Having recently researched Polkadot, as with other projects, I wanted to document what I had learnt, so that others may potential find it useful. Hopefully providing a balanced view, it will consist of three articles outlined below.
Part One — Polkadot Overview and Benefits (This article)
Part Two — In-Depth look at the Consensus
Part Three — Limitations and Issues
I will provide links throughout, providing reference to sections, as well as include a list of sources at the bottom of the article for further reading.
https://preview.redd.it/pr8hmkhhe6m51.png?width=700&format=png&auto=webp&s=58331d0411e684b4c511d59aeabeb789205d8a44

Overview

Frustrated with the slow development of Ethereum 2.0, Dr. Gavin Wood, co-founder of Ethereum and inventor of Solidity, left to begin work on Polkadot, a next generation scalable blockchain protocol that connects multiple specialised blockchains into one unified network. It achieves scalability through a sharding infrastructure with multiple blockchains running in parallel, called parachains, that connect to a central chain called the Relay Chain.
Whilst it shares some similarities with Ethereum 2.0, one key differentiator is that it uses heterogeneous sharding, where each parachains can be customised through the Substrate development framework, enabling them to be optimised for a specific use case and running in parallel rather than same across all shards. This is important as when it comes to blockchain architecture, one size does not fit all and all blockchains make trade-offs to support different features and use cases.
All parachains connect to the relay chain, which validates the state transition of connected parachains, providing shared state across the entire ecosystem. If the Relay Chain must revert for any reason, then all of the parachains would also revert. This is to ensure that the validity of the entire system can persist, and no individual part is corruptible. The shared state makes it so that the trust assumptions when using parachains are only those of the Relay Chain validator set, and no other. Since the validator set on the Relay Chain is expected to be secure with a large amount of stake put up to back it, it is desirable for parachains to benefit from this security.
This enables seamless interoperability between all parachains and parathreads using the Cross-chain Message Passing (XCMP) protocol, allowing arbitrary data — not just tokens — to be transferred across blockchains. Interoperability is also possible to other ecosystems through bridges, which are specifically designed parachains or parathreads that are custom made to interact with another ecosystem such as Ethereum, Bitcoin and Cosmos for example, enabling interoperability. Because these other ecosystems don’t use the same shared state of Polkadot, finality is incredibly important, because whilst the relay chain can roll back all the parachains, it can’t roll back the Ethereum or Bitcoin blockchains for example. This is discussed further in part three.
https://preview.redd.it/lmrz428je6m51.png?width=1000&format=png&auto=webp&s=237ad499f85e960ca50ca884234453ce283a60c0
The relay chain is responsible for the network’s shared security, consensus and cross-chain interoperability. It is secured by Validators and Nominators staking the native DOT tokens. Ultimately scalability for the ecosystem is determined by how scalable the relay chain can be. The number of parachains is determined by the number of validators on the relay chain. The hope is to reach 1000 validators, which would enable around 100 parachains. With each parachain being capable of around 1,000 transactions per second.
Nominators stake their DOT tokens with validators they trust, with the validators likely charging a small commission to cover running costs. If a validator is found to have performed misconduct a percentage of the their stake but also the nominators stake will be slashed depending upon the severity. For Level 4 security threats such as collusion and including an invalid block then 100% of the stake will be slashed.What’s really important to understand is that both the validators own stake and the nominated stake will be slashed, so you could lose all your DOT that you have staked against a validator if they perform maliciously. Therefore, it’s very important not to just try and maximise rewards and being oblivious to the risk, not only can you lose all your DOT, but you are making the entire system less secure (addressed in part three). There have already been several minor slashing incidents so far, so something to really consider.
https://preview.redd.it/aj9v0azke6m51.png?width=700&format=png&auto=webp&s=86134eaef08d1ef50466d1d80ec5ce151327d702

Auction for Parachain Slots

Due to the limited number of parachain slots available, there needs to be a method to decide who gets a parachain slot. This is achieved through a candle-auction where participants bid with DOT to secure a lease on a parchain slot to secure a 6 — 24 month period, with the highest bidders winning. DOT isn’t spent, but rather locked for the duration of the lease and unable to participate in staking and earn rewards. In the event they are unsuccessful in securing a further slot, then the lease expires and the DOT will be returned.
Of the 100 parachain slots that they hope to be able to accommodate, between 10 and 30 will be reserved for system parachains, with the remaining available for either auction slots or used for parathreads. Whilst the DOT is returned, due to the limited number of slots available this could result in significant amounts of DOT needing to be acquired to secure a slot. How the auction mechanics effect the price of DOT also remains to be seen, with potentially a rise from the start of the auction, followed by a fall before the lease ends and the DOT are returned. The plan is to continuously have a small amount of parachain auctions going throughout the year, to minimise any unwanted effects. How comfortable developers will be with locking significant amounts of funds in a highly volatile asset for an extended amount of time, also remains to be seen. They could also be in a position where they can no longer afford to keep their lease and have to downgrade to a parathread (providing the application will still function with the reduced performance or migrate to another platform). See this article for more details on the auction mechanism
https://preview.redd.it/wp8rvxlme6m51.png?width=387&format=png&auto=webp&s=496320d627405362142210e1a4c17ebe43e1f8a1

Parathreads

For applications that don’t require the guaranteed performance of a parachain or don’t want to pay the large fees to secure a parachain slot, then parathreads can be used instead. Parathreads have a fixed fee for registration that would realistically be much lower than the cost of acquiring a parachain slot and compete with other parathreads in a per-block auction to have their transactions included in the next relay chain block. A portion of the parachain slots on the Relay Chain will be designated as part of the parathread pool.
In the event that a parachain loses its slot then it can transition to a parathread (assuming the application can still function with the reduced and varied performance of sharing the slot between many). This also enables small projects to start out with a parathread and then upgrade to a parachain slot when required.

Token

DOT is the native token of the Polkadot network and serves three key functions. (i) It is staked to provide security for the relay chain, (ii) to be bonded to connect a chain to Polkadot as a parachain and (iii) to be used for governance of the network. There is an initial total supply of 1 billion DOT with yearly inflation estimated to be around 10% providing the optimal 50% staking rate is achieved, resulting in rewards of 20% to those that stake (net 10% when take into account inflation). Those that don’t stake lose 10% through dilution. Should the amount staked exceed the optimal 50% then reward rates reduce as well as inflation to make staking less attractive. Likewise if its below 50% then rewards and inflation rate will be higher to encourage staking. Staking isn’t risk free though as mentioned before.

Governance

Polkadot employs an on-chain governance model where in order to make any changes to the network, DOT holders vote on a proposal to upgrade the network with the help of the Council. The council is an entity comprising a 23 seats each represented by an on-chain account. Its goals are to represent passive stakeholders, submit sensible and important proposals, and cancel dangerous or malicious proposals. All DOT holders are free to register their candidacy for the Council, and free to vote for any number of candidates, with a voting power proportional to their stake.
Any stakeholder can submit a public proposal by depositing a fixed minimum amount of DOTs, which stays locked for a certain period. If someone agrees with the proposal, they may deposit the same amount of tokens to endorse it. Public proposals are stored in a priority queue, and at regular intervals the proposal with the most endorsements gets tabled for a referendum. The locked tokens are released once the proposal is tabled. Council proposals are submitted by the Council, and are stored in a separate priority queue where the priorities are set at the Council’s discretion.
Every thirty days, a new proposal will be tabled, and a referendum will come up for a vote. The proposal to be tabled is the top proposal from either the public-proposal queue or the Council-proposal queue, alternating between the two queues.
The Technical Committee is composed according to a single vote for each team that has successfully and independently implemented or formally specified the protocol in Polkadot, or in its canary network Kusama. The Technical Committee is the last line of defence for the system. Its sole purpose is detecting present or imminent issues in the system such as bugs in the code or security vulnerabilities, and proposing and fast-tracking emergency referenda.

Ecosystem

Whilst parachains aren’t currently implemented at this stage, there is a rapidly growing ecosystem looking to build on Polkadot with substrate. Polkadot’s “cousin”, the canary network Kusama used for experimentation, was launched last year by the same team and contributes to the early growth of the overall ecosystem. See here for a list of the current projects looking to build on Polkadot and filter by Substrate based.
https://preview.redd.it/rt8i0hqpe6m51.png?width=700&format=png&auto=webp&s=f6bcf26fa84463765f720c3074ee10157c2735f6
Now that we have covered the basics, in part two I will explain how the consensus mechanism in Polkadot works and covering more of the technical aspects.

Dragonchain Public Proposal TL;DR:

Dragonchain has demonstrated twice Reddit’s entire total daily volume (votes, comments, and posts per Reddit 2019 Year in Review) in a 24-hour demo on an operational network. Every single transaction on Dragonchain is decentralized immediately through 5 levels of Dragon Net, and then secured with combined proof on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, and Binance Chain, via Interchain. At the time, in January 2020, the entire cost of the demo was approximately $25K on a single system (transaction fees locked at $0.0001/txn). With current fees (lowest fee $0.0000025/txn), this would cost as little as $625.
Watch Joe walk through the entire proposal and answer questions on YouTube.
This proposal is also available on the Dragonchain blog.

Hello Reddit and Ethereum community!

I’m Joe Roets, Founder & CEO of Dragonchain. When the team and I first heard about The Great Reddit Scaling Bake-Off we were intrigued. We believe we have the solutions Reddit seeks for its community points system and we have them at scale.
For your consideration, we have submitted our proposal below. The team at Dragonchain and I welcome and look forward to your technical questions, philosophical feedback, and fair criticism, to build a scaling solution for Reddit that will empower its users. Because our architecture is unlike other blockchain platforms out there today, we expect to receive many questions while people try to grasp our project. I will answer all questions here in this thread on Reddit, and I've answered some questions in the stream on YouTube.
We have seen good discussions so far in the competition. We hope that Reddit’s scaling solution will emerge from The Great Reddit Scaling Bake-Off and that Reddit will have great success with the implementation.

Executive summary

Dragonchain is a robust open source hybrid blockchain platform that has proven to withstand the passing of time since our inception in 2014. We have continued to evolve to harness the scalability of private nodes, yet take full advantage of the security of public decentralized networks, like Ethereum. We have a live, operational, and fully functional Interchain network integrating Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, and ~700 independent Dragonchain nodes. Every transaction is secured to Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Ethereum Classic. Transactions are immediately usable on chain, and the first decentralization is seen within 20 seconds on Dragon Net. Security increases further to public networks ETH, BTC, and ETC within 10 minutes to 2 hours. Smart contracts can be written in any executable language, offering full freedom to existing developers. We invite any developer to watch the demo, play with our SDK’s, review open source code, and to help us move forward. Dragonchain specializes in scalable loyalty & rewards solutions and has built a decentralized social network on chain, with very affordable transaction costs. This experience can be combined with the insights Reddit and the Ethereum community have gained in the past couple of months to roll out the solution at a rapid pace.

Response and PoC

In The Great Reddit Scaling Bake-Off post, Reddit has asked for a series of demonstrations, requirements, and other considerations. In this section, we will attempt to answer all of these requests.

Live Demo

A live proof of concept showing hundreds of thousands of transactions

On Jan 7, 2020, Dragonchain hosted a 24-hour live demonstration during which a quarter of a billion (250 million+) transactions executed fully on an operational network. Every single transaction on Dragonchain is decentralized immediately through 5 levels of Dragon Net, and then secured with combined proof on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, and Binance Chain, via Interchain. This means that every single transaction is secured by, and traceable to these networks. An attack on this system would require a simultaneous attack on all of the Interchained networks.
24 hours in 4 minutes (YouTube):
24 hours in 4 minutes
The demonstration was of a single business system, and any user is able to scale this further, by running multiple systems simultaneously. Our goals for the event were to demonstrate a consistent capacity greater than that of Visa over an extended time period.
Tooling to reproduce our demo is available here:
https://github.com/dragonchain/spirit-bomb

Source Code

Source code (for on & off-chain components as well tooling used for the PoC). The source code does not have to be shared publicly, but if Reddit decides to use a particular solution it will need to be shared with Reddit at some point.

• Dragonchain Core
• Tooling for demonstration
• Dragonchain Github

Scaling

How it works & scales

Architectural Scaling

Dragonchain’s architecture attacks the scalability issue from multiple angles. Dragonchain is a hybrid blockchain platform, wherein every transaction is protected on a business node to the requirements of that business or purpose. A business node may be held completely private or may be exposed or replicated to any level of exposure desired.
Every node has its own blockchain and is independently scalable. Dragonchain established Context Based Verification as its consensus model. Every transaction is immediately usable on a trust basis, and in time is provable to an increasing level of decentralized consensus. A transaction will have a level of decentralization to independently owned and deployed Dragonchain nodes (~700 nodes) within seconds, and full decentralization to BTC and ETH within minutes or hours. Level 5 nodes (Interchain nodes) function to secure all transactions to public or otherwise external chains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. These nodes scale the system by aggregating multiple blocks into a single Interchain transaction on a cadence. This timing is configurable based upon average fees for each respective chain. For detailed information about Dragonchain’s architecture, and Context Based Verification, please refer to the Dragonchain Architecture Document.

