The Elastos Blockchain Team is excited to announce that the delegated proof-of-stake (DPoS) component of our hybrid consensus is prepared to go live. Once fully live, we will have successfully installed our complete hybrid consensus algorithm.

The Elastos blockchain’s DPoS Election will be a gradual process that takes place over a series of phases. Because Elastos employs a hybrid consensus that consists of both Auxiliary Proof of Work and Delegated Proof of Stake (AuxPoW X DPoS), blocks are packaged by bitcoin miners who merge-mine BTC with ELA. Following the successful solving of a block, DPoS supernodes sign the blocks to provide finality before bitcoin miners publish the blocks to the blockchain. The Elastos merged-mining operation first began in August 2018, however, this did not include the general public. Initially, merged-mining was open only to the btc.com mining pool, which was allowed to merge-mine ELA with BTC. At that stage, the DPoS component was still in the process of being prepared for implementation, so only the AuxPoW branch of Elastos’ hybrid consensus was in effect. However, the Elastos blockchain did not suffer from a lack of security during this period, as its network was still protected by the massive hashpower of bitcoin miners.

Since August 2018, the development of DPoS has been advancing rapidly; finally, it is ready to go live. When DPoS consensus is added to the Elastos blockchain, its hybrid consensus (AuxPoW X DPoS) will be complete – which will give rise to a number of positive effects. First, as soon as DPoS consensus is live on the Elastos main chain, merged-mining will be open to the entirety of the general public. Along with the btc.com mining pool, all other mining pools and individual miners will have the opportunity to upgrade their BTC mining clients to begin merge-mining ELA in parallel to BTC. Secondly, it is anticipated that the hashpower of the Elastos blockchain will rise dramatically, thereby further securing the network. Thirdly, DPoS nodes add an additional layer of security in serving to provide Finality for solved blocks. Of course, it is already astronomically costly and difficult to amass over 50% of the bitcoin hashpower because there are so many BTC miners. Likewise, we expect it will be at least as difficult to amass over 50% of the Elastos network’s hashpower. Beyond AuxPoW though, it is ultimately the DPoS supernodes who have the final say in which blocks to sign and which blocks to ignore. Thus, the DPoS supernodes can collectively ignore the malicious blocks that were sent to the blockchain P2P network and ensure the optimal function and secure transaction on the Elastos blockchain.

Since adding a new layer of consensus is an enormous task in and of itself, the implementation will progress in a series of phases. At the moment, there are no specific dates for each phase, but the eventual goal is to have all 6 phases implemented by the end of the second quarter of 2019.

In order to ensure the election process is working properly and autonomously, there will also be some scheduled testing conducted on the Elastos test net to prevent problems from halting progress on the main net. The test net will be utilized first where participant nodes are upgraded and connected with test net. Soon after, manual voting will be used to test the community DPoS consensus. Once the testing on test net is complete, the community-elected supernodes will be relocated to main net so they can begin contributing to consensus on the main net.

As always, we will continue to inform the community as to our status throughout all 6 phases of the DPoS Elections. Make sure to keep up to date and participate.

Disclaimer: “All elected Supernodes are expected to abide by the rules and standards outlined in the Elastos DPoS Supernode Election Process. As Elastos is a decentralized and distributed network system, and DPoS Supernodes are selected through an election via the network’s official wallet, the Elastos Wallet, the Elastos Foundation is not responsible for the actions taken or views expressed by any elected Supernodes (operators or owners), nor is it responsible for setting up nodes, arranging mining pools, guaranteeing uninterrupted services, or compensating party losses that may arise throughout the staking process.”