects have efficient, fair, and advancing governance models. On the other hand, many of the blockchain projects that are now well known are also distinguished by the outstanding governance model or the exploration and innovation of governance methods.

In response to the ambiguous under-chain governance process and the controversial cross-cutting governance model of Bitcoin, Ethereum and other projects, many new projects have begun to explore the “chain governance”, and Decred is the initiator. "On-line governance" is to put the governance process clearly and clearly on the blockchain by placing the governance process on the blockchain, such as through chain trading or pledge voting, to achieve a decentralized A fair, efficient, and anti-censorship governance model. Who can win the holy grail of this field is still a group.

What IRISnet deserves special attention is that the cross-chain project has shown a very complete design and implementation, supports complex and flexible governance, and has already implemented advanced parameter governance functions in the certifier community. In the future, these functions will be integrated into In the Cosmos SDK.

How does “cross-chain ecological governance” “evolve”?

It is worth noting that as Decred pioneered and implemented partial chain governance, more blockchain projects explored comprehensive chain governance processes with more rigorous standards, such as the now hot cross-chain project Cosmos to a certain extent. Achieving chain governance, the Cosmos cross-chain ecosystem not only supports the interconnection of information and assets through the “Hub” cross-link hub, but also gives the chain governance capability to each blockchain in the system through the Cosmos SDK.

This article focuses on the chain management system of IRISnet (IRIS Hub), one of the earliest two "Hub" cross-link hubs in the Cosmos cross-chain system. Like the Cosmos project, IRISnet is a "Hub" built on the Cosmos SDK, a cross-chain hub in the Cosmos system. The two hubs work together to support a broad cross-chain ecosystem.

IRISnet not only has the same features as the Cosmos Hub, but also has many unique features. For example, in terms of governance, the advanced governance capabilities in the Cosmos SDK were developed by the IRISnet team and first deployed on the IRIS Hub to support complex chain governance, which will be fed back into the Cosmos cross-chain system through a modular interface.

Let's talk about IRISnet's governance system in detail.

IRISnet economic model: four modules of consensus, governance, and application

IRISnet is a secure, efficient and flexible decentralized infrastructure chain that focuses on cross-chain services. It not only supports asset cross-chain, but also innovatively supports complex data calculations, and can be called across and across heterogeneous systems.

Before we understand the governance system, we can understand the economic model of IRISnet from the above figure. The IRISnet economic model can be divided into four core modules: consensus, governance and application. The bottom-level consensus module uses Bonded PoS (BPoS), a pledged proof of equity and a proven Tendermint algorithm to maintain network security through the staking mechanism.

The application layer currently includes the IRISnet-based Defi Open Financial Application Support Module and the iService Service Application Module. The Defi Open Financial Module plans to release multi-asset management capabilities with the ability to support the release of various stable currencies, asset tokenization and decentralized transactions on the IRIS Hub. At the same time, IRISnet provides a service-oriented development module iService for complex distributed business applications, which can support the interoperability of public chains, alliance chains, and even traditional systems.

Governance, as one of the core modules that the IRISnet development team attaches great importance to, plays a complementary role for the consensus module and the application module. IRISnet's governance module supports more sophisticated online governance and network upgrades, and also enables communities to provide better ideas and initiate chain governance.

Taking the application layer as an example, IRISnet chain management can support non-forked smooth upgrades to achieve the goal of “self-evolution”. For example, the next version of IRISnet V.0.15 plans to release multi-asset management functions, which can be managed by chain management software. Smooth upgrade support, smooth upgrade refers to when the network loads the update module, it does not stop the service for the community. If the community vote does not meet the predetermined criteria during the upgrade process, the network will keep the existing version from being upgraded; if the community vote is successfully upgraded, the network will seamlessly switch to the latest version.

Interpretation: How to understand IRISnet's "self-evolution" chain governance framework?

The people involved in the chain governance enjoy the "dynamic rights of democratic rights"

As mentioned above, one of the important aspects of governance is to give community participants the right to participate in democratic decision-making through the way of holding money pledges. This right is called “dynamic liquidity of democratic rights” in the IRISnet governance framework. In IRISnet's BPoS network, from the modification of parameters to the upgrade of the network, the holders of the certificate can participate in the voting on the chain through the mortgage pledge function, and obtain a democratic right of mobility. Because IRISnet is a consensus based on BPoS, the roles involved in governance are mainly staking stakeholders, including certifiers, principals, and ordinary holders.

