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Koinos Group

koinos

There’s a lot of exciting things going on in the lead up to the snapshot on October 31st (or later), far too much to cover in one post, but I’ll do my best. Performance of the test net remains excellent having now surpassed its 1.5 millionth block! That means the snapshot is on track and the main net will be launching soon after. In a previous update we had said that there would be at least a month between the snapshot and the main net launch, but we don’t see the need for such a long window. The reason for this high degree of confidence is that we have yet to find an issue with Harbinger V4 that would have prevented it from being released as main net! In other words, V4 could have been main net! That’s why we see no technical barriers to releasing main net very soon after the snapshot. Koinos Improvements While no consensus changes have been required, we’ve been hard at work improving Koinos to ensure that the main net is as stable and performant as possible. We focused a lot on improving the stability of the p2p microservice and made some minor upgrades to several system contracts, specifically the proof-of-burn, KOIN, resource, and VHP contracts. I say minor because the changes were fairly small, and due to the incredible upgradeability of Koinos, we were able to upgrade the contracts without a hard fork. On any other chain, these changes would have required a hard fork, but on Koinos most people probably didn’t even realize the changes were made :). Performance Testing With all of these improvements in place, rockstar community developer, Roamin, decided the time was right to throw as many transactions as possible at Koinos, and as you can see in the image below, the blockchain is performing quite well! If you’d like to test Koinos yourself, you can use . Roamin’s firehose tool As you can see from the image (taken from the amazing block explorer koinosblocks.com by Engrave), Koinos is capable of consistently processing over 450 transactions in a block which, with 3 second block times, puts it right up there with ! But remember, Koinos is not optimized for performance … the real performance of any high performance blockchain Koinos is optimized for upgradeability! While Koinos is already clearly deserving of the “high performance” title, what really sets it apart from other blockchains is its ability to evolve; its ability to improve at a far more rapid rate than any other blockchain in existence. While Koinos might be pretty great already, it will only get better over time! Testing Governance That ability to evolve is dependent on a decentralized governance system functioning, which is why it was so important that we run a governance test. Blockchain Architect, Nathaniel Caldwell, created a simple contract with an implementation that would then be overridden with a new implementation if it acquired sufficient votes through governance. Our amazing community of volunteer block producers cast enough votes for the upgrade to pass, and the upgrade was ultimately applied! While the upgrade was ultimately meaningless, what mattered was that the governance system performed successfully, and exactly as expected! Koinos Name Service The beauty of Koinos is that we can defer development of a lot of great features until after main net because the protocol is so insanely upgradeable. One of those features we were planning to do post-main net launch was a naming service (think ENS but on Koinos). However, community developer, Luke Willis (developer of Burn Koin), recently highlighted why this is such an important feature for both dApp developers and blockchain developers in the Koinos discord server. In short, on Koinos everything is a smart contract and smart contracts “live” inside addresses which are long strings of letters and numbers, i.e. they’re not “human-readable.” Even the “operating system” is made up of smart contract modules that communicate with one another via their addresses to deliver the behaviors we want to see. For example, the proof-of-burn contract, VHP contract, and KOIN contract all work together to incentivize the behaviors needed to form a decentralized network. Not only do these contracts call one another, but many dApps (user smart contracts) call them as well, like the burnkoin.com dApp by Luke and Kui. The Problem With Evolution Koinos is designed for the system to evolve, meaning that the system contracts are meant to be upgraded which can result in their addresses changing. Since contracts are connected by their addresses, any time one address changes, then every contract connected to it needs to be upgraded with the new address. Our solution is a simple “name service system contract” which maps names (like “KOIN”) to addresses. For example, this would allow other contracts to reference “KOIN,” instead of an address that would change after an upgrade. Now, an upgrade of the KOIN contract would just include an update to the name service contract and that’s it. The address “behind” the KOIN name would change, but since every other contract is calling out to KOIN (and not the address) they will continue to perform as intended, whether it’s a system contract or a user contract (dApp). This change will make upgrading the Koinos system contracts far more simple, but more importantly it will make things a LOT easier for dApp developers … Which is why the name service will go live with main net! This name service contract won’t be an exact analogy to Ethereum’s Naming Service (ENS) because it is part of the “operating system” of Koinos, whereas ENS is a strictly user (i.e. developer) facing solution. However, this system would be a great foundation for a user contract name service. Unparalleled Composability This highlights the unparalleled composability of Koinos. The name service system contract is all about improving the operating system of Koinos. However, because the name service will be written as a smart contract, any developer looking to implement a more “ENS-style” service on Koinos can simply copy that contract (written by the very inventors of Koinos) and then add the little bit of code needed to deliver the additional functionality needed. Developer Activity The number of amazing dApps on Koinos continues to increase. Of particular note are; , , , , and Julian’s amazing token claiming app which can now be found at . Burn KOIN The Dice Koinos Blocks Koinos Node claim.koinos.io Burn KOIN is a hybrid between a mining pool and a staking pool (like how proof-of-burn is a hybrid between PoW and PoS). It allows people to earn a stable yield without having to produce blocks themselves. Instead, they burn their KOIN and contribute their VHP to the pool contract which produces blocks and distributes the rewards in a totally decentralized manner to the users of the pool. This makes Koinos even more accessible. https://koinos-burn-pool-ui.vercel.app/ The Dice game demonstrates how dApps can use the VRF (verifiable random function) built into Koinos to leverage randomness inside of applications. Injecting randomness into dApps is exceptionally difficult, but this dApp demonstrates how the Koinos VRF makes this much easier, and provides a template for future dApp developers who need randomness, for example, game developers. https://dice-app-roamin.vercel.app/ Finally, the main net token claiming dApp is something we would have had to develop ourselves which would have meant spending less time on improving Koinos. It’s work like this, the Kondor Wallet (also by Julian), the AssemblyScript SDK by Roamin, and more that has enabled us to accomplish so much with so few resources and is why a section has been added to koinos.io to give credit to the amazing community developers who were absolutely critical to getting us where we are today. There’s also a lot going on behind the scenes which we look forward to sharing with you in future updates, so be sure to follow the project on and . Medium Twitter

