Dimension (EON) Responses to TokenGazer Researchers’ AMA

Q：According to the classification, Dimension also belongs to the race track of smart contract platform or Dapp platform. A judgement to the endgame can affect the development plan of the project. How do you see the endgame of this race? For example, how big the market it will be? Will it be a perfect competition or a monopoly market?

Fernando Liu: Dimension also competes on this race track, literally. We believe that the global public chain or industry-based public (alliance) chain will be the future infrastructure, which provides the underlying foundation and channel for the development of DApp or platform and the circulation of tokens. Only with the basis of the stable and efficient operation of the underlying public chain, the commercial application of blockchain can be developed and implemented. Whoever wins this public chain race will control access to the blockchain world.

At present, there are still many players on this track. We can see that many global well-known public chains focus on different aspects, such as ETH, Cardano, EOS, etc. We hope to improve public chain TPS through different technologies to support the high-frequency transaction demand of commercial blockchain network. Another example is Cosmos and Polkadot, which focus on cross-chain interoperability by establishing information superhighway between each chain.

Technological innovation is the cornerstone of the public chain project, but technology can only solve the problem of “1” and “0”. More importantly, rich ecosystem building and well-established community support can ensure that the public chain projects can go beyond stable growth and further distance. We believe that the final endgame of the public chain will be the competition between the public chain ecology and the user group. Dimension is continuously promoting its ecosystem construction and community engagement, including reaching out to our strategic partners such as Chain-Game to strength the collaboration, and we had established more than 30,000 diversify communities in Japan, Korea, Europe and the United States.

We do foresee the battle of the public chain, which could lead to a blockchain version of Apple or Google, or an unexpected dark horse could come out beating all the players in the game. We would like to see more public chain projects participating in this unknown but potentially limitless public competition. Dimension is committed to the exploration and practice of the public chain at the commercial level, and we will bring some new thoughts and breakthroughs to the development of the public chain space.

Q: In recent public chain project, which project do you think has the greatest opportunity, except Dimension? Why? What are the disadvantages and advantages of the Dimension compared to them?

Fernando Liu: As a public chain project, Dimension also focuses on cross-chain interoperability of data and information. We believe that the value of cross-chain actually is held within the ability of better supporting the information exchange of heterogeneous data including digital assets, such as the cross-chain project Polkadot. Speaking of technical implementation, Dimension will also support cross-chain implementations with different types of data and information. Heterogeneous chain data exchange will definitely face many technical challenges, all we got to do is to break the information island, which is also the value of cross-chain interconnection.

Compared with other projects across space, Dimension is committed to the commercial-grade distributed service network, with its own invented C.H.A.O.S. technology framework and DeCommerce commercial architecture, we can better support distributed business scenarios, and can provide efficient and low-cost governance solutions. Dimension, meanwhile, has a strong project endorsement and strategic investment from Fenbushi Capital. Its excellent international core team had experiences in business innovation and startups, and Dimension will combine more public chains technologies with DeFi practical application scenarios to enable the exploration of a real-world economy with cross-chain technology. Currently Dimension has reached strategic cooperation with several world-renowned groups, and more distributed commercial collaboration will be released soon.

Q: Accordingthe roadmap, the Dimension test net should have been released. How is the test net progress so far and how is the performance? How many nodes can be participating in the test net? Are other teams involved in the node? What about the TPS of the test network?

Oliver Church: the test net is in a stable operation with nearly 5200W block height. DAWN, inSight and wallet of the corresponding blockchain browser of Dimension, and Nebula, the DApp ecosystem, have been released and running smoothly, and Dapps such as Magic Pixel, Dimension Meetup have been released on the test net with a smooth and stable experience. At present, the test net got 12 nodes participating and all of which are from our well-known communities and partners, such as EOS Cannon, EOS Gravity, GOC and other teams and partners. Now, the average value of test net is 4000TPS, and the number of TPS will be further improved after the main net launch.

Q：We all know that Dimension’s consensus mechanism uses improved PBFT version — RBFT. I didn’t see too much technical details on the white paper. Can you tell us more about RBFT? In what ways and how does it improve PBFT? How many nodes will RBFT support for this type of consensus?

Oliver Church: Yes, the hybrid consensus algorithm HPoS adopted by Dimension upgrades DPoS+PBFT to DPoS+RBFT in its second phase. RBFT refers to RobustBFT, which is an evolution consensus algorithm based on HotStuff, which has stronger stability and fault tolerance.

