NR, NF, PoD and DIP are the core protocols of Nebulas.

Nebulas’ design is truly unique and sophisticated. Nebulas Rank (NR), their innovative ranking algorithm, not only it allows easy access to valuable blockchain data and provide Google-like search engine and other capabilities, but also the “value” measured by NR is applied in other core protocols……

Nebulas Force (NF)

Proof of Devotion (PoD)

Developer incentive protocol (DIP)

It is like a “complete package” where every core protocol is “connected” to NR, thus making its competitors (ie ETH NEO) very hard to “copycat” its design philosophy, if not impossible.

Ultimately, Nebulas’ vision is to build the 1st blockchain search engine to discover the hidden value, and a self-evolving (NF) blockchain system based on incentive (PoD & DIP), where the contribution of developers is measured and ranked by Value Ranking (NR). This will create a positive feedback ecosystem, which they believe that it will be the most important development direction in the world of blockchain hereafter.

Ecosystem

Powered by NR, NF, PoD and DIP, Nebulas’ decentralized platform provides a search framework for all blockchains and the following features

Search engine

Build your Dapps

Dapp Store

Social network


Token

Etc

Now we have a picture of Nebulas’ design philosophy, vision and ecosystem, so let’s look at the details of its core protocols of NR, NF, PoD and DIP. Each section is structured as follows

Problem

Solution & its technology

Nebulas Rank (NR)

Problem

Can you imagine yourself using the internet without “Google-like search engine” ? In the world of blockchains, imagine that one day the number of Dapps reaches the same scale of the Apple’s App Store and you don’t have the search engine. With the rapid growth of blockchains, this will be a big problem……

The underlying problem is the lack of measure of value of users/smart contracts/Dapps in the blockchain world. Currently, there is no solution.

Solution & its technology

Nebulas create Nebulas Rank (NR), their innovative value ranking algorithm (similar to Google’s PageRank), to firstly measure the value, and then rank the various blockchain users, smart contracts, Dapps, etc. More contribution (value) = Higher rank

Bitcoin and Ethereum bring us the 1st and 2nd dimensions, that is, “Value Linking” and “Value Programming”, respectively. Nebulas believes the 3rd dimension is “Value Ranking”.

Two important questions wrt Value Ranking

What are the applications ? How does it help Nebulas to achieve its vision, that is, to build an open and transparent positive feedback ecosystem based on value incentive ?

I have drawn a flow diagram to help you answer the two questions above. Simply click to enlarge the image……

NR measures the value based on three factors:

(I have summarized the factors in a non-technical way)

Based on the three factors, NR is constructed by

Extracting data from users/smart contracts/Dapps/etc Building a better model Digging up more diversified value dimensions Ultimately, establishing a measure of value in the blockchain world

For those who are interested, you may click on the link below and see Nebulas showcased its NR’s Google-like search engine on this video. It lasts about 3mins. Simply scroll to 14:45, and turn on caption for English.

“Nebulas CTO Robin Zhong introducing Nebulas technology on Ding Ding TV”

Nebulas Force (NF)

Problem

There are two problems

Upgrade of protocol code in the blockchain system Upgrade of smart contract/Dapps running on the blockchain system

1. Unlike common software, blockchain system cannot enforce its users/communities to upgrade protocols due to the nature of blockchain such as decentralization. As a result, it often leads to hard/soft fork, as evidenced by Bitcoin Cash hard fork (from Bitcoin) and Ethereum Classic hard fork (from Ethereum). It then leads to several problems such as division of community and huge losses, which further limits the application of the system.

2. Similarly, the smart contract is usually considered to be permanent and does not support upgrading. Currently, there are very limited ways or no solution at all, depending on the technology. In most cases, bugs/errors are inevitable in the coding process. Once hackers find any bugs/errors, the loss could be significant. For example, the DAO attack due to code defect caused a loss of $60M, and a recent bug of Parity Wallet resulted in a loss of $30M.

Solution & its technology

As per whitepaper, “Perfect system cannot be designed, but is evolved gradually”. Also, Hitters Xu (founder) commented: “Human being’s DNA doesn’t not evolve through hard or soft forks. Instead, small mutations are integrated into our DNA system, a Blockchain-like decentralized one where each human being has a complete copy. Nebulas’ Blockchain system evolves in a very similar way.”

So, “evolve” is the key word, it is the solution. Nebulas Force (NF) provides the protocol code and smart contracts/Dapps the capability to self-evolve. According to users’ NR weight (this is where the “value” measured by NR is applied to “incentivize” them) and voting mechanism, the community determines the upgrade objectives in an open, transparent and positive feedback ecosystem without the need to hard/soft fork. Hence, Nebulas will have ever-growing evolving potential and infinite evolving possibilities endlessly.

As per whitepaper, “Imagine that those blockchain systems like Bitcoin and Ethereum could have native data & asset exchanges built in, we will immediately face many more dimensions of technical possibilities !”

Non-tech explanation of how NF works: (I will try my best !)

The idea is to create a new sub-chain On the sub-chain, you can upgrade/innovate (ie Lightning network, new consensus mechanism, etc) Test it on the sub-chain Community vote Three outcomes based on the vote:

A) Passed: Sub-chain will merge with the main-chain

B) Passed: Sub-chain will replace the “current/old” main-chain, hence becoming the “new” main-chain

C) Failed: There are two options under this scenario. First, the sub-chain can continue its development on its own, and may pass the vote in the future. Second, it will “die”.

6. Rinse & repeat = ever-growing evolving potential + infinite evolving possibilities endlessly + no hard/soft fork

Some possible applications of NF

Below is a picture for tech guys who are interested to have a look at NF’s Low Level Virtual Machine (LLVM), the main component of Nebulas Virtual Machine (NVM). However, it’s too complicated to explain it in a non-tech way. So I will skip this part.

Proof of Devotion (PoD)

Simply “google up” the basic knowledge of various consensus models like PoW, PoS and PoI. Introduction of these consensus models is beyond the scope of this article.

A “simple” comparison of the common consensus models

Given the major downsides of these models, Nebulas innovates its own consensus model, namely, Proof of Devotion (PoD).

It its simplest form, PoD is a hybrid of PoS and PoI. Below is a “simple” comparison of the models