Koinos Snapshot (and Main Net) COMING!

The launch of v0.4.0 (V4) of the Koinos testnet (Harbinger) will take place on August 23rd at 1:00 PM EST! In our we announced that Koinos is now feature complete which means all of the features that will make it the most accessible blockchain in the world will be included in this release! last developer update by an order of magnitude We’re really excited about this launch which is why we’ll be live-streaming the process in so that people can watch the team in real-time as we launch what should be the final version of Koinos. Discord A Long Road Over two years ago we started building Koinos because we believed that blockchain technology could fundamentally improve the lives of every person on Earth by protecting their privacy, security, and freedom, but that in order for it to deliver on that promise it needed a vastly superior user experience than the existing fee-based blockchains offered. This version of the testnet will contain all of the features we have spent the last two and half years building and deliver on that original promise by bringing to market the world’s first truly free-to-use, truly decentralized, and truly general purpose blockchain (“L1”). evolving Feature Complete? Harbinger V4 will be the first, fully functional blockchain to use proof-of-burn as a consensus algorithm. It will be the first ever free-to-use blockchain thanks to the Mana system and Mana delegations. And it will be the first ever blockchain capable of evolution because it will have an on-chain decentralized governance system that can add new business logic to the blockchain as smart contracts through in-band upgrades (no “Eth 2.0” hard forks). Any one of these features would be a “killer feature” in any other blockchain, but Koinos combines them to create what we think is the ultimate general purpose blockchain. ever To learn more about how Koinos works, check out the new . unified whitepaper Join the Livestream These features probably sound too good to be true, so join us in on the 23rd at 1:00 PM EST to watch the livestream as we walk the Koinos community through the launch of this feature complete version of Koinos, how to participate in proof-of-burn consensus, and the token claiming process that they will use to convert their ERC20 KOIN into the real thing! Discord Be Free!

The Next Evolution of Koinos is COMING

We are proud to announce the release of the Koinos Unified Whitepaper! This whitepaper explains how proof-of-burn, Mana, and the infinitely upgradeable Koinos blockchain framework combine to create the most accessible L1 ever! / Read the whitepaper Download the pdf Our Story After leaving Steemit, our goal was to build a company that would empower developers to build dApps like Steem and , but on a truly decentralized and fee-less blockchain. However, when we analyzed the different blockchains available, we found that none had the properties we needed. The “fee-less” blockchains were not truly fee-less, requiring that users pay for RAM and/or accounts. They were also not truly decentralized as a result of their launch (ICOs) or their consensus algorithm, and often both. Hive Ultimately, we didn’t just want to support the kind of fee-less dApps that already existed, we wanted to take blockchain accessibility to the extreme by enabling, , which would require not only fee-less transactions, but . Delivering these capabilities required building an entirely new blockchain from the ground up. for the first time ever free-to-use dApps free accounts, free smart contract execution, and network resource delegation / Read the whitepaper Download the pdf Previous Whitepapers We started by releasing the whitepaper for the Koinos blockchain framework; the first blockchain capable of . The Koinos framework would serve as the evolving “backbone” at the heart of mainnet that would enable it to improve than any other blockchain out there. This same property enabled testnet to evolve, and as it did we released more whitepapers to describe how it was getting more advanced. Those whitepapers (framework, mana, proof-of-burn) addressed each component as if they were in a vacuum, but their entire purpose is to power the most accessible blockchain ever: . evolution at a more rapid rate Koinos mainnet doesn’t just unify all of those previous whitepapers, it describes how they all work together to create a general purpose blockchain that is more than just another Ethereum competitor; it’s the first genuine to Ethereum. While everyone else is trying to offer something just like Ethereum but with slightly lower fees or slightly faster, Koinos delivers something that’s more than fee-less; it’s . This whitepaper alternative free-to-use, efficient and truly decentralized / Read the whitepaper Download the pdf Community Contributors We want to acknowledge the outstanding contributions of community members who have helped to make Koinos already more decentralized than most probably realize. In addition to creating the Kondor web wallet, and providing valuable feedback throughout the development of Koinos, Julian Gonzalez also provided insightful feedback to the unified the whitepaper being released today. Support Julian on GitHub! After reading our original proof-of-burn whitepaper, Luke Willis suggested the idea of eliminating the NFT miners and instead using the fungible tokens to quantify how much virtual hash power a user had acquired through token burns; the design featured in this whitepaper. Subscribe to Luke’s fantastic podcast and sign up for his insightful newsletter! Of course, no community acknowledgement would be complete without mentioning Roamin who developed the AssemblyScript SDK which doesn’t just make free smart contract development accessible to JavaScript and TypeScript developers, it is now being used by Koinos Group to implement system contracts like the governance contract and proof-of-burn. Because these contracts are so heavily used by the blockchain, the much smaller size of the files generated by the AssemblyScript SDK dramatically increases the performance of the blockchain. Support Roamin on GitHub! Koinos has already evolved into something that far exceeds our original expectations. We hope this whitepaper captures why we are so excited to complete mainnet development and see Koinos come to life. We hope you enjoy reading it! / Read the whitepaper Download the pdf