It is worth mentioning that Facebook’s Libra project’s consensus is LibraBFT, which is also based on an improved version of the HotStuff consensus protocol. The HotStuff consensus algorithm, also derived from the Byzantine fault-tolerant BFT algorithm, can achieve consensus between 3f + 1 nodes. Only f nodes need to be honest and can support the stable block of each node under the RBFT algorithm.

We believe that the security of the HotStuff consensus algorithm has been fully proved by the technical level. The high performance and powerful fault tolerance of the algorithm can fully support the commercial scenario. It can support the efficiency and stability of tens to hundreds of nodes to verify the security and stability requirements based on distributed commercial networks.

The RBFT’s excellent fault tolerance performance can be seen by comparing the PBFT and Byzantine evolution algorithm chart data as follows.

Q：According to the white paper, Dimension supports fast and stable switching of consensus algorithms by ConsensusX . In what scenario do you think you need to switch consensus algorithms? How does ConsensusX achieve that? Is the switching consensus algorithm to switch all nodes in the network or some nodes? If so, how can ConsensusX guarantee the consistency of the network?

Oliver Church: Dimension’s cross-consensus engine ConsensusX can solve the problem that algorithms in the main network cannot easily be switched dynamically, it is a more efficient and lower risk consensus algorithm compared to existing cryptocurrency projects in the Blockchain space.

By implementing the fast & pluggable blockchain consensus mechanism, the risk of an unwise, non-future-proofed blockchain network selection is greatly reduced. The consensus engine ConsensusX can provide an efficient, flexible and low-cost commercial-grade networks consensus solution.

So, when shall we need to switch?

Here’s an example- PoS is selected at the early stage of the main network development but the consensus algorithm has to be changed to DPoS due to use-case scenario change. Another occasion might be when we discover there is a vulnerability in the existing consensus algorithm, and it has to be upgraded to have better security and stability.

Cross-consensus engine ConsensusX has some hardcoded major consensus algorithms, and it can customize a new consensus algorithm through the its self-defined consensus algorithm API, according to different needs in different scenarios. By providing an on-chain proposal with pre-defined block height at the time of initiating the switch, users can process the voting and approve the proposal.

In order to secure the consistency of the consensus algorithm after the upgrade, it can be divided into two types of scenarios:

Scenario 1: If all nodes are using a hardcoded consensus algorithm when the proposal is passed, the whole network will switch the algorithm and produce new blocks at the specified block height.

Scenario 2: If nodes don’t have the new consensus algorithm hardcoded, before the upgrading block height is reached, according to the node exiting & upgrading schedule on the proposal, nodes will load the new algorithm in batches to complete the upgrade.

Once the upgrading block height is reached, the nodes with the newly generated consensus algorithm will be confirmed as valid nodes to participate in the block production, and the new consensus algorithm is now switched.

For the nodes which didn’t do the upgrade, they will be recognized as ineffective nodes and cannot participate in block production. This is to ensure and guarantee the stability and consistency of the whole network.

So, how is Consensus-X beneficial over other cryptocurrency projects?

Ethereum, a well-known project, is planning to do a ‘hard fork’ upgrade of its live network soon, named Istanbul, so that they can upgrade their consensus algorithm from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake.

Since they don’t have a dynamic ‘on the fly’ method to change their consensus algorithm without disrupting the network they have no choice but to use this hard fork method.

The reason a hard fork can be a dangerous and inefficient method of changing the consensus algorithm is because it relies on existing nodes in the network to vote to join the new fork, rather than staying in the existing fork.

This can lead to community splits as we had between ‘Ethereum Classic’ and ‘Ethereum’ when people do not agree on the governance decisions of the hard fork. In theory, it also has some security concerns as a bad actor may attempt to take control of the new fork via 51% attack very early on if not enough nodes join it soon enough.

Our project will mitigate this risk making hard forks unnecessary, increasing the security, reliability and stability of the network.

There will be a series of technical articles for C.H.A.O.S. published in the near future, please stay tuned to the official channels of Dimension.

Q: Dimension plans to have three side chains: Dimension-E, Dimension-D and Dimension-S. Can you explain the difference between these three side chains in the application layer? What’s the difference at the technical level? How do they relate to the main chain? Is it consistent with the main chain token?

Fernando Liu: Our sidechain model Dimension-X contains three side chains. Dimension-E is applicable to various business application scenarios with virtual assets, such as points, ticketing, games, animation and other industries, mainly for business scenarios in which virtual assets need to be on-chain and traded. Dimension-D is applicable to various business application scenarios that require data storage and verification, such as notary, insurance, trust, charity and other industries, mainly for data storage and privacy protection. Dimension-S is suitable for various business application scenarios that need to map the real-world assets and transactions on-chain, especially suitable for industries such as sharing economy and green energy, and more suitable for large-scale data transaction scenarios.

By providing solutions for different industries through Dimension-X, different technical frameworks will be constructed for different commercial scenarios. For example, Dimension-D will provide access implementation of customized modules for data confirmation and data verification industry by using the improved IPFS framework.

For example, for an automobile co-sharing project, since Dimension adopted RBFT consensus algorithm based on HotStuff, we can well meet all the needs of smaller-amount but high-frequency timely payments and on-going assurance with security from the project. Meanwhile, for a more specific scenario, we could adopt our virtual hierarchical sharding technology (geographic sharding group), which has the advantage of greatly reducing cross-sharding communication, avoiding random cutting-out of data and address space, improving parallel transaction processing capacity and reducing response delays. In terms of security, different nodes correspond to different sharding groups, and nodes can choose to realize isolation in transactions and data storage, so as it guarantees the privacy of the blockchain system, it also reduces the complexity of the system operation and maintenance. At the same time, regularly node switching can prevent 1% fragment attack based on hierarchical scheme and random beacon.

Of course, Dimension-X serves as a side chain, and the token will be available for free circulation between the main and all side chains. Dimension-X is pretty detailed explained in the white paper, and more technical details will be published later in a technical white paper.

Q: What are the uses of Dimension Token? If the consensus algorithm is switched, the incentive scheme for the nodes will certainly be adjusted accordingly. How can Dimension guarantee the stable incentive for the nodes in the consensus switching so as to ensure the security of the network?

Fernando Liu：Dimension’s token is EON, which can be used in many application scenarios, for example, 1) users holding EON can participate in the main net governance and stake with benefits; 2) there will be all different types of community incentives for community governance, project promotion, technology R&D; 3) payments for Dimension ecosystem, such as Dimension Meetup, Magic Pixel; 4) support for ecological cooperation projects, such as chain. game platform and Scene payment, etc. (5) With the continuous expansion of the project and applications, it can support both online and offline payment, node co-construction plan, virtual asset transaction payment, data sharing platform payment and other application scenarios.

ConsensusX, the cross-consensus engine, which we already talked about its consensus-switching algorithm in the previous question. According to the requirements of specific business application scenarios, the reward and punishment mechanism for the switching process can be developed. It can be formulated through the proposal of the node governance committee, which rewards nodes that do switch to the new consensus algorithm in time but mark the nodes that fail to upgrade the consensus algorithm as invalid nodes and reducing their short-term rewards.

Q: When will be the main network of Dimension online? What is the follow-up expansion plan?

Fernando Liu：Dimensnion will start testing main network in Q4 in 2019. Iterative release of dynamic Node, hybrid consensus HPoS and cross consensus engine ConsensusX technology features in the framework of C.H.A.O.S. will be completed from Q4 in 2019 to Q2 in 2020. There will be no more than 10 cooperative nodes jointly participating in the test of the main network. It is expected that Q1 will release the plan of the co-construction of community nodes in 2020.

Dimension is developing a cross-link implementation and privacy protection framework according to the roadmap. It plans to release a cross-link and privacy protection testing network in Q3 in 2020. We will continue to update the main network dynamics and technology development progress in the community. Welcome to join the Dimension community to participate in the co-construction.

Q：We can see the constant growth of Dimension community. What kind of community building strategies we can expect for Dimension in the near future?

Martyna Basara：Dimension is actively creating new strategies to expand our community. Right now, I am visiting major crypto community in Europe to promote Dimension (Cosmos, Polkadot, Cardano, EOS) and invite them to become staking node for our project. Also, our team partnered up with the ChainGame platform(you can already check out those cool games!) that will bring to us a gamer community.

Overall Dimension’s incentive system is divided into few categories: 1. Nodes Incentive: The node service provider can register and then become an active node operator and receive awards. 2. Development Incentive : Through GitHub, developers can submit their codes or projects associated with Dimension and receive awards. 3. Governance Incentive (Staking): Token-holders can stake their token by voting on community proposals and receive their token rewards after a specific staking period. 4. Engagement Incentive: Dimension will carry out marketing campaigns, as well as incentive programs like airdrops, bounties, and contests in order to raise community awareness and engagement. 5. Community Incentive: The community builders, people who participate and help in events, will be rewarded. For example, you could get rewards by organizing a local meetup in your city.

In order to grow and develop, we are constantly making new business and finance partnerships which will also bring some real world users into the ecosystem. If you are interested in a partnership with us, feel free to contact me at martyna@dimensionchain.io !