Economic Scaling

An interesting feature of Dragonchain’s network consensus is its economics and scarcity model. Since Dragon Net nodes (L2-L4) are independent staking nodes, deployment to cloud platforms would allow any of these nodes to scale to take on a large percentage of the verification work. This is great for scalability, but not good for the economy, because there is no scarcity, and pricing would develop a downward spiral and result in fewer verification nodes. For this reason, Dragonchain uses TIME as scarcity.
TIME is calculated as the number of Dragons held, multiplied by the number of days held. TIME influences the user’s access to features within the Dragonchain ecosystem. It takes into account both the Dragon balance and length of time each Dragon is held. TIME is staked by users against every verification node and dictates how much of the transaction fees are awarded to each participating node for every block.
TIME also dictates the transaction fee itself for the business node. TIME is staked against a business node to set a deterministic transaction fee level (see transaction fee table below in Cost section). This is very interesting in a discussion about scaling because it guarantees independence for business implementation. No matter how much traffic appears on the entire network, a business is guaranteed to not see an increased transaction fee rate.

Scaled Deployment

Dragonchain uses Docker and Kubernetes to allow the use of best practices traditional system scaling. Dragonchain offers managed nodes with an easy to use web based console interface. The user may also deploy a Dragonchain node within their own datacenter or favorite cloud platform. Users have deployed Dragonchain nodes on-prem on Amazon AWS, Google Cloud, MS Azure, and other hosting platforms around the world. Any executable code, anything you can write, can be written into a smart contract. This flexibility is what allows us to say that developers with no blockchain experience can use any code language to access the benefits of blockchain. Customers have used NodeJS, Python, Java, and even BASH shell script to write smart contracts on Dragonchain.
With Docker containers, we achieve better separation of concerns, faster deployment, higher reliability, and lower response times.
We chose Kubernetes for its self-healing features, ability to run multiple services on one server, and its large and thriving development community. It is resilient, scalable, and automated. OpenFaaS allows us to package smart contracts as Docker images for easy deployment.
Contract deployment time is now bounded only by the size of the Docker image being deployed but remains fast even for reasonably large images. We also take advantage of Docker’s flexibility and its ability to support any language that can run on x86 architecture. Any image, public or private, can be run as a smart contract using Dragonchain.

Flexibility in Scaling

Dragonchain’s architecture considers interoperability and integration as key features. From inception, we had a goal to increase adoption via integration with real business use cases and traditional systems.
We envision the ability for Reddit, in the future, to be able to integrate alternate content storage platforms or other financial services along with the token.

• LBRY - To allow users to deploy content natively to LBRY
• MakerDAO to allow users to lend small amounts backed by their Reddit community points.
• STORJ/SIA to allow decentralized on chain storage of portions of content. These integrations or any other are relatively easy to integrate on Dragonchain with an Interchain implementation.

Cost

Cost estimates (on-chain and off-chain) For the purpose of this proposal, we assume that all transactions are on chain (posts, replies, and votes).

On the Dragonchain network, transaction costs are deterministic/predictable. By staking TIME on the business node (as described above) Reddit can reduce transaction costs to as low as $0.0000025 per transaction.
Dragonchain Fees Table

Getting Started

How to run it

Building on Dragonchain is simple and requires no blockchain experience. Spin up a business node (L1) in our managed environment (AWS), run it in your own cloud environment, or on-prem in your own datacenter. Clear documentation will walk you through the steps of spinning up your first Dragonchain Level 1 Business node.
Getting started is easy...

1. Download Dragonchain’s dctl
2. Input three commands into a terminal
3. Build an image
4. Run it

More information can be found in our Get started documents.

• Quickstart
• Full Documentation

​

Architecture

Dragonchain is an open source hybrid platform. Through Dragon Net, each chain combines the power of a public blockchain (like Ethereum) with the privacy of a private blockchain.
Dragonchain organizes its network into five separate levels. A Level 1, or business node, is a totally private blockchain only accessible through the use of public/private keypairs. All business logic, including smart contracts, can be executed on this node directly and added to the chain.
After creating a block, the Level 1 business node broadcasts a version stripped of sensitive private data to Dragon Net. Three Level 2 Validating nodes validate the transaction based on guidelines determined from the business. A Level 3 Diversity node checks that the level 2 nodes are from a diverse array of locations. A Level 4 Notary node, hosted by a KYC partner, then signs the validation record received from the Level 3 node. The transaction hash is ledgered to the Level 5 public chain to take advantage of the hash power of massive public networks.
Dragon Net can be thought of as a “blockchain of blockchains”, where every level is a complete private blockchain. Because an L1 can send to multiple nodes on a single level, proof of existence is distributed among many places in the network. Eventually, proof of existence reaches level 5 and is published on a public network.

• Dragonchain architecture
• Dragon Net easy to consume 2018 Infographic

API Documentation

APIs (on chain & off)

• Python SDK
• NodeJS/Javascript SDK
• Go SDK
• DCTL Package
• API References
• RESTful API

SDK Source

• https://github.com/dragonchain/dragonchain-sdk-python
• https://github.com/dragonchain/dragonchain-sdk-javascript
• https://github.com/dragonchain/dragonchain-sdk-go
• https://github.com/dragonchain/dragonchain-sdk-dart

Nobody’s Perfect

Known issues or tradeoffs

• Dragonchain is open source and even though the platform is easy enough for developers to code in any language they are comfortable with, we do not have so large a developer community as Ethereum. We would like to see the Ethereum developer community (and any other communities) become familiar with our SDK’s, our solutions, and our platform, to unlock the full potential of our Ethereum Interchain. Long ago we decided to prioritize both Bitcoin and Ethereum Interchains. We envision an ecosystem that encompasses different projects to give developers the ability to take full advantage of all the opportunities blockchain offers to create decentralized solutions not only for Reddit but for all of our current platforms and systems. We believe that together we will take the adoption of blockchain further. We currently have additional Interchain with Ethereum Classic. We look forward to Interchain with other blockchains in the future. We invite all blockchains projects who believe in decentralization and security to Interchain with Dragonchain.
• While we only have 700 nodes compared to 8,000 Ethereum and 10,000 Bitcoin nodes. We harness those 18,000 nodes to scale to extremely high levels of security. See Dragonchain metrics.
• Some may consider the centralization of Dragonchain’s business nodes as an issue at first glance, however, the model is by design to protect business data. We do not consider this a drawback as these nodes can make any, none, or all data public. Depending upon the implementation, every subreddit could have control of its own business node, for potential business and enterprise offerings, bringing new alternative revenue streams to Reddit.

Costs and resources

Summary of cost & resource information for both on-chain & off-chain components used in the PoC, as well as cost & resource estimates for further scaling. If your PoC is not on mainnet, make note of any mainnet caveats (such as congestion issues).

Every transaction on the PoC system had a transaction fee of $0.0001 (one-hundredth of a cent USD). At 256MM transactions, the demo cost $25,600. With current operational fees, the same demonstration would cost $640 USD.
For the demonstration, to achieve throughput to mimic a worldwide payments network, we modeled several clients in AWS and 4-5 business nodes to handle the traffic. The business nodes were tuned to handle higher throughput by adjusting memory and machine footprint on AWS. This flexibility is valuable to implementing a system such as envisioned by Reddit. Given that Reddit’s daily traffic (posts, replies, and votes) is less than half that of our demo, we would expect that the entire Reddit system could be handled on 2-5 business nodes using right-sized containers on AWS or similar environments.
Verification was accomplished on the operational Dragon Net network with over 700 independently owned verification nodes running around the world at no cost to the business other than paid transaction fees.

Requirements

Scaling

This PoC should scale to the numbers below with minimal costs (both on & off-chain). There should also be a clear path to supporting hundreds of millions of users.
Over a 5 day period, your scaling PoC should be able to handle:
*100,000 point claims (minting & distributing points) *25,000 subscriptions *75,000 one-off points burning *100,000 transfers

During Dragonchain’s 24 hour demo, the above required numbers were reached within the first few minutes.
Reddit’s total activity is 9000% more than Ethereum’s total transaction level. Even if you do not include votes, it is still 700% more than Ethereum’s current volume. Dragonchain has demonstrated that it can handle 250 million transactions a day, and it’s architecture allows for multiple systems to work at that level simultaneously. In our PoC, we demonstrate double the full capacity of Reddit, and every transaction was proven all the way to Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Reddit Scaling on Ethereum

Decentralization

Solutions should not depend on any single third-party provider. We prefer solutions that do not depend on specific entities such as Reddit or another provider, and solutions with no single point of control or failure in off-chain components but recognize there are numerous trade-offs to consider

Dragonchain’s architecture calls for a hybrid approach. Private business nodes hold the sensitive data while the validation and verification of transactions for the business are decentralized within seconds and secured to public blockchains within 10 minutes to 2 hours. Nodes could potentially be controlled by owners of individual subreddits for more organic decentralization.

• Billing is currently centralized - there is a path to federation and decentralization of a scaled billing solution.
• Operational multi-cloud
• Operational on-premises capabilities
• Operational deployment to any datacenter
• Over 700 independent Community Verification Nodes with proof of ownership
• Operational Interchain (Interoperable to Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ethereum Classic, open to more)

Usability Scaling solutions should have a simple end user experience.

Users shouldn't have to maintain any extra state/proofs, regularly monitor activity, keep track of extra keys, or sign anything other than their normal transactions

Dragonchain and its customers have demonstrated extraordinary usability as a feature in many applications, where users do not need to know that the system is backed by a live blockchain. Lyceum is one of these examples, where the progress of academy courses is being tracked, and successful completion of courses is rewarded with certificates on chain. Our @Save_The_Tweet bot is popular on Twitter. When used with one of the following hashtags - #please, #blockchain, #ThankYou, or #eternalize the tweet is saved through Eternal to multiple blockchains. A proof report is available for future reference. Other examples in use are DEN, our decentralized social media platform, and our console, where users can track their node rewards, view their TIME, and operate a business node.
Examples:

• Den social media
• Eternal & Save The Tweet bot
• Lyceum/Academy

​

Transactions complete in a reasonable amount of time (seconds or minutes, not hours or days)

All transactions are immediately usable on chain by the system. A transaction begins the path to decentralization at the conclusion of a 5-second block when it gets distributed across 5 separate community run nodes. Full decentralization occurs within 10 minutes to 2 hours depending on which interchain (Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Ethereum Classic) the transaction hits first. Within approximately 2 hours, the combined hash power of all interchained blockchains secures the transaction.
​

Free to use for end users (no gas fees, or fixed/minimal fees that Reddit can pay on their behalf)

With transaction pricing as low as $0.0000025 per transaction, it may be considered reasonable for Reddit to cover transaction fees for users.
All of Reddit's Transactions on Blockchain (month)
Community points can be earned by users and distributed directly to their Reddit account in batch (as per Reddit minting plan), and allow users to withdraw rewards to their Ethereum wallet whenever they wish. Withdrawal fees can be paid by either user or Reddit. This model has been operating inside the Dragonchain system since 2018, and many security and financial compliance features can be optionally added. We feel that this capability greatly enhances user experience because it is seamless to a regular user without cryptocurrency experience, yet flexible to a tech savvy user. With regard to currency or token transactions, these would occur on the Reddit network, verified to BTC and ETH. These transactions would incur the $0.0000025 transaction fee. To estimate this fee we use the monthly active Reddit users statista with a 60% adoption rate and an estimated 10 transactions per month average resulting in an approximate $720 cost across the system. Reddit could feasibly incur all associated internal network charges (mining/minting, transfer, burn) as these are very low and controllable fees.
Reddit Internal Token Transaction Fees
​
Reddit Ethereum Token Transaction Fees
When we consider further the Ethereum fees that might be incurred, we have a few choices for a solution.

1. Offload all Ethereum transaction fees (user withdrawals) to interested users as they wish to withdraw tokens for external use or sale.
2. Cover Ethereum transaction fees by aggregating them on a timed schedule. Users would request withdrawal (from Reddit or individual subreddits), and they would be transacted on the Ethereum network every hour (or some other schedule).
3. In a combination of the above, customers could cover aggregated fees.
4. Integrate with alternate Ethereum roll up solutions or other proposals to aggregate minting and distribution transactions onto Ethereum.

Bonus Points

Users should be able to view their balances & transactions via a blockchain explorer-style interface

From interfaces for users who have no knowledge of blockchain technology to users who are well versed in blockchain terms such as those present in a typical block explorer, a system powered by Dragonchain has flexibility on how to provide balances and transaction data to users. Transactions can be made viewable in an Eternal Proof Report, which displays raw data along with TIME staking information and traceability all the way to Bitcoin, Ethereum, and every other Interchained network. The report shows fields such as transaction ID, timestamp, block ID, multiple verifications, and Interchain proof. See example here.
Node payouts within the Dragonchain console are listed in chronological order and can be further seen in either Dragons or USD. See example here.
In our social media platform, Dragon Den, users can see, in real-time, their NRG and MTR balances. See example here.
A new influencer app powered by Dragonchain, Raiinmaker, breaks down data into a user friendly interface that shows coin portfolio, redeemed rewards, and social scores per campaign. See example here.
​

Exiting is fast & simple

Withdrawing funds on Dragonchain’s console requires three clicks, however, withdrawal scenarios with more enhanced security features per Reddit’s discretion are obtainable.
​

Interoperability Compatibility with third party apps (wallets/contracts/etc) is necessary.

Proven interoperability at scale that surpasses the required specifications. Our entire platform consists of interoperable blockchains connected to each other and traditional systems. APIs are well documented. Third party permissions are possible with a simple smart contract without the end user being aware. No need to learn any specialized proprietary language. Any code base (not subsets) is usable within a Docker container. Interoperable with any blockchain or traditional APIs. We’ve witnessed relatively complex systems built by engineers with no blockchain or cryptocurrency experience. We’ve also demonstrated the creation of smart contracts within minutes built with BASH shell and Node.js. Please see our source code and API documentation.
​

Scaling solutions should be extensible and allow third parties to build on top of it Open source and extensible
APIs should be well documented and stable

• Python SDK
• NodeJS/Javascript SDK
• Go SDK
• DCTL Package
• API References
• RESTful API

​

Documentation should be clear and complete

For full documentation, explore our docs, SDK’s, Github repo’s, architecture documents, original Disney documentation, and other links or resources provided in this proposal.

• Github
• Architecture
• Disney Use Cases
• Den social media
• Dragon Den Blue Paper
• Core documentation
• Javascript SDK
• Python SDK
• Go SDK
• Dart SDK
• User friendly console
• TIME
• Academy
• Dragonchain Wikipedia

​

Third-party permissionless integrations should be possible & straightforward Smart contracts are Docker based, can be written in any language, use full language (not subsets), and can therefore be integrated with any system including traditional system APIs. Simple is better. Learning an uncommon or proprietary language should not be necessary.

Advanced knowledge of mathematics, cryptography, or L2 scaling should not be required. Compatibility with common utilities & toolchains is expected.
Dragonchain business nodes and smart contracts leverage Docker to allow the use of literally any language or executable code. No proprietary language is necessary. We’ve witnessed relatively complex systems built by engineers with no blockchain or cryptocurrency experience. We’ve also demonstrated the creation of smart contracts within minutes built with BASH shell and Node.js.

Bonus

Bonus Points: Show us how it works. Do you have an idea for a cool new use case for Community Points? Build it!

TIME

Community points could be awarded to Reddit users based upon TIME too, whereas the longer someone is part of a subreddit, the more community points someone naturally gained, even if not actively commenting or sharing new posts. A daily login could be required for these community points to be credited. This grants awards to readers too and incentivizes readers to create an account on Reddit if they browse the website often. This concept could also be leveraged to provide some level of reputation based upon duration and consistency of contribution to a community subreddit.

• TIME
• Learn more about TIME and how to apply this to your nodes

Dragon Den

Dragonchain has already built a social media platform that harnesses community involvement. Dragon Den is a decentralized community built on the Dragonchain blockchain platform. Dragon Den is Dragonchain’s answer to fake news, trolling, and censorship. It incentivizes the creation and evaluation of quality content within communities. It could be described as being a shareholder of a subreddit or Reddit in its entirety. The more your subreddit is thriving, the more rewarding it will be. Den is currently in a public beta and in active development, though the real token economy is not live yet. There are different tokens for various purposes. Two tokens are Lair Ownership Rights (LOR) and Lair Ownership Tokens (LOT). LOT is a non-fungible token for ownership of a specific Lair. LOT will only be created and converted from LOR.
Energy (NRG) and Matter (MTR) work jointly. Your MTR determines how much NRG you receive in a 24-hour period. Providing quality content, or evaluating content will earn MTR.

• Dragon Den Blue Paper
• Den social media

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Security. Users have full ownership & control of their points.

All community points awarded based upon any type of activity or gift, are secured and provable to all Interchain networks (currently BTC, ETH, ETC). Users are free to spend and withdraw their points as they please, depending on the features Reddit wants to bring into production.
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Balances and transactions cannot be forged, manipulated, or blocked by Reddit or anyone else

Users can withdraw their balance to their ERC20 wallet, directly through Reddit. Reddit can cover the fees on their behalf, or the user covers this with a portion of their balance.
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Users should own their points and be able to get on-chain ERC20 tokens without permission from anyone else

Through our console users can withdraw their ERC20 rewards. This can be achieved on Reddit too. Here is a walkthrough of our console, though this does not show the quick withdrawal functionality, a user can withdraw at any time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNlTMxnfVHw
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Points should be recoverable to on-chain ERC20 tokens even if all third-parties involved go offline

If necessary, signed transactions from the Reddit system (e.g. Reddit + Subreddit) can be sent to the Ethereum smart contract for minting.
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A public, third-party review attesting to the soundness of the design should be available

To our knowledge, at least two large corporations, including a top 3 accounting firm, have conducted positive reviews. These reviews have never been made public, as Dragonchain did not pay or contract for these studies to be released.
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Bonus points
Public, third-party implementation review available or in progress

See above
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Compatibility with HSMs & hardware wallets

For the purpose of this proposal, all tokenization would be on the Ethereum network using standard token contracts and as such, would be able to leverage all hardware wallet and Ethereum ecosystem services.

Other Considerations

Minting/distributing tokens is not performed by Reddit directly

This operation can be automated by smart contract on Ethereum. Subreddits can if desired have a role to play.
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One off point burning, as well as recurring, non-interactive point burning (for subreddit memberships) should be possible and scalable

This is possible and scalable with interaction between Dragonchain Reddit system and Ethereum token contract(s).
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Fully open-source solutions are strongly preferred

Dragonchain is fully open source (see section on Disney release after conclusion).

Conclusion

Whether it is today, or in the future, we would like to work together to bring secure flexibility to the highest standards. It is our hope to be considered by Ethereum, Reddit, and other integrative solutions so we may further discuss the possibilities of implementation. In our public demonstration, 256 million transactions were handled in our operational network on chain in 24 hours, for the low cost of $25K, which if run today would cost $625. Dragonchain’s interoperable foundation provides the atmosphere necessary to implement a frictionless community points system. Thank you for your consideration of our proposal. We look forward to working with the community to make something great!

Disney Releases Blockchain Platform as Open Source

The team at Disney created the Disney Private Blockchain Platform. The system was a hybrid interoperable blockchain platform for ledgering and smart contract development geared toward solving problems with blockchain adoption and usability. All objective evaluation would consider the team’s output a success. We released a list of use cases that we explored in some capacity at Disney, and our input on blockchain standardization as part of our participation in the W3C Blockchain Community Group.
https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-blockchain/2016May/0052.html

Open Source

In 2016, Roets proposed to release the platform as open source to spread the technology outside of Disney, as others within the W3C group were interested in the solutions that had been created inside of Disney.
Following a long process, step by step, the team met requirements for release. Among the requirements, the team had to:

• Obtain VP support and approval for the release
• Verify ownership of the software to be released
• Verify that no proprietary content would be released
• Convince the organization that there was a value to the open source community
• Convince the organization that there was a value to Disney
• Offer the plan for ongoing maintenance of the project outside of Disney
• Itemize competing projects
• Verify no conflict of interest
• Preferred license
• Change the project name to not use the name Disney, any Disney character, or any other associated IP - proposed Dragonchain - approved
• Obtain legal approval
• Approval from corporate, parks, and other business units
• Approval from multiple Disney patent groups Copyright holder defined by Disney (Disney Connected and Advanced Technologies)
• Trademark searches conducted for the selected name Dragonchain
• Obtain IT security approval
• Manual review of OSS components conducted
• OWASP Dependency and Vulnerability Check Conducted
• Obtain technical (software) approval
• Offer management, process, and financial plans for the maintenance of the project.
• Meet list of items to be addressed before release
• Remove all Disney project references and scripts
• Create a public distribution list for email communications
• Remove Roets’ direct and internal contact information
• Create public Slack channel and move from Disney slack channels
• Create proper labels for issue tracking
• Rename internal private Github repository
• Add informative description to Github page
• Expand README.md with more specific information
• Add information beyond current “Blockchains are Magic”
• Add getting started sections and info on cloning/forking the project
• Add installation details
• Add uninstall process
• Add unit, functional, and integration test information
• Detail how to contribute and get involved
• Describe the git workflow that the project will use
• Move to public, non-Disney git repository (Github or Bitbucket)
• Obtain Disney Open Source Committee approval for release

On top of meeting the above criteria, as part of the process, the maintainer of the project had to receive the codebase on their own personal email and create accounts for maintenance (e.g. Github) with non-Disney accounts. Given the fact that the project spanned multiple business units, Roets was individually responsible for its ongoing maintenance. Because of this, he proposed in the open source application to create a non-profit organization to hold the IP and maintain the project. This was approved by Disney.
The Disney Open Source Committee approved the application known as OSSRELEASE-10, and the code was released on October 2, 2016. Disney decided to not issue a press release.
Original OSSRELASE-10 document

Dragonchain Foundation

The Dragonchain Foundation was created on January 17, 2017. https://den.social/l/Dragonchain/24130078352e485d96d2125082151cf0/dragonchain-and-disney/