Koinos Unified Whitepaper: The evolving blockchain with free-to-use dApps and proof-of-burn decentralization | by Andrew Levine | Koinos Group | Jul, 2022 | Medium

I’m Andrew Levine, CEO of , the creators of and in this update I’ll be focusing on important changes we are making to proof of burn! But first, a brief update on ). Koinos Group Koinos Harbinger (the Koinos testnet Harbinger Two weeks ago we released the 3rd version of the testnet which has been performing We have yet to uncover a single bug in the blockchain framework. This is all the more impressive since we have more participation in the testnet than ever before. There are more people running nodes and more people testing smart contracts, thanks in large part to the awesome (a community developer). One user even tried blasting the blockchain with as many transactions as they could (“firehosing”) which is a fantastic stress test. The network handled the load flawlessly and the initial performance results that could be gleaned from this test are very promising. flawlessly. AssemblyScript SDK created by Roamin Most importantly, the stability of the testnet has allowed us to focus almost entirely on planning the remaining work for mainnet, refining our designs, and beginning the work on the necessary system smart contracts. If you’d like to help test Koinos and begin playing fee-less smart contracts, you can be running a node and producing blocks in no time by going here . Enhanced Proof of Burn Even as we were finalizing the proof of burn whitepaper we were already thinking about how we might improve the algorithm, but before committing to any changes we wanted to 1. Finalize the framework, 2. Solicit as much feedback as possible and 3. Actually begin working on smart contracts to better understand the limitations and potential of the infinitely flexible framework we have created. The feedback we received from technical advisors and community members like Luke Willis (host of the Koin Press Podcast) validated one direction we had been considering and as we began to work with Koinos smart contracts we discovered that we could significantly improve the design in accordance with the following objectives; Conserving blockchain state Maximizing liquidity for block producers Allowing block producers to exit their positions at will, a huge improvement over PoS Virtual Hash Power The key distinction between our new implementation of PoB and the one outlined in our whitepaper is the move from using Non-Fungible Tokens to represent virtual miners, to using Fungible Tokens to represent “Virtual Hash Power.” In addition to maximizing liquidity, replacing NFTs with FTs effectively eliminates the problem of conserving state. In the new design, when KOIN tokens are burned, the blockchain distributes a fungible token to the block producer that can be used to mine a block. As an account produces blocks and earns block rewards, their virtual hash power (VHP) is reduced. Since VHP decreases over time, block producers must burn more KOIN to get more VHP and continue producing; effectively simulating how PoW miners need to continuously reinvest in new hardware. Reward Distribution This new design makes it simple to ensure that block producers earn a guaranteed return on their burn by fixing the amount of VHP that is gained per KOIN burned, and fixing the amount of KOIN acquired through block production in proportion to their VHP. For example, if the amount of KOIN earned per VHP were fixed at 10% then the block producer who burned 10 KOIN would be guaranteed to get 11 KOIN back. As in the original design, what is not guaranteed is how fast they’d get it back. Depending on how much competition there is, the block producer could get their 10% in a month, or a year. In proof-of-work, the block producer is effectively “rolling the dice” by performing computationally difficult, but ultimately meaningless computations. In KPoB, the block producer will roll based on some information unique to the block producer combined with their VHP. Just like in proof-of-work, the more hash power you have, the more likely you are to produce a block. Someone with twice as much VHP as another would, on average, produce twice as many blocks. In this way, the algorithm incentivizes securing the blockchain by replicating the user experience of PoW while still allowing for its intended use-case; efficiently powering decentralized applications. Mining Pools One of the features we think has great potential is mining pools. On PoW blockchains, mining pools are a threat to decentralization because they incentivize concentrating capital in the hands of those who control the most computing power. Because PoB gives no advantage to those with the more hardware (it actually disincentivizes excess hardware acquisition), this is not a concern. Instead, we see the potential for mining pools to decentralization participation in governance. We even see opportunities in promoting application development. While running a Koinos node and participating in block production is already incredibly accessible, we see mining pools as a means for non-technical users to allocate their capital to more technical users who can guarantee more uptime and provide a more stable rate of return to those users. increase and Impacting Governance Since mining pool operators won’t be able to compete based on hardware, and the rate of return they will be able to deliver will be fairly limited, mining pool operators will need to compete in other ways. One of the ways they could compete is with their voting preferences. If mining pool operators express which upgrades they would vote for or against, users can contribute to the pools that most accurately reflect their voting preferences thereby maximizing their impact on governance. This adds a representative component to Koinos governance without the addition of any system-level code or limitation on the freedom of users to influence governance whatever way they see fit. Since they will be able to remove their VHP from a pool at will, there will be a strong incentive for pool operators to vote appropriately. Funding DApp Development Users could also help fund the growth and development of valuable applications by contributing their VHP to mining pools operated by dApp developers. In fact, community developer Julian Gonzalez (creator of the Kondor web wallet and Koilib JavaScript library) has already proposed doing just this in his . Instead of focusing on maximizing their return, users could allow the dApp developer to keep a larger percentage of the block rewards so that they can have more mana to power their dApp, more KOIN for funding development, or both. excellent article explaining how a social dApp could be launched on Koinos Upgradeability & Simplicity Of course, the upgradeability of Koinos means that no matter our implementation, we can always modify it, or even replace it entirely, without having to restart the testnet (and its soak time). This simpler design should also be faster to implement, so we can get a smart contract up and running on the testnet sooner and begin the process of iterative improvement. As we begin releasing more details of our mainnet designs, it is important to bear in mind that because of the fundamentally different architecture of Koinos, our objective is never to design the perfect system with all the right bells and whistles (which can never be changed), but to start from the simplest solutions that can be infinitely enhanced through upgradeable smart contracts that aren’t even part of the system. Now that we are working on smart contracts instead of complicated system design, things are already progressing far more rapidly, so we have a lot more exciting developments that I will do my best to share with you in future updates. So be sure to stay tuned. Developers, Developers, Developers Don’t forget that now is the perfect time for developers to begin building their Koinos applications. The best time to a dApp to maximize attention and adoption will be with the release of mainnet, and the more great dApps we have at launch, the more valuable the platform will be to new users. launch So tell every entrepreneur and entrepreneurial developer that now is the time to start building on Koinos, otherwise they risk missing out on the biggest opportunity since the release of Ethereum! If you come across anyone who is considering building a blockchain-based app but needs help, don’t hesitate to send them to where they can book a free consultation with our team. We’re here to help as many people as possible build insanely great applications that accelerate decentralization through accessibility! koinos.group

