You've probably heard about Midnight and Mina multiple times
But what are they? How do they give privacy? How can they connect to other chains? Why are they exciting?
I cover it all in my latest video ↓
@rickmccracken@circle At its peak last cycle, Cardano (ADA) reached about 10.5% of $BTC.X total market cap, giving it a top price of $3.10.
If ADA were to reach 10.5% of Bitcoin’s market cap again, and Bitcoin’s price was $100,000, ADA’s price would be approximately $6.30 in its current state.
@ItsDave_ADA All surviving blockchains developing garbage collection seems like a given to us. Immutability of data is certainly a major part of what launched Bitcoin, but without GC, infinite append-only ledger growth centralizes the nodes that can fully participate. #Ergo storage rent works
@KrykaHodler@IOHK_Charles@thotman__@wolf31o2 Thoroughly documented: https://t.co/1N6VysxEgW
It’s the Voltaire team that continues to falsely claim CIP-1694 implements democratic decentralized governance. The purpose of CIP-1694 is to legitimize centralized control.
Still digging a bit into it, but here are my first findings on the Cardano partner chain toolkit for SPOs.
The info below is based on the contents of the available repository.
It consists of three main elements, which, depending on what role you fulfill, you will need to run 👇
1. Chain Builder
The chain builder is only needed for those that actually intend to create a partner chain. Validators (SPOs) will not need this part of the toolkit. You also do not need to be an SPO to run and operate the chain builder. It will provide the certificates that allow validators to join the network. You will need to run several key pieces of Cardano infrastructure to operate a chain-builder, as the Cardano network is a required component.
2. Permissioned Validator
A permissioned validator is essentially a validator that is whitelisted by the chain builder. This allows for initial bootstrapping with trusted parties, or completely permissioned blockchains. You do not need to be an SPO to run this validator, but you will need to run several key pieces of Cardano infrastructure, as the Cardano network is a required component.
3. Registered Validator
This seems to be the most closely related to Cardano SPOs, as it is simply a validator that is official registered with the blockchain. Being an SPO on Cardano is a must, as registering on the partner chain involves among other things your Cardano cold key. You will also need to run various other key pieces of Cardano infrastructure, in addition to your pool block producer and relays.
My understanding and opinion
The partner chain framework allows you to run partner chains without ANY SPO involvement. However, if you do so, you will still need to leverage the Cardano network itself. You cannot use the framework without it.
If not leveraging SPOs, you will only be able to run permissioned networks (i.e. where the validators are defined by the "owner" of the chain). SPOs can still benefit here, because they are well situated to provide this type of infrastructure. The fact that without a running Cardano network, the partner chain is not usable with this specific framework, clearly shows that for the partner chain to thrive, Cardano must survive.
When building a permissionless partner chain, leveraging Cardano SPOs and their dedicated SPO infrastructure is a must. This means that having stakepools thriving is in the best interest of the partner chains. If the incentive for the SPO to run the Cardano stakepool primarily comes from the partner chain, the desire to support Cardano, or both, is something we will discover and will likely differ from operator to operator.
I have yet to understand how stake on the main chain plays into this (if at all), considering that partner chains can run any consensus algorithm they want.
I also see that Cardano DB sync is a requirement. This is a big thing in my opinion, because even though it has gotten easier and less resource intensive over time, DB sync is NOT an infrastructure that SPOs have to touch at all normally. I personally run a load-balanced cluster of two DB sync nodes so for me this is readily available, but they are definitely much more hardware-hungry than your average block producer and relay. The fact that you will not be able to participate in consensus of the partner chain if your DB sync is not up-to-date with the chain tip, can be a challenge if you don't know how to build that infrastructure out properly.
The latter part is a challenge, because there is a limited overlap between SPOs and DB sync operators I believe. I do not know how Maestro, Blockfrost, Koios and others do their chain synchronization, but most commonly such service providers have experience in building DB sync infrastructure. They are often times NOT SPOs at the same time.
Overall, I think the fact that Cardano is a must-have for various reasons to run any partner chain, is very positive. The question for me is now, will the use cases and benefits of running a partner chain with this framework be big enough for chain builders to trust the framework and dependency on Cardano?
If you don't believe in the resilience of Cardano, you must have lived in a barn for the last years.
I personally am excited to see how it pans out. There are definitely some open questions for me, but I for one am in a good place to support partner chains as a Stakepool operator.
Thanks for reading!
🤙
@ItsDave_ADA@IntersectMBO@IOHK_Charles I get the idea behind having dRep and the CC manage most of the governance functions. My only worry is that if we don't get a healthy stake distribution for dReps, the treasury is the easiest target with the lowest MAV.
🔥 The largest upgrade in Cardano's history is on its way!
Track the progress of the Chang Hard Fork and see the potential release timeline here:
https://t.co/OC2hn5U0CE
A big thanks to the team at @Cardano_CF for providing the tracking data.
#Cardano $ADA
Dear #Cardano SPOs,
Soon, you will be able to calculate your leaderlogs 2 days in the future instead of 1.5 days. I'm making this change to make sure Ouroboros Genesis goes well. I will happily welcome you into the Conway Era.
Sincerely,
The Chang Hardfork
cc: @IOHK_Charles
Never mind that JB stood up on stage and said the same thing about #Bitcoin and #Ethereum and not one person gave a damn.
Justin Bons on X: "Ethereum is dying & "L2 scaling" is to blame:" / X
@Justin_Bons - On Ethereum..."It's going to be a slow death, just like BTC in my view, slowly losing its dominance over many years."