Five types of proposals for governance on the chain

The IRISnet main network offers five types of proposals including text proposals.

Text type is a type of proposal that is simple but not negligible, and can inform the community and record the results in the form of the above chain.

In addition to text proposals, IRISnet currently supports four types of chain governance: parameter modification proposals, software upgrade proposals, network termination proposals, and Tax revenue allocation proposals. It is also proposed to prioritize and establish three levels: important, very important, and general proposals.

Among them, the proposed level of software upgrade proposal and network termination proposal is “very important” and is initiated by the development team.

The network termination proposal is to prevent urgent proposals that need to solve the potential major problems of the network. Once sufficient voting is obtained to trigger the network termination proposal, the network can be suspended at a certain height to solve the problem. Tax income distribution proposal is a general governance proposal. In the IRISnet ecosystem, the agreement layer will put a certain proportion of the transaction fee and the block reward (currently 2%) into the foundation as a public resource for taxation. The proposal is to discuss how to Use these resources.

Mechanism design of chain governance: rewards and punishments

Good chain governance requires a straightforward governance process and a well-designed governance mechanism. The IRISnet chain governance process consists of three phases: the proposed mortgage phase, the voting phase, the statistical phase, and two mechanisms are established: destruction mechanism, punishment mechanism.

Chain governance begins with the proposed mortgage phase. Any address holding a token can initiate a governance proposal for parameter governance or software upgrades, but it needs to provide a certain amount of pass (according to the chain rules) within a specified time (system parameters). mortgage. If the sponsor's mortgage does not meet the minimum effective value of the chain rule limit, other addresses in the network can pay the deposit to increase the mortgage, as long as the accumulated mortgage pass reaches the system specified number to enter the voting stage. After the voting phase, the statistical phase will eventually count the results of the proposal's adoption or not on the chain.

1. Proposal destruction mechanism – anti-spam proposal

If the proposal is passed or not passed, 20% of the proposed deposit will be destroyed. As the cost of the treatment, the remaining quality deposit will be returned in proportion to the original route. If more than one-third of the voters voted for a veto (strongly opposed) proposal, all the quality deposits would be destroyed. The destruction mechanism was designed to prevent some deliberate garbage proposals from occupying public and network resources.

2. The penalty mechanism of the proposal – encourages the verifier to participate in governance with a professional attitude

If an offer initiated by an account enters the voting stage, the proponent is a verifier but is still not voting in the statistical stage, it will be punished according to a certain proportion. This mechanism is to encourage the verifier to participate in governance and maintain network security in a professional manner. .

Proposal for parameter modification: data most relevant to the holder

As a BPoS consensus project based on the staking mechanism, certain parameters of IRISnet are in fact related to the interests of IRISnet holders or clients. Therefore, IRISnet's holders or principals need to understand that these parameters can also be discussed and modified through participation in chain governance.

Currently these modifiable parameters, including most of the staking parameters, parameters of the slashing penalty mechanism, transaction costs and other basic parameters. For example, the 21-day pledge unbinding time that many community members are discussing is too long. 21 days is the staking parameter in chain governance. The holder of each IRIS pass can participate in the chain modification of parameter modification. If the community is not satisfied with some modifiable parameters, for example, if you feel that the 21-day pledge unbinding time is too long, you can modify the parameters by initiating parameters. Proposal to discuss the changes.

However, it is worth noting that the current version of the governance needs to be voted through the command line, which is not particularly friendly to the average holder. According to IRISnet officials, the official Rainbow wallet is undergoing client-side optimization to keep up with the governance base and plan to develop a function that allows each pass holder to vote through pledge. The tentative rule is that if the holder does not vote, the pledge node will express opinions on behalf of the holder; if the holder votes, the willingness to vote will take the holder's personal opinion as a priority.

Specific information on IRISnet governance parameters can be found in the IRISplorer Block Browser: https://www.irisplorer.io/#/gov/parameters

Software upgrade proposal: respond to various possibilities in the upgrade

IRISnet's Upgrade software module is an infrastructure that supports smooth upgrade of blockchain software. By initiating and passing software upgrade proposals, you can switch to the new version of the code at the agreed height and fully compatible with the historical version of the chain data.