Enhanced Proof of Burn on The Koinos Blockchain: Explained

I’m Andrew Levine, the CEO of Koinos Group, and we are very excited to announce the release of v0.3.0 of Koinos, a/k/a testnet V3! V3 is the culmination of nearly 2 years of hard work by the blockchain engineering team to complete the first truly fee-less blockchain framework with infinite upgradeability and universal programming language support built atop a microservice architecture. Fee-less Blockchain Ecosystem The Koinos blockchain framework (KBF) is the core technology that will serve as the foundation for an entire ecosystem of fee-less and infinitely upgradeable public, private, and hybrid blockchains. Thanks to its modular upgradeability, any blockchain built on the KBF will be able to improve itself at a far more rapid rate than any other blockchain out there, allowing them to iterate to greatness! We will demonstrate this capability on V3 by replacing the proof of work consensus algorithm with and then adding a governance system all without ever disrupting the operation of the blockchain! In this way the V3 will into the ultimate layer 1; Koinos main net. proof of burn evolve The Journey The KBF is designed to be the most blockchain imaginable, containing primarily the cryptographic primitives necessary to construct a blockchain and the right “system calls” that allows for the widest range of behaviors to be added in-band (without a hard fork) through the uploading of a smart contract. simple The benefit of this design is infinite upgradeability, but the cost is that it makes getting the system calls right all the more important. Missing a system call or designing it incorrectly would mean having to deal with an otherwise avoidable hard fork. This is what made versions 1 and 2 of the test net so important; they helped us understand what system calls were necessary, and which were not. It has been a grueling journey, but we are now confident that we have the right system calls, microservices, and overall architecture in place and properly functioning which means that Koinos blockchains like mainnet will be free to rapidly adapt to the ever-changing needs of developers and their end-users! DApp Developers In short, V3 marks the completion of the Koinos blockchain, which means smart contracts that work on V3 will also work on mainnet so dApp developers can now dive head-first into building their Koinos dApps knowing that no breaking changes should be made to the blockchain from here on! Harbinger What makes V3 special is not that it has some flashy new features, but that it has everything necessary to the main net. This might sound abstract, but it has very real consequences. evolve into Even though Koinos does not yet have the final versions of its consensus algorithm or governance system, because nothing in the blockchain will be changing after V3, this marks the beginning of the testing period (“soak time”) for the main net! For these reasons, we will now be referring to the Koinos testnet as … HARBINGER. Run Harbinger View the docs View the release notes Payer/Payee Semantics Koinos is all about accelerating decentralization through accessibility which means supporting the free-to-use experiences people have come to expect from their applications. V3 now contains the flexibility necessary to allow smart contract developers to specify whether they, or someone else, will provide the mana being consumed by a user. These deceptively simple semantics will not only allow people to begin using the blockchain without having to buy any KOIN, but it will give large KOIN holders a powerful tool for deploying their capital without sacrificing any of their tokens. Each transaction must explicitly specify an address of a payer for the transaction, and optionally a payee. The payer’s mana is spent and the payee’s account nonce is updated. If there is no payee set, the payer is used for both. The combination of these features allows a smart contract to specify a payer for its mana costs. New System Calls The key to Koinos is the system calls and we have added 3 new system calls that allow for some very powerful use cases. Those calls are: get_transaction, get_transaction_field, and get_block_field. Get_transaction_field simplifies the framework by replacing get_transaction_payer, get_transaction_signature_ and , while retaining flexibility and future-proofing the framework. get_transaction_rc_limit and allows a smart contract to retrieve just the portions of the transaction or block that it is interested in. Get_transaction_field get_block_field However, a contract may be interested in the entire transaction or block, and the overhead of calling the system multiple times is too much. This is where `get_transaction` and `get_block` are useful. Koinos Authority System Koinos V3 now has the most flexible authority system of any blockchain! The authority system allows smart contracts to override the default authority (a single private key mapping to the address). Once overridden, the user’s contract will be called on a special entry point when authorizing from a contract, using mana (or “ ” in the case of the Koinos Blockchain Framework), and/or uploading a contract. It’s a simple and elegant solution that maximizes developer freedom with respect to how they implement authorities. rc This gives users (primarily dApp developers) full control and customizability of exactly how they want to secure their account now, and into the future. Quantum Resistance and Bridges We have also generalized the DSA (digital signature algorithm) related system calls. Currently, only secp256k1 is supported, but the calls are designed for new algorithms to be added later; first upgraded in-band as smart contracts, but later optimized via hard fork with native implementations. The combination of features means that Koinos is prepared for the future of cryptography and allows users to upgrade as they see fit. Another DSA that might prove incredibly valuable in the future are Boneh–Lynn–Shacham signatures (“BLS”). These cryptographic signature schemes allow users to verify that a signer is authentic which is useful in inter-blockchain bridges. Stack Management In Koinos-based blockchains, basically, everything is happening in smart contracts either in user smart contracts (“dApps”) or “system contracts.” System smart contracts contain the behaviors we want from the blockchain (”L1”) like consensus, governance, and resource management. In other words, you have different kinds of smart contracts, with different privileges, interacting with one another and with the blockchain. There were a number of subtle bugs with V2 of the testnet that have been fixed through simplification of the implementation along with a comprehensive test suite of this crucial aspect of the framework. Extend Genesis Data Capabilities Koinos mainnet will launch using a snapshot of the KOIN ERC-20 to set the initial balances on the new blockchain. This means that the moment the blockchain is “born” (or “at genesis”) the blockchain needs a way of knowing about the snapshot. Instead of simply trying to figure out how to add the snapshot to genesis (which would only help us), we developed a more general solution that would allow a blockchain engineer to launch a Koinos-based chain with ANY kind of data added to its database at genesis. If you’re a developer interested in learning more about how this was done, you can view the story . here Handle Failed Transactions We addressed a number of issues that were causing a node to “brick.” We wanted to make sure that no matter what transaction was sent to a node it would remain functional, or in the worst-case scenario at least be recoverable. Events and Receipts Events are a new communication primitive that changes how pieces of software (like microservices) can interact with smart contracts. Events are intended as machine-readable messages that are pushed from a smart contract. Any smart contract can create an event through the event system call and events are returned in block and transaction receipts. Furthermore, events are also broadcast over AMQP (the message queueing protocol that organizes messages within a node) so that custom microservices can react to specific events from smart contracts. Events are sent over MQ `koinos.event. ${SMART_CONTRACT_ADDRESS} . ${EVENT_NAME} ` This allows for the creation of microservices that listen for any kind of event a dApp developer can create, but two obvious examples are token minting and transferring events. State Verifiability Byzantine Fault Tolerance is an important feature of a blockchain and that’s precisely what the state verifiability work accomplished! Byzantine Fault Tolerance is accomplished when a blockchain user can verify that any changes to the ledger (or “state”) made by their node are “in consensus” with every other node on the network. Ethereum does this by referencing the entire blockchain state in its “state root” which requires storing data in a , which is not how Koinos stores data. patricia trie data structure The database primitive Koinos uses is called a “state delta.” Instead of storing old values of objects (“undo states” which are used in Bitcoin, Steem, and EOS), Koinos stores new values of objects, and projects those new values across multiple undo states (state nodes in StateDB vernacular) to present the consensus state at a given block. Long term, the deltas are blocks. Short term, they are transactions. In order to verify the state we can calculate a merkle root of only the database of the block (and not the entire state like Ethereum) which represent the state transition for the block and which can be verified by all nodes. writes Algorithmically, this is more efficient with a complexity of O(nlogn) < O(nlogm). And cryptographically speaking, a full state root could still be calculated from the proof of the state transition root. Run Harbinger View the docs View the release notes Developers, Developers, Developers With the blockchain framework finalized, now is the perfect time for developers to begin working on their Koinos dApps so that they can be ready to go live on mainnet which is now our next major milestone! If you’re a developer or entrepreneur interested in building on Koinos you can connect with us on the Koinos server, channel, or by e-mailing contact@koinos.group. discord telegram As always, thank you for being a part of the Koinos community and helping to accelerate decentralization through accessibility! Andrew Levine, CEO of Koinos Group

