Funky and useful: 12 new Ethereum things you can't miss
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, planning and editing: Li Hua, reproduced by Odaily with authorization.
Bad news: this past year, the major blockchain breakthroughs we've been waiting for still haven't happened.
In this article, we have invited 10 observers and explorers of the blockchain world, and asked them to write articles to introduce Ethereum, which is currently the newest thing in the largest open source community of the blockchain. The analysis of Rollup's underlying thinking will include a detailed explanation of the quadratic financing that Vitalik Buterin has been thinking about for a whole year, and it will also include content that has not yet entered the public eye, such as the significance of BLS signatures for the authentication design of Ethereum 2.0, such as Use Zcash tokens on Ethereum.
Keywords in this article: Rollup, Validity Proof, BLS signature, interoperability between Ethereum and Zcash, account abstraction, CREATE2 instruction; Staking, DeFi, ENS; new governance process of Ethereum, market development model, quadratic financing.
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Hard core technology 6 items
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Thousand words to understand Rollup
p0n1, a researcher at Ambi Labs, focuses on zero-knowledge proofs and smart contract security
Rollup is a general term for a large class of Layer-2 expansion solutions. It specifically refers to performing complex calculations and state maintenance off the chain, and then saving data related to state changes on the chain using cheaper CALLDATA through contract calls. Anyone can restore the global state based on the data stored on the chain, thereby eliminating security risks caused by data availability issues. Rollup rolls up/summarizes a large number of transactions into one transaction, improving TPS while ensuring data availability.
So how to guarantee the correctness of state changes? ZK Rollup and Optimistic Rollup are two different schemes that are popular at present. Their core differences are as follows:
The key to the ZK Rollup scheme is ZK. Every state change of it needs to provide a zero-knowledge proof and be verified by the contract on the main chain. Only when the verification passes can the state be changed. That is, the state transition of ZK Rollup strictly depends on cryptographic proofs.
In the Optimistic Rollup scheme, each state transition does not need to be strictly verified. It optimistically assumes that each transition is correct (this is the origin of the word Optimistic), and then a certain transition can be challenged within a certain time limit. If If the challenge is successful, it proves that there is a problem with the previous submission, and the submitter will be punished and the state will be rolled back. That is, the state transition of Optimistic Rollup depends on economic incentives and games.
The difference between the two schemes can also be seen from the perspective of the proof model: the former is Validity Proof (validity proof), and only the status of "validity proof" will be written into the main chain contract; the latter is Fraud Proof (error proof). proof of validity), users need to provide "proof of wrongness" for exceptions during the challenge period and report incorrect status.
On TPS, ZK Rollup uses zk-SNARK technology to compress the amount of computation on the chain while ensuring data correctness. The calculation process of all transactions does not need to be executed in the contract. The operator (operator) only needs to submit the Merkle Root of the Merkle Tree that stores the account state, transaction data and zk-SNARK proof to the contract. After the contract is verified, the new state will be written into .
Because zk-SNARK proves that the size (small) and verification time (very fast) are constant and will not increase with the number of transactions, ZK Rollup can greatly improve transaction TPS. The on-chain performance limit of ZK Rollup depends only on the cost of CALLDATA storage data. With the completion of the upgrade of Ethereum Istanbul, the cost of CALLDATA is reduced to 1/4 of the original, and the performance of ZK Rollup is improved by 4 times, and the TPS can reach nearly 1/4. 2000.
At present, several teams have developed based on the ZK Rollup solution, such as ZK Sync, a trustless expansion and privacy solution released by Matter Labs. The bottom layer of ZK Sync relies on ZK Rollup. The product line is to first focus on improving the performance and ease of use of simple transfers, then realize the expansion of general smart contracts, and finally add privacy protection. Its goal is to improve transactions while ensuring security. performance.
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Validity Proof: A New Way of Designing Layer-2
A Jian, content director of "Ethereum Lovers"
Previous Layer-2 solutions, such as state channels and Plasma, cannot prevent operators or users from submitting non-up-to-date states when users withdraw money, that is, in the process of completing liquidation in the off-chain state and on-chain, so these solutions have "Challenge period", that is, within a period of time after the state is on the chain, others are allowed to submit an updated state, or prove that the state on the chain is invalid. We call this pattern "false proof".
The difference between the scheme represented by ZK Rollup and other Rollup schemes and earlier Layer-2 schemes lies in the idea of proving the effectiveness of state transitions. Compared with error proof, validity proof has great advantages in many aspects. Its biggest advantage is that it eliminates the long challenge period and improves the efficiency of capital operation and user experience.
Xie Xiang, Algorithm Scientist, PlatON
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BLS Signatures on Ethereum
Xie Xiang, Algorithm Scientist, PlatON
Currently, Ethereum 2.0 has fully converted to adopt BLS (Boneh-Lynn-Shacham) signature as its core signature algorithm.