Like all blockchain networks, the development of the IRISnet network is a rapid iterative, step-by-step process of continuous improvement. The development team repairs network problems through iterations, adds new business functions, and constantly gives IRISnet a new vitality. At the same time, the iterative process of the network is also an important part of community governance. The whole process involves a series of community collaborative work such as community upgrade proposal, voting, verification node upgrade, and new version activation.

Software upgrades for nodes are risky if they are not supported by good protocols. Last year's controversy and fork on Bitcoin expansion made people see the difficulties in upgrading blockchain network software. These difficulties are mainly due to the decentralized genes in the blockchain. The community behind the blockchain is a decentralized loose union of multiple roles. Once the interests and opinions of different roles are divergent, it is likely that hard forks or upgrade failures will occur. Development has an unpredictable impact.

Therefore, a good blockchain project must be able to cope with the various possibilities in the software upgrade process.

For different situations, IRISnet's software upgrade supports the following 4 different forms of upgrades:

Optional upgrade: This type of upgrade is an improvement and optimization of the state machine. The certifier node can decide whether to upgrade according to the actual situation. The proportion of upgrades will not affect the consensus. The upgraded nodes and clients can enjoy the optimized new version. Of course, they can participate in the consensus and correctly obtain the information on the chain without upgrading. Some nodes choose to upgrade, and some nodes may not upgrade.

Smooth upgrade: This type of upgrade requires nodes to complete software upgrades online without interrupting network services. The upgrade height will be specified in the corresponding software upgrade proposal. The PoS Consensus Engine (Tendermint) will continuously collect version information from the block header before this height. If the voting rights of the node that has been upgraded to the new version exceed the target in the proposal, the upgrade proposal is successfully executed and the new function is activated. Otherwise, the network continues to follow the old version. This upgrade is similar to the Bitcoin MASF upgrade. If the scale of the upgraded node reaches a certain threshold, it is enabled; otherwise, it continues to run according to the old version.

Patch upgrade: When a node encounters a recoverable consensus failure, the certifier can restore the participating network consensus by installing a new version of the software. Consensus has failed, and in an emergency, it can be coordinated directly under the chain.

Restart upgrade: When the blockchain system encounters an unrecoverable consensus failure. The node tool is provided to generate a snapshot of the state of the current network and then restore it as the initial state of the new blockchain. The most serious situation, unrecoverable, uses tools for initial state recovery.

Conclusion: IRISnet's chain governance goals focus on "self-evolution"

In the blockchain field, the power of governance is broad and powerful, but it is often overlooked. We are pleased to see that as a leader in the cross-chain ecosystem and a core development team's quality projects in China, IRISnet attaches great importance to chain governance and explores how to achieve more efficient and fairer in decentralized networks. Governance model. We hope that this governance concept can also be returned to the Chinese community, so that more individual investors can pay attention to blockchain governance.

No matter whether it is centralized or decentralized organization, there is no perfect governance model. Good governance must be explored with the times and with the times. IRISnet supports "self-evolution" chain governance, which means that rights are given to communities and holders, and they are constantly improving themselves to make decisions that are conducive to long-term development. At the same time, IRISnet holders need to pay close attention to chain governance, and remember that participation in project governance is a basic right of the holder and one of the best ways to participate in maintaining the ecology of network security and rewarding projects.

The IRISnet main network IRIS Hub will be upgraded to v0.15.0. After the upgrade, many new functions such as multi-asset management, random number generator, multi-sign account, key file backup/restore, Tendermint upgrade, etc. will be introduced to better support. DeFi application. Before the upgrade, IRISnet launched a new round of vulnerability bounty plan: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ybf5pt49dtVqRVYlVPuTNg

Reference document

IRISnet voting governance process: https://www.irisplorer.io/#/gov/proposals IRISnet governance parameter information: https://www.irisplorer.io/#/gov/parameters said that the way to manage encryption protocols: good Use the power of evolution to achieve network effects: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/BETexSDvmsEDtWqzA5ceLA IRISnet: A self-evolving BPoS cross-chain service hub: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/gV8Zqqoz5 -oRX9gZreBFNw Whale Exchange | IRISnet Self-Evolution: Chain Governance and Non-Forked Network Upgrade: https://www.chainnews.com/articles/707535551734.htm

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