Koinos Blockchain v0.3.0 Released: Fee-Less Blockchain Enters The Fray

FEE-LESS Blockchains & Smart Contracts: Introducing Koinos' MANA

Koinos v2 is a massive leap from v1 which was intended primarily to test the Koinos Blockchain Framework. As the world’s first truly general purpose blockchain, the Koinos Blockchain Framework (KBF) is a whole new way of building blockchains that is inherently fee-less and infinitely upgradeable. The fundamentally novel approach to blockchain architecture, built on the world’s first microservice architecture (the ultimate modularity), made extensive testing necessary. See Koinos GitHub The KBF is the core technology that will serve as the foundation for an entire ecosystem of fee-less and infinitely upgradeable public, private, and hybrid blockchains. Thanks to its modular upgradeability, any blockchain built on the KBF will be able to improve itself at a far more rapid rate than any other blockchain out there, allowing them to iterate to greatness! To prove this out we made v1 of the testnet a Bitcoin clone with the goal of iteratively improving that simple design toward something on par with Ethereum exclusively through in-band upgrades (no hard forks). Of course, from there the objective would be to iterate even further to something that is beyond anything else out there. This process would allow us to test the framework at the exact same time we were developing the more complex features needed for Koinos mainnet. Koinos Smart Contracts! Koinos v2 is already well beyond Ethereum in many ways. It has high performance WASM smart contracts (a planned feature of Ethereum 2.0) and a contract development toolkit so developers can finally create and upload smart contracts on Koinos using the very same CLI Wallet they would use to send and receive test tokens. To reflect the more general utility of this tool, its name has been changed to simply, the “CLI.” CLI A lot of work has been done to make this the most advanced CLI out there, but the most significant upgrade is this new ability to interact with smart contracts directly through the CLI using commands. This means that developers and users won’t need to download and learn to use, a different application just to use Koinos smart contracts as they do on most other blockchains, making smart contracts more accessible than ever. The CLI can now even be used by blockchain developers (like ) to upgrade the blockchain itself! Koinos Group Mana But, what developers have been patiently waiting for is the ability to build free-to-use dApps on Koinos which is why we’re excited to announce that v2 now has mana! The mana system smart contract is the core technology that allows Koinos to have free accounts, free transfers, and free smart contracts! Alongside modular upgradeability, we think mana is one of the most innovative developments in the blockchain space since Vitalik Buterin invented the concept of “gas” for Ethereum. We’re also insanely excited to announce the release of the mana whitepaper! Gas was his fee-based solution to the blockchain spam, the so-called “halting problem.” Like gas, mana is a solution to the halting problem and blockchain spam, but unlike gas, mana is a totally fee-less solution to that problem. While gas proved that it was possible to deliver a decentralized world computer, mana will prove that it’s possible to deliver a decentralized world computer with no fees, and no barrier to entry, finally delivering a blockchain capable of delivering the user experience that mainstream users have come to expect from their applications. But mana is not just an to fee-based blockchain designs, it is a . Mana allows for more efficient use of network resources, provides more dynamic and scalable pricing through opportunity costs, all while providing a user experience that is more than tolerable, . alternative superior solution to blockchain resource management it is engaging and fun like a game Finally, by removing friction from Koinos, mana allows for frictionless markets for digital assets with unmatched efficiency. More efficient markets mean lower prices to consumers, allowing Koinos to deliver even more value to its users. Fizzy VM The mana system works by interpreting every liquid KOIN token as containing “mana” that is consumed down based on how much resources a smart contract consumes. The way Koinos measures this consumption is by counting the instructions that are being run in the VM. Originally Koinos leveraged EOS-VM which claimed to support VM instruction counting, but did not. While we were able to add support quickly to EOS-VM, we always strive to ensure that Koinos components are as generalized as possible, require as little upkeep as possible, and are not dependent on a single entity for maintenance. That’s why we made the decision to switch to a new VM developed by one of the most experienced blockchain VM development teams in the world: . Fizzy VM Manager Not only did we make the switch to , a state-of-the-art VM that has native instruction counting and is faster than EOS-VM, we also developed a “VM Manager, which abstracts the VM implementation so that Koinos can rapidly shift to new and better VMs when they