The original design intention of BLS signature is to find a digital signature scheme with a shorter signature length to replace the traditional RSA signature (1024bit signature length) and ECDSA signature (320bit signature length) in a low-bandwidth communication environment. BLS signature only requires a signature length of 160bit, and its security is equivalent to ECDSA.
In the blockchain scenario, we always want to reduce the amount of communication as much as possible. BLS signatures are not only shorter in length, but also work in a way that helps to achieve this goal. For example, one way to reduce traffic is to use aggregated signatures instead of multiple signatures, but ECDSA cannot do aggregated signatures. Although Schnorr satisfies the requirement that signatures can be aggregated, its essence is that multiple participants sign the same message collaboratively. This distributed Collaborative processes require greatly increased communication times.
In contrast, the aggregation process of BLS signatures is non-interactive, that is, any node can directly aggregate multiple received BLS signature message pairs locally, and supports the aggregation of signatures for different messages. The following figure describes the process of BLS signature aggregation:
Let's take the example of organizing validators into committees to vote on proposed blocks, and briefly explain the role of BLS signatures in it.
In Ethereum 2.0, there will be hundreds of thousands or even millions of verifiers. Beacon chain will assign verifiers to the committee according to a certain randomness, and the committee will vote on the proposed block. The votes of each committee will form a signature through the BLS aggregation algorithm, so that the work of verifying all the votes of the entire committee will be extremely efficient.
In addition, Beacon chain nodes are responsible for managing verifiers and their mortgage rights, nominating block creators for each shard, responsible for rewards and penalties for verifiers, and assisting in the processing of cross-shard transactions... Among these tasks, all tasks related to confirmation All rights-related actions need to be completed by verifying the BLS signature.
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"Cross-chain" operation of Ethereum and Zcash
Wu Weilong, a hardcore Ethereum player
EIP-152: Add the function of verifying Equihash PoW (Zcash's PoW) in the Ethereum contract, and open the possibility of relay transactions and atomic swap transactions between Zcash and Ethereum.
"Asset" is a line in the database. The blockchain needs to be signed and verified to make changes to the database. To verify Equihash PoW in the Ethereum contract is to add a hash function to solve the problem of verifying the signature.
In this way, scenarios like this can be supported: A can give B a Zcash token by executing a contract running on Ethereum, and then Zcash verifies the signature, and then tells the result to the contract on Ethereum, and the contract continues Execute the next action.
However, the "cross-chain" or interoperability relationship between Ethereum and Zcash is one-way from Zcash to Ethereum. If it is two-way, Zcash needs to add corresponding functions.
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Account abstraction: add extensibility to the function of the account
There are two types of accounts in Ethereum, one is called an external account, that is, a user account, which is controlled by a key, and its functions are fixed. It can only do basic transfers and generate contract accounts; the other is called a contract account, which is The smart contract code is compiled and deployed on the Ethereum network. Since the contract can customize logic, the function of the contract account is scalable.
Account abstraction is to implement a set of DID on the Ethereum network, and the interaction can be directly handled by the DID holder, regardless of whether the DID subject is an external account or a contract account. This adds scalability to the external account, making it similar to the contract account, using higher logic to operate, and more generally using different forms of an "account" to represent both external accounts and contract accounts. type.
After the account is abstracted, external accounts can control other external accounts, and can also allocate and control contract accounts. The benefits brought by this include that the payment subject of the transaction can be customized to generate an account management mechanism, and the signature control function of fund use can be realized; it can help DAO to better design and implement; it can make external account control come from a certain contract account Gas fee, to solve the existing unautomated behavior that requires the contract deployer to pay the gas fee even if it has a contract.
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The CREATE2 command: a useful new way to deploy contracts
Yuanming Wang, Chief Architect of Westar Labs
Although CREATE2 of EIP 1014 is a small modification, it has a great effect on the design of the second layer.
CREATE2 provides a new contract deployment method, the contract address is determined by the sender address, salt, and initialization code. In this way, the second-tier system can write code based on a contract that has not yet been chained—because the contract address is known at this time—and then deploy the contract when necessary, which saves costs and simplifies the counterfactual state channel design.
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User Participation 3 Articles
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How to participate in Ethereum Staking?
Rudy Lu, InfStones China Representative, Infpool Mining Pool Partner
First, we need to understand the difference between Ethereum Staking:
Difference 1: Fixed amount of collateral
Now most of the projects we are familiar with have no limit on the number of tokens mortgaged by a node, such as EOS, TRON, Cosmos and other projects; or make certain restrictions through the deposit rate, such as Tezos, Wanchain and other projects. But ETH 2.0 is very different from these entrusted mortgage models. Each node needs to be mortgaged and can only mortgage 32 ETH. If I have 320 ETH, I need to establish 10 nodes.
The staking design of ETH 2.0 is compatible with its shard chain structure. By forcing a fixed mortgage amount of 32ETH, it can ensure that the number of nodes in the entire network is relatively large, and it also ensures that there will be no head with a huge amount of mortgage Nodes have relatively monopolized bookkeeping control rights on a certain shard chain, and the degree of decentralization of ETH 2.0 mining will be improved to a certain extent.
Difference 2: The principal and income are not the same currency, and they cannot be traded in the early stage
Except for projects with dual-coin structure design such as Ontology and Vechain, the general staking mining is "lock what currency, earn what currency", but ETH 2.0 locks the ETH token on the PoW main chain, and the income issued is the trust BETH tokens on the standard chain, they are essentially two kinds of coins. Because the two chains will not realize interoperability soon, the estimated transaction prices of ETH and BETH in the open market will not be exactly the same.
In Phase 0, which is expected to go online next year, ETH 2.0 will not have a transaction function. Even if the validator (node) withdraws from staking, the principal and income cannot be transferred from the account. Therefore, all the principal and income of the early participating nodes are Almost in a locked state, we can only wait for the further development of ETH 2.0 and gradually realize the account transaction function.
Difference 3: Decentralized commissioned mining did not exist in the early days
The function of "delegation" can separate the token from the block production right carried by the token. The token holder can entrust the block production right to a trusted node to participate in the consensus and win rewards on his behalf. This is what makes Staking widely known by the public. Recognize, and gradually fiery reasons. However, in the first two stages of ETH2.0 (stage 0, stage 1), there is no decentralized entrusted mining, which means that currency holders can only establish nodes to run by themselves, or hand over the currency to a centralized mining pool Mining on behalf of others, but mining on behalf of others is equivalent to transferring coins to others for custody, and there is a security risk of the principal.
Second, you need to understand the participation conditions of Ethereum Staking.
The participation threshold of Ethereum Staking is not very high. In terms of hardware, the performance of a home computer can run a node. Ethereum hopes to encourage more currency holders to participate through a low threshold, so as to achieve the goal of decentralization as much as possible.
For participants, 24-hour operation of nodes can guarantee the maximum profit. At the same time, it is also necessary to do a good job in node version upgrades, prevention of "double spending", fault monitoring and disaster prevention, etc. At that time, node operators will launch professional node operation services.
After understanding the above information, let's look at the revenue analysis of Ethereum Staking.
The annual increase rate of ETH 2.0 changes dynamically with the pledge rate of the entire network. According to the currently published rules, the annual increase rate and the increase in the pledge rate of the entire network are related to the power of 0.5. The higher the pledge rate of the entire network, the higher the annual increase rate, and the lower the annualized rate of return of a single node. When the entire network pledges 10%, the node's annual rate of return is 5.72%.
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Mindao Yang, Founder of dForce
In 2020, we will see major breakthroughs in the cross-chain and asset cross-chain between various chains. Many new asset types have entered the Ethereum DeFi system, such as PoS-type Staking assets, to realize the borrowing and interest of Staking assets.
The Ethereum system will witness the deployment of more Layer-2 systems, and it will be easier to scale the DeFi ecosystem on Layer-2.
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The gameplay of ENS is only limited by your and my imagination
Lao Bai, DApp player, NFT collectibles lover, started to get in touch with Ethereum from ENS auction
ENS (Ethereum Name Service) is a distributed domain name system built on the Ethereum blockchain. If Ethereum is the basic platform of the next-generation decentralized network, then ENS will become the same domain name registry as the current ICANN, and eth will replace com as the core component of Web3.
ENS has a large space for imagination and experimentation. Here is a brief introduction to some existing gameplays:
1. Using ENS instead of ordinary account address can reduce the loss of funds caused by input errors, because when we transfer money to ENS, if the input is wrong, we cannot effectively resolve the ETH address it points to, which prevents further operations.
3. If MetaMask is installed in your browser, you can directly access the ".eth" domain name, that is, open the website or DApp front-end address ending in ".eth" with your browser, just like opening the ".com" website on the Internet Same. And the front end of this website or DApp can be built on IPFS, without relying on a single-point central server. For example, we can access https://almonit.eth through a browser, an ENS navigation website built on IPFS, and all the developer needs to do is add a RECORDS in their ENS management interface, pointing to the corresponding IPFS address of the website .
5. The DApp merchant application of ENS is a promising scenario. Taking Starbucks as an example, it can register and apply for membership through coupon.eth: starbuck.coupon.eth, and then generate its own ERC721 collection. The domain name points to an NFT contract. It can be set that users send 0 ETH to this ENS address to receive a collection or participate in a lottery, so as to realize the issuance and distribution of merchant souvenirs.
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Community Building 3 Articles
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Ethereum’s New Governance Process
A Jian, content director of "Ethereum Lovers"
Beginning in March this year, the Ethereum community began to explore a new governance process.
Then, someone proposed to establish a "representative" system, that is, an EIP must have a representative, and the representative is responsible for community liaison, communication with the community, and response to community questions.
Later, some people suggested that the time of hard forks should be normalized to provide predictability. At the same time, hard forks only accept EIPs that are fully prepared and have no doubts. Implementation progress affects the timing of the hard fork. Similar to a train, it will start when it arrives, and EIPs that have not boarded the train will wait for the next one.
I have always believed that the governance process is the core of governance. The above-mentioned improvements to the EIP process have made development responsibilities clearer, credit ownership clearer, and the entire community has clearer expectations. At the same time, I also lament that the development of practice seems to run ahead of the development of knowledge again.
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How will the bazaar model guide the evolution of Ethereum 2.0?
A brand-new system is generally led by the initiator in the initial stage of design and implementation, and is promoted in a small-scale closed manner. The same is true for Ethereum 1.0 in its initial stage. Because on the one hand, initiators know their own ideas best, early closed development may be more efficient. On the other hand, without brand recognition and community culture precipitation, it is not easy to attract like-minded participants to join the collaboration.
At the technical level, Ethereum 2.0 can be said to be a nearly brand-new system to some extent, but not in terms of brand identity and community culture. Ethereum has been in operation since its creation, and the community has continued to evolve, gradually forming a self-organizing system with strong vitality. Old people keep leaving, but the vision and culture of the community continue to attract new blood to join, strengthening the robustness of the entire ecology.
Therefore, Ethereum 2.0 has the opportunity to practice a more radical and open bazaar-style design and development model at the initial stage, and on this basis, weaken the influence of authoritative individuals on protocol development as much as possible, and maintain the characteristics of the bazaar model . How will the bazaar model promote the evolution and development of Ethereum 2.0? Can the bazaar model have more competitive advantages and vitality than public chain projects that adopt the cathedral model? This is what I am most interested in about Ethereum 2.0 besides the technology.
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Gitcoin Grants: Exploring the Financing Model of Public Goods
Mako, founder of v2eth.com
Gitcoin Grants is a crowdfunding platform that periodically provides funds for Ethereum open source projects. It adopts the quadratic financing CLR mechanism (Capital-constrained Liberal Radicalism), which is Vitalik Buterin and Glenn, one of the authors of "Radical Market". Weyl proposed in the paper "Liberal Radicalism: Formal Rules for a Society Neutral among Communities".
It can be said that Gitcoin Grants is a very good practice of blockchain technology and radical market quadratic voting ideas (quadratic financing is an extension of quadratic voting), which explores how to Funding open source projects/public goods is why I am very interested in this project.
The quadratic financing CLR mechanism includes two parts: crowdfunding and matching donations:
Crowdfunding: Individuals donate to public goods. Add up the square root of each person’s donation to get A, and then square A to get B. B is the total amount of funding that the project party should receive.
Matching donation: The amount due to the project party, that is, B, is greater than the sum of the amount donated by each donor, and the foundation or private philanthropist will make up the difference. Under this mechanism, the funds obtained by the project are more closely related to the total number of people who support it. If a project has more donors, the project will receive more matching funds.
In fact, when a society allocates public goods, it will face two basic problems: the free-rider problem and the problem of suppressing the interests of minorities.
Under the method of "one person, one vote", one vote has negligible impact on the result, so rational people will not vote, which will cause a free-rider phenomenon, and the same is true for financing. People who originally wanted to fund projects think that their own If the money cannot help the project party, it will not participate; but if the quadratic financing method is used, one dollar will be magnified, and rational people will have the motivation to participate in crowdfunding, thereby reducing the phenomenon of free riding.
In the "one person, one vote" approach, the minority is subject to the majority, and the system cannot reflect the importance of various products to different individuals, which in turn will suppress the interests of the minority. In financing, which projects are funded is determined by the majority vote; if With quadratic financing, individuals can choose to fund projects they are interested in, and indirectly affect the matching donation amount of the project, which can partially solve the problem of squeezing the interests of minorities.
Since launching in January 2019, Gitcoin Grants has helped solicit and distribute $827,000 in grants to the open source community; in its third match in 2019, it provided 1,982 donations worth $170,000; in 2020, Gitcoin Grants plans to conduct at least one fundraising event every quarter.
I suggest that open source projects of Ethereum can submit their own projects in the first quarter of 2020 (January 6 to January 21) to participate in the quadratic financing of Gitcoin Grants. The Ethereum Foundation and Gitcoin Core will provide $200,000 in matching donations for community media projects and infrastructure construction projects. It is up to us to decide which projects can get funds. Each person only needs to sponsor $1.
How to participate in Gitcoin Grants:
