Cartesi AMA Recap
CryptoDiffer team
Hello, everyone!
We are glad to meet here
Colin Steil, Co-Founder & COO at Cartesi
Felipe Argento, Blockchain Engineer at Cartesi
Co-Founder & COO at Cartesi, Colin Steil
Hey all!
Excited to be here!
Blockchain Engineer at Cartesi, Felipe Argento
Hello everyone 🙂
Thanks for having us!
CryptoDiffer team
Can you introduce yourself to our community ?
Co-Founder & COO at Cartesi, Colin Steil
I’m Colin, Co-Founder and COO of Cartesi. I am a previous venture capitalist and start-up founder with a passion to make blockchain a reality. I have an expertise in execution and years of experience in community building and business operations across the globe. Excited to be here today and answer everyone’s questions around our recent CTSI Reserve Mining Mainnet launch!
Blockchain Engineer at Cartesi, Felipe Argento
Hi everyone! I am Felipe, a blockchain engineer at Cartesi. I went from an iOS developer at Apple Academy to falling in love with blockchain and becoming a researcher at one of the biggest Brazilian universities. Finally, I ended up working with this incredible team at Cartesi. I am part of the team responsible for designing, coding, and implementing the smart contracts for Cartesi as well as architecting cryptoeconomic protocols. Super excited to be here having the opportunity to talk about the Reserve Mining launch, which I contributed a lot to – writing many of the smart contracts involved 🙂
CryptoDiffer team
Can you briefly tell us what is Cartesi in 3-5 sentences?
Co-Founder & COO at Cartesi, Colin Steil
For sure. Cartesi is taking smart contracts on Ethereum to the next level.
It is solving the urgent problem of scalability and high fees by implementing a variant of optimistic roll-ups.
Most notably, it is revolutionizing smart contract programming by allowing developers to code with mainstream software stacks instead of Solidity.
Noether and our recent launch of staking and CTSI Reserve Mining is bootstrapping Cartesi’s Data Availability Oracle that’s optimized for ephemeral data, providing low-cost storage to DApp developers.
CryptoDiffer team
Let`s now talk about the CTSI Reserve Mining Mainnet launch! Can you give a brief about it?
Blockchain Engineer at Cartesi, Felipe Argento
Sure! We are really excited about this launch. This marks a new chapter for CTSI.
Today we launched staking with CTSI – CTSI Reserve Mining. It allows CTSI token holders to run Cartesi’s reference software and be rewarded for their participation.
This will help to bootstrap Noether, the proof of stake sidechain we are developing for hosting temporary DApp data. Noether forms a highly optimized data availability oracle for temporary storage and is a vital part of Cartesi’s scalability stack. Most importantly, CTSI Reserve Mining fosters a network of nodes and participation ratio, which are fundamental for the security of the Noether side-chain.
In addition, CTSI Reserve Mining provides rewards and flexibility for network participants, allowing miners to earn 2,900 CTSI per block (on average every 30 minutes), and without long locking periods. All of the staking contracts within the Reserve Mining program have been fully tested and audited, allowing users to stake their assets with confidence.
If you want to learn more: https://cartesi.io/mine
CryptoDiffer team
Awesome, a lot of updates to come out!
Thank you for great answers!
I think it is time to start community questions round!
Cryptodiffer Community
Q1. I’m interested in participating in your staking system, could you please explain how to run a Cartesi node? .
Q2. This is an excerpt from one of your medium article “As you set up a node to produce blocks for you, you need to fund it with enough ETH for its whole operation lifecycle”. Can you further explain how to go about it?
Co-Founder & COO at Cartesi, Colin Steil
Q1. Definitely. Most immediately, in order to stake CTSI and participate in CTSI Reserve Mining, you will need to run your own node. We offer a bunch of convenient ways to do this and have written a thorough guide here: https://medium.com/cartesi/running-a-node-and-staking-42523863970e
You can also find other options on the open source repo, such as setting it up in Heroku, a cloud app provider: https://github.com/cartesi/noether
For any questions on running your own node or help with setup, you can join our Discord channel: https://discordapp.com/invite/Pt2NrnS our entire development team is there to help out.
Q2. That is correct, as we are a layer-2 system and are bootstrapping the future network for Noether, our highly optimized data availability sidechain for temporary storage, whenever you produce a block with your Node, you will have to pay an Ethereum transaction fee, this will however also grant you a reward in CTSI (2,900 for the next 6 months), which more than covers the cost of the ETH transaction fee. You only need enough ETH to cover a transaction fee for each block produced – so the life of the node is up to you.
Cryptodiffer Community
Congratulations in advance on the launch of CTSI Reserve Mining. Could you tell us some of the steps you’ve taken to ensure the safety of the network? Transparency is key as well, I would like to know how funds will enter the network?
Blockchain Engineer at Cartesi, Felipe Argento
For sure! There are two ways of thinking about the safety of the network in this case: the networks does what you expect it to do and what you expect to do is safe.
The first step, to ensure that our user’s funds are going to be safe, was to careful review and tests all smart contracts that are being used on our Proof of Stake system. They were also audited by external firms. Another step taken was to separate the wallets that are going to interact with the sidechain from the main wallet that will hold the user’s staking funds. The worker architecture we implemented guarantees that, even if your node is compromised, the attackers can’t steal your CTSI/main wallet assets.
Regarding the security of the network in general, we made sure to think carefully about the algorithms, and tune in the parameters in a way to ensure the safety of our network. The selector algorithm, explained in the article linked above, protects the network from the sybil attacks, for instance. We also ran a few tests on testnet and some on mainnet to make sure that everything was behaving as expected.
Cryptodiffer Community
What % of CTSI token is allocated for Mine Reserve? I read the final phase of the staking infrastructure will be CTSI’s innovative staking auction system. How does this auction system works and what benefits does it bring to staking?
I also read that aspiring CTSI holders will be able to stake CTSI through upcoming custodial staking launch partners. When should we expect the launch and who do you intend partnering with?
Co-Founder & COO at Cartesi, Colin Steil
1) 25% of the total supply is allocated for the Mine Reserve. As mentioned in our Reserve Mining – How it Works article (https://medium.com/cartesi/ctsi-mining-how-it-works-37d3dc6d86e0), in the first version and for approximately the next year, only 5% of this will be distributed. The rewards are highest for the early adopters during the first 6 months.
2) Yes! We are really excited about the staking auctions system. It was also mentioned in the media recently here: https://bitcoinist.com/why-cartesis-zero-assumptions-staking-is-a-game-changer-for-pos/
You can read more about it in the article above, or our thorough write-up on it here: https://medium.com/cartesi/the-ctsi-macroeconomy-ea60a35ab2f3
This system overcomes most of the major problems of PoS systems, especially as DeFi becomes more popular and attracts users away from staking.
3) Yes! Stay tuned to our announcements channel for upcoming custodial staking partners. We expect these to ready in the next few weeks. @cartesiannouncements
Cryptodiffer Community
1. What do I need to set up a node to produce blocks for me?
2. If there is a node failure probably due to the node is down, offline, or with insufficient ETH funds, will I still be able to produce blocks and gain rewards?
Blockchain Engineer at Cartesi, Felipe Argento
Checkout @colinsteil ‘s previous reply on how to set up a node. But, regarding your second question, no – if there is any problem with your node that causes it not to be able to claim a block, you’re not going to be able to produce blocks a gain rewards.
The current version of the network doesn’t include any kind of slashing penalty for offline nodes, so your principal investment is safe. However, if the selector algorithm chooses you to produce a block and you fail to do so (because of any of the problems you mentioned), your block is going to end up getting produced by someone else. The chance of a new address getting selected increases by every second that you fail to claim/produce the block you were selected to.
Cryptodiffer Community
I think a lot of people here are pretty interested in the $ CTSI token, both the utility and structure… How does $ CTSI work as a utility token for the network and how does it benefit both the network and holders?
Co-Founder & COO at Cartesi, Colin Steil
Glad to answer this! We are really excited about the future of CTSI and it’s utility. We are working hard everyday to improve upon this and also integrate with as many upcoming exchanges, fiat on and off-ramps, and integrations as possible.
With CTSI Reserve Mining (https://cartesi.io/mine), we see CTSI’s first utility with people running their own nodes, and starting to secure the network that evolve into Noether, a highly optimized data availability solution (temporary storage for DApps) – and an important part of the scalability stack we are developing. This is alongside Descartes.
In essence, CTSI is a utility token that works as a crypto fuel for Noether. Stakers receive CTSI rewards by staking their tokens and participating in the network. Node runners are selected randomly according to a PoS system and gain the right to create the next block. Users of the network pay CTSI fees to insert data on the side-chain. CTSI will also be used for DApps to outsource the execution of verifiable and enforceable computation to entities running Descartes nodes.
If you are interested in learning more about this, you can read up on it here: https://medium.com/cartesi/cartesi-network-and-ctsi-b9a5e206fedf
Cryptodiffer Community
Is there any plan to migrate to new Chain like Bep2?
Or probably making Cartesi own blokchain?
Co-Founder & COO at Cartesi, Colin Steil
We already support multiple networks with more to come, however we are most immediately focusing on Ethereum, these include Binance Smart Chain, and Matic Network, you can view them here: https://cartesi.io/en/docs/descartes/supported-networks/
Cryptodiffer Community
We know that Cartesi provides a secure platform for developers of decentralized applications with a low infrastructure (Linux). However, each application requires storage to run normally. In this sense, the storage of these data is How to store, is it decentralized, centralized, or are there other options?
How does Cartesi handle the interaction of two or more decentralized applications created in different programming languages?
Blockchain Engineer at Cartesi, Felipe Argento
There are different options of dealing with the storage question when creating/using a Cartesi application. It is possible to have user’s agree on the data beforehand, using centralized methods. We also provide some decentralized methods, like making the storage available onchain using something like our Logger framework. The storage question is relevant to our Descartes v1 release, but is going to be even more important to our upcoming roll-ups architecture, in which machines will be able to receive inputs and advance their state according to them. These methods mentioned are useful but they come with a lot of trade-offs and limitations. The Noether side chain, which the first release was today, comes to assist in the solving of those problems – it is a data availability oracle that can help us scaling by a lot the size and guarantees of availability for data onchain.
Regarding the second question, the interaction between two different application built with Cartesi do not depend on the programming language they were built! You can have different applications built with different software stacks communicating without a problem. Right now, however, Cartesi applications can only communicate to each other using the blockchain to send/receive messages. We have some interesting ideas to increase the way they can interact with each other and also interact with other L2 solutions, but for now their communication is either through the main chain (Ethereum) or through some side chain, if the application is running on it.
Cryptodiffer Community
I’m curious about the team’s record. I think it is important to invest on a project who has a reliable workers. Do the team already worked on something related to crypto industry and how many of you in your team?
Co-Founder & COO at Cartesi, Colin Steil
Sure! We are a team of 18 people now, and more if you include our ambassadors and those who work on contract outside of Cartesi.
Our team comes from highly experienced backgrounds, including PhD’s from top universities such as Princeton and ETH Zurich, experienced start-up professionals, and engineers with over 20+ years of experience each.
If you want to learn more about our team, I encourage you to check out our team page where you can see the background of everyone: https://cartesi.io/en/about/#founders
Cryptodiffer Community
Will we be able to stack without running a node?
Co-Founder & COO at Cartesi, Colin Steil
Hey Adrian, you are able to stake withour running a node, however no blocks will be produced and thus you will receive no rewards. In order to fully participate in securing the network to earn rewards, you will need to run a node.
We will have announcements coming up with custodial staking partners soon that will allow you to stake on an exchange/platform and they will run a node for you.
Early next year we will also be implementing delegation, which will make this process much easier.
I also recommend you check out https://github.com/cartesi/noether, where there is a guide to easily setup a node on Heroku (a cloud app provider) in a few clicks.
Cryptodiffer Community
When you look back on your development days, what makes you feel proud? How has #Cartesi evolved from the real first idea?
What role does Cartesi play in Blockchain for high adoption? Can you explain your scalable structure?
Blockchain Engineer at Cartesi, Felipe Argento
I have to admit that the first time I’ve seen the RISC-V architecture running on the Ethereum Virtual Machine I was very proud! It meant that we coded, in Solidity, an entire ISA capable of running Linux! And it meant that we, after coding infinite lines of solidity with all the limitations of the EVM, were a bit closer to the vision of empowering developers to not worry about using solidity and the evm, but to use the battle tested software stacks that they prefer!
When we were able to leverage all of that to launch a decentralized tower defence game that was able to run billions of instructions per second, we also felt very proud. And today, we feel very proud of our initial Noether launch!
I think Cartesi combines a very interesting set of technologies and tools to enable both adoption and scalability. The adoption comes with the possibility of building your applications using different technologies and libraries, so developers don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time they want to build an application. The scalability comes from our computation oracle, that makes it possible to run very intensive computations offchain that can be effortlessly represented on chain in combination with our data availability side chain (Noether), which does what Descartes does to computation to data!
Cryptodiffer Community
1. If a node failure occurs, will there be any slashing and will my principal be affected? If yes, how can I recover the principal?
2. How are the rewards associated with blocks that my node produces distributed?
Co-Founder & COO at Cartesi, Colin Steil
1. The current version of the network doesn’t include any kind of slashing penalty for offline nodes, so your CTSI is completely safe in the staking contract, which is also audited and tested. In order to remedy a node failure, should that occur, you can setup and hire a new node, or simply unstake from the Cartesi Explorer (https://explorer.cartesi.io/). Please note the node has no control over your stake, so your CTSI is safe.
2. You can read all about this here: https://medium.com/cartesi/ctsi-mining-how-it-works-37d3dc6d86e0
Cryptodiffer Community
Congratulations on the launch of CTSI Reserve Mining, and ask for detailed information on the reward system of Reserve Mining. Is the compensation according to the CTSI holding amount and staking period different?
Co-Founder & COO at Cartesi, Colin Steil
Thanks! We are really excited about this. As I mentioned in one of the answers above, all the reward and selection of block producers can be found in this article: https://medium.com/cartesi/ctsi-mining-how-it-works-37d3dc6d86e0
In summary, you get whatever is proportional to the stake you have. The percent yearly reward should be on average the same for everyone. However your node needs to be online to produce the block and receive a reward, so you will not be able to receive any rewards if your node is offline and not securing the network.
Reserve Mining for the next 6 months will be giving 2,900 CTSI per block, and on average a block is produced every 30 minutes.
Cryptodiffer Community
Cartesi Machines allow developers running their computations off chain, and it supports the verification of those computations if it is required by someone as well. How is that? Who can ask for the verification of a computation? Would this be denied?
Blockchain Engineer at Cartesi, Felipe Argento
DApps have the freedom to define beforehand the rights and duties of each type of participant. The most decentralized applications can have, as a rule, that any of their users is allowed to claim the result of a computation and also challenge/verify every computation – meaning that you would need a single honest user on that application to ensure that things are going to run as expected. Some other applications might want to sacrifice a bit of decentralization for speed/cost and have a few highly respected members of the community acting as a quorum. Those member will verify each other’s computations on behalf of the users. If one of the members in that quorum is honest, the application is also guaranteed to work as intended.
Cartesi is flexible enough to support both options and basically anything in-between, since our computation oracle allows anyone to know if a computation was performed honestly or not!
Co-Founder & COO at Cartesi, Colin Steil
Thanks everyone for the great questions and AMA!
Blockchain Engineer at Cartesi, Felipe Argento
Thanks a lot! See you guys around!
Cryptodiffer TEAM
Thank you for you answers, it was an insighfull session
Thank you everyone who participated, great questions as always!