come to market. That means Koinos is no longer tied to a specific VM (including Fizzy) giving it yet another degree of flexibility. The VM is one of the biggest performance bottlenecks for any blockchain, so this additional flexibility could provide massive performance benefits in the future. Fizzy Protocol Buffers We learned a lot from testnet v1, including mistakes we made, like the decision to build our own serialization solution (Koinos Types) and how we designed the p2p microservice. Unfortunately, these mistakes required going back to the drawing board which meant doing a lot of work just to get back to where we started, but that work is already paying massive dividends. Koinos Types worked but it was rigid, labor intensive, and didn’t give us any “free” language support which would make it harder for us to achieve our objective of Universal Language Support which we believe is critical for delivering the most developer-friendly blockchain in the world. For those reasons and more listed below, we made the hard decision to rip out Koinos Types and replace it with Protobuf. Within a Koinos node messages are constantly being sent both between microservices and between the blockchain and the VM. Serialization is the process of standardizing those messages so that developers can work in their preferred programming languages. But how you serialize this information can have a profound impact on both the performance of the node, as we learned more recently, the upgradeability of the Koinos protocol. Google’s Protocol Buffers (or “Protobuf”) was always a potential serialization solution that we were evaluating because of its high performance, efficiency, and . fantastic language support Developed by Google and quickly becoming an industry standard, Protobuf will continue to improve and acquire additional language support for the foreseeable future. But Protobuf already gives us incredible language support for free, supporting generated code in Java, Python, Objective-C, C++, Dart, Go, Ruby, and C#, with more languages to come. There are also ! third-party implementations available for Erlang, Haskell, JavaScript, Perl, PHP, R, Rust, Scala, and even Swift Thanks to Protobuf, Koinos already supports developing Koinos microservices in: , , , , and . C++ Embedded C++ Golang JavaScript Python EmbeddedProto One of the reasons we did not originally use Protobuf was because its large library size would cause smart contracts to be large which would negatively impact network performance. In a perfect demonstration of why it’s always best to integrate widely adopted and independently maintained software, during the very same time we were developing Koinos a new library was released called “EmbeddedProto” that solved this problem and turned Protobuf into the ideal solution. EmbeddedProto is a C++ Protobuf generator designed to generate types for use in embedded systems where minimizing size is critical. EmbeddedProto generates types quite similar to Koinos Types in size by ignoring all the Protobuf features that aren’t needed within smart contracts. Using this library gives us the best of both worlds allowing Koinos to benefit from Protobuf in its microservices and client libraries, where size isn’t an issue, while not having to pay the cost of Protobuf in smart contracts. So not only did we get to have our cake and eat it too, but that cake was delicious! Now that this work is done, we are able to iterate much faster and will be able to deliver client library and smart contract support in multiple languages a lot faster than before. Koinos p2p One of the valuable insights we gained from v1 was that the performance of the p2p microservice did not meet our standards for performance. The p2p is effectively the “plumbing” of the network and can seriously bottleneck performance, so after conducting an in depth retrospective to understand what went wrong in our process that led to this result, we decided we had to go back to the drawing board and totally rebuild the p2p microservice from scratch. The new p2p is now much smaller, much easier to add features to, and more feature-rich with checkpointing and sophisticated error handling that will increase the stability of the network. Most importantly the new p2p is already faster than the old. As you can see, Koinos has evolved so much since v1. V1 allowed us to test the Koinos Blockchain Framework and validate whether it really could serve as a new foundation for a truly decentralized and highly accessible future filled with rapidly evolving and frictionless blockchains. We now know that it can. V2 of the testnet is the next stage in the evolution of Koinos. With its new p2p, Protobufs, Fizzy, the contract development toolkit, and advanced CLI now in place, Koinos is ready to evolve into its ultimate form: the Koinos mainnet. Let the evolution begin! Help Koinos evolve by running the testnet (it’s CRAZY easy!) , If you'd like to run fee-less smart contracts on Koinos go here to learn how to acquire the necessary tKOIN Visit to learn more about Koinos koinos.io Visit if you're interested in exploring blockchain integration koinos.group ( : ) Disclaimer The author is the CEO at Koinos

KOINOS Testnet v2 is Now LIVE: A Modular and Fee-less Blockchain

We are excited to announce the release of the (or “CLI”)! CLI wallets are important for several reasons, but they are often difficult for ordinary people to use. As our community members know, is a core value of the Koinos engineering team, which is why we added a few bells and whistles to make it more user friendly, while still delivering the security people expect from a CLI. Koinos command line wallet accessibility Blockchain architect, Nathan Caldwell, in particular went above and beyond to ensure that the Koinos CLI delivered more than just the standard CLI experience. See for yourself in the following video from our Head of Design, Ron Hamenahem. The CLI enables you to create a wallet on your machine, import an existing wallet, check the balance of a given public address, and transfer tKOIN (the testnet version of KOIN). Smart Contracts! The Koinos testnet already had the capability to run smart contracts (that’s how we were able to ), but there was no easy way to work with smart contracts unless you had the deep knowledge that comes from having built Koinos from the ground up, as we did, which is why replace the consensus algorithm without a hard fork the CLI has simple commands that allow you to upload, read, and call compiled WASM smart contracts! Contract Development Toolkit While this CLI is a big leap forward in terms of the useability of Koinos, the main beneficiaries of this will be the team building Koinos because so much of the system logic of Koinos will be implemented as smart contracts. The crucial missing piece for community developers is the CDT (or “contract development toolkit”) which is our #1 priority at the moment. Once the CDT is out, dApp developers can begin developing the smart contracts for their applications! To stay up to date on all Koinos developments, subscribe to this blog, follow , and subscribe to the . Koinos on Twitter Koinos YouTube channel Be free!

NOW LIVE: CLI Wallets And Smart Contracts on Koinos Testnet!

The recently went live, and we’re happy to say that the release went very smoothly. Almost too smoothly! Developers are already digging into the code and providing valuable feedback — the thing we were looking forward to most! Koinos testnet on schedule One of the most exciting things to see is how the design decisions we made when architecting Koinos so many months ago are already being validated and paying dividends. Easy Fork #1 In my I talked about how modular upgradeability allowed us to rapidly make a seemingly minor change to the blockchain that would have been a major pain in the butt on older blockchains; changing the name of the token from KOIN to tKOIN. last hackernoon article While seemingly trivial, the name of the token is part of the Koinos system logic, which is what usually requires a hard fork to change. But because the KOIN token is implemented as an upgradeable smart contract with system-level privileges, all we needed to do was upgrade the contract. Because this process of changing the system logic is so easy, we’re calling such changes “easy forks,” a term coined by Koinos blockchain architect Nathaniel Caldwell. This was an exciting moment because it was really the first time we were able to take modular upgradeability for a spin in a live environment, but it wasn’t a very exciting . Fortunately, the amazing people who are already using Koinos and providing feedback brought to our attention an even “meatier” issue that was a more exciting test for modular upgradeability because it involved a big change to the consensus algorithm. change Easy Fork #2 Within the first few days of the launch of the testnet, community members running nodes were noticing block heights that were out of sync with the main chain. This also highlights why it’s so important to make it so easy to run a node and why every Koinos community member, no matter their technical skill level, should at least try running a node. The thoughtful design behind how we represent information within the interface made it easy for anyone to see that something wasn’t right and report it to us, even if they didn’t understand what exactly the issue was. Thanks to the modularity of Koinos, we were able to quickly trace the problem to an issue with the PoW algorithm which allowed nodes to produce blocks at a faster rate than the main chain. Finding issues like this is exactly what the testnet is for because even though we will be ditching PoW, this particular problem would still need to be solved for mainnet. How we approached solving the problem is a fantastic illustration of how modular upgradeability helps us more rapidly solve problems. While there might be another blockchain out there that could make the “tKOIN” change without a hard fork, there are very few, if any, that could make a similar change to something as mission critical as the consensus algorithm. But what modular upgradeability means is that is implemented just like the token was; as an upgradeable smart contract module. This means that fixing this problem followed the same path as fixing the name of the token. Find the module containing the source of the problem. Identify the fix. Submit a transaction with the upgraded smart contract. The end. everything Innovation Hoovering This example also illustrates how modular upgradeability isn’t always about generating totally novel solutions. It’s as much about taking already existing solutions and rapidly integrating them into Koinos. This makes Koinos like an “innovation vacuum” capable of rapidly sucking in the solutions from every other platform. Ethereum PoW Since Ethereum already has a working PoW algorithm, we simply decided to use that one. After just a few hours of work, the Koinos testnet PoW algorithm was updated to Ethereum PoW, fixing the out-of-sync problem and those running the testnet suffered no interruption of service! In order to take advantage of this change, all anyone running a node has to do is shut their node down, delete the block producer microservice in the docker control panel, and then start up their node as usual using the ‘docker-compose up’ command. Mainnet Governance Of course, on the main network such a change would have to be approved by governance, but the process of upgrading the system would be the same, meaning no disruptive, political, and risky hard fork. In short, the testnet is currently doing exactly what it’s supposed to do; helping us unearth problems, generate solutions, and rapidly push fixes to the network and all in a fraction of the time it would take on other blockchains. This is evolution at work and we can’t wait to see what happens next! If you’d like to help make Koinos get even better, no matter your technical skills, you can be up and running a node in minutes by heading over to the . Koinos github

EASY FORK the Koinos Blockchain [Testnet Update]

Koinos Group is proud to announce the beginning of the next wave of evolution in blockchain technology with the release of the ! Koinos testnet https://youtu.be/tih9UkIXWII Blockchain Building Technology This release is the culmination of over a year of challenging and innovative work by the blockchain engineering team who hasn't just built another blockchain, they've invented a whole new way of building blockchains that will make it far easier for ordinary developers to build extraordinary decentralized applications. We began by architecting from the ground up an entirely new blockchain framework that's the first to feature a microservice architecture and which gives it maximum modularity, accessibility, and scalability. The blockchain microservice in the Koinos framework is like a "proto-blockchain." It's the world's simplest blockchain, but it has unlimited potential thanks to a superpower we call "modular upgradeability" which means its basic features can be infinitely expanded entirely through smart contracts that are running in the virtual machine! By moving practically the entire system out of the blockchain and into smart contract modules, features and bug fixes can be pushed to the network orders of magnitude faster, especially since Koinos smart contracts can also be upgraded without a hard fork! will take this superpower to a whole other level thanks to incredible multi-language support which means developers will be able to write smart contracts in practically any programming language, including TypeScript. Koinos Evolving Blockchains Evolving Blockchains All of this means that on Koinos blockchains, even the features that are usually the most difficult to upgrade like the consensus algorithm, resource system, and governance system, can all be upgraded without a hard fork! The modularity and upgradeability at every level means that the system will be able to organically improve itself at a far more rapid RATE than any other blockchain out there, which is why we say that Koinos blockchains are the first to be capable of . evolution Testnet Features v. Mainnet One of the ways we'll be showcasing the innovations in is how we are choosing to launch this very testnet whose system features will be quite different than those on the mainnet. Koinos The innovative design of Koinos allows us to give developers exactly what they need to start building their dApps, at the same time that we're developing the more time-consuming features of Koinos mainnet that will ultimately have little impact on an individual application. Launching this way gives developers more time to build their app WHILE providing valuable feedback to ensure that the features we build are actually the features they want! Thanks to modular upgradeability, we can add each feature to the testnet piecemeal so that developers can digest each one and give informed feedback about the next feature, and the next feature, and the next feature until we have a fully-featured mainnet that's even better than the one we would have developed on our own. Mainnet dApps Best of all, this means that by the time mainnet launches, developers will have already built, refined, and tested their applications to work on the very same platform they helped design! This organic process with built-in feedback loops will allow us to launch the mainnet as quickly as possible but also with mature dApps that leverage the free accounts, free transfers, and free smart contracts of Koinos to deliver insanely great user experiences. NFTs and Fee-less Cryptocurrencies On Koinos users will be able to create NFTs and even their own fast and fee-less cryptocurrencies in just seconds and without ever spending a dime! Thanks to the incredible upgradeability of Koinos even tokens that begin their life with the simplest of designs can be upgraded to greatness and evolve into something truly transformative. ! But see for yourself. In keeping with our core value of accessibility, we've made it crazy easy to run a node so that no matter your technical expertise in no time you'll be up and running Koinos. So what are you waiting for? Start running a Koinos node, and be a part of the future, today. Run Koinos To run run , go to: Koinos https://github.com/koinos/koinos https://youtu.be/64NWplpcmqU

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