Visiting TXGX 2018
CHAINING THE IDEAS
Ground X, a blockchain subsidiary of Kakao, held TXGX(Tech Forum by Ground X) 2018 from July 20th for 2 days at Jeju Space.1. (Homepage: http://txgx.io/)
[ PIC 1 ] TXGX BIWhy Ground X initiated TXGX
Ground X decided to proceed TXGX because domestic Block experts seldom have chances or a space to interact with each other. Events covering diverse industrial applications of blockchain technology have sprