Here is a recap of HitHub AMA with IOST which held on HitHub’s community Telegram group.
So, first, Stephanie, can you make a brief introduction of yourself?
Hello everyone, This is Stephanie, Head of Overseas Marketing from IOST. I am very pleased to be invited by HitHub to this AMA session and share the latest developments about IOST with everyone.
How is IOST doing lately? Can u share with us some updates of IOST?
In 2019, we launched the IOST mainnet and six months earlier than originally planned and it has been operating steadily since; our Staking economic system ranks first in the world: the number of IOST votes across the network has exceeded 4 billion, and we have more than 400 partner nodes over the world; the blockchain gaming ecosystem development is prospering and we are making our first steps in government-enterprise cooperation.
In 2020, IOST will continue to work hard on the rapid development of enterprise services, government-enterprise cooperation, partner node plan, staking mechanism, DApp ecosystem, cross-chain technology, implementation of applications, compliance development, etc. to build a more open, connected and efficient blockchain value network!
On December 21 last year, IOST was invited to the China Blockchain Enterprise Development Forum held in the Great Hall of the People.
The team mentioned that IOST will deepen develop corporate services in 2020 and bring better blockchain technical support to Chinese companies.So, what is the specific plan?
The 17th China’s Enterprise Development & Blockchain Forum was held in the Great Hall of The People on Dec 21. As the sole blockchain project invited, our cofounder Terry delivered a speech on how to practically integrate blockchain in enterprises.
Speaking of how the IOST blockchain project works with the government and empowers the real economy. In fact, as a disruptive technology, blockchain is definitely not limited to applications in a certain field but involves scenarios in all aspects, so each field is very important and worth exploring in-depth, such as Supply chain, culture, and entertainment, financial services, medical health, IP copyright, education, Internet of Things, communications and other fields.we have now seen that the blockchain industry is constantly developing in a standardized manner. Many multinational companies are already experimenting with cross-border payment, billing, liquidations, and other financial fields, and other enterprise-level applications are successively being implemented in a non-financial field such as medical cases, digital rights, election voting, asset registration, supply chain management, product traceability, and credit checking. To empower the real economy, it is necessary to provide good services to the users in the real economy.IOST is committed to providing blockchain products that are truly universal and are widely used by C-end/B-end users. Since Q3 2018, IOST has performed many experiments on both the B and C sides and has deeply explored consortium chains. For Business applications, IOST has launched many applications in different scenarios.
• In September 2018, IOST cooperated with Mantra to help charity organizations go online.
• In April 2019, it reached technical cooperation with Ehang, a global leader in the drone industry, to create a blockchain-based aerospace data platform.
• In November 2019, IOST reached cooperation with Fujimi City Government of Japan and Japan’s third-largest power plant to develop a power trading blockchain system. All power system information can be jointly managed by participants, and users can more smoothly and efficiently settle power transactions. Because of the rigorous corporate culture and its entrepreneurial atmosphere, IOST gradually reached political organizations and businesses.
After the speech in the Great Hall of the People at that time, the China Enterprise Alliance decided to, jointly with IOST and Aiou Technology, conduct further exploration and cooperation with enterprises in various industries on a blockchain + real economy in Southwest, Central, and Northern China, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai. With the goal of jointly explore the potential development of blockchain, actively promote the integration of blockchain in the real economy, and let the people benefit from the development brought by this technology more.
So, our goal is public chain + consortium chain, IOST + Aiou technology! This is the early days of blockchain, and the entire industry is still advancing steadily. Although there are many cases of quick success, IOST has always had a clear goal and keeps its pace. This is the best for IOST. To B, To Opportunity, the growth and success of Aiou Technology will also benefit IOST which continues to explore on the C side. Both IOST and Aiou will continue to recruit, to innovate, to make breakthroughs, and make continuous progress. We welcome whoever is interested to find us for questions and cooperation in public chain + consortium chain.
Can you share with us the current scale of the IOST community?
IOST has always been deployed in the global market. At present, we have more than 100 community groups in China which include holders groups, fan groups, and partner nodes groups, with a total number of about 50,000 people. We also have the international Telegram group, with a total number of 43,000 community users; 52,000 on Reddit; 2,000 people in the Korean group; about 300 people in the Japanese group; and other languages groups including Vietnam, Spain, Turkey, and Russia, all with around 500 people.
From a technical perspective, what is the best feature of IOST?
Thank you for the question! The major technological feature of IOST is the Proof-of-Believability (PoB) consensus mechanism. In the current version of IOST’s PoB mechanism, the block production committee has 17 spots and changes every 10 minutes. At each change, the 17 nodes with the highest Servi value are selected to the committee, taking turns to produce blocks and receive rewards. Nodes will consume Servi every time they are elected to the committee. Nodes that are not selected will have relatively more Servi and will have a greater chance of being elected to the committee in the next election. Under this mechanism, hundreds of nodes may be elected to the committee within a day. In the PoB mechanism, the barrier to entry for candidate nodes is lower, and more community members can participate in the election. At the same time, through high-frequency re-election, most of the candidate nodes are eligible for selection. The committee’s circulation is very high, and the degree of decentralization is much higher than the DPoS mechanism based on a small number of supernodes and alternative nodes adopted for example by EOS. With this, we achieve community autonomy and also guarantee higher security. The current consensus mechanisms out there are basically variants of PoS and PoW, we are based on the improvements made by PoS.
As for DPOS, it is essentially a consensus of few nodes, it is indeed a lot faster, but it cannot guarantee security. For example, under the mechanism of PoS and PoW, if you want to do a DDoS attack, it is difficult for the attacker to know who is in the next round and who will produce the block, but it becomes very easy under the DPoS mechanism. Also, we all know EOS has had many problems with RAM, so I won’t go into detail.
You have always emphasized that IOST is friendly with developers, in what aspects exactly?
1) In April 2019, IOST open-sourced the code on GitHub to show the project progress to the community and attract more developers to learn and join. Also, the flagship DApps launched after the main net launch will also be open-source on the IOST platform, hoping to inspire more developers. Link to source github.com/iost-official
2) Development documents and tutorials
The IOST Developer Portal provides clear and easy-to-understand developer documentation which is also being translated into multiple languages. Developers can understand the overall architecture design of IOST, quickly get started with smart contract development, and join the IOST network as a node.
Developer documentation: developers.iost.io
3) Friendly features in public chain design
IOST supports JavaScript, adds and improves more standard libraries and tools in the latest version of the testnet, supports more flexible control and management of smart contracts, including the deletion and upgrade of smart contracts, and supports the smart contract domain name system.
Testnet URL: github.com/iost-official/go-iost
4) Developer community Slack
IOST has a developer community Slack, which brings together developers from all over the world. The atmosphere in the community is active, and there are often knowledge sharing and technical issues discussions. Developers can directly ask questions to the R&D team and get answers quickly.
Developer Community URL: invite.iost.io
5) Offline Technology Meetup
IOST has team members in the United States, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, and Russia. Our partner nodes have also held offline Meetups and Workshops many times and in different locations, drawing the attention of a large number of developers and attracting them to join IOST. Terry also often travels to the United States, Japan, and other countries to conduct technical exchanges with local developers and deal with partnerships with multiple companies.
Regarding the development of DApps, what is the plan of IOST?
For business development, we will make more efforts and actively reach new partnerships and cooperate with traditional industries and manufacturers. We also attach great importance to maintaining the leading position in our industry and pay attention to the output of our industry’s vision. For client development, we have made a full exploration of the DApp field since Q1 this year and conclude that in recent times this business model has matured. From the construction of the developer community to the support of DApps, we have also jointly launched the blockchainization plan of traditional Apps recently and made a complete set of DApp development and commercialization/monetization models, and we will continue to work on it. The blockchain is still in an early stage, and the entire industry is still moving forward, and there are even many cases of quick success. But IOST has always had a clear goal and keeps pace. This is the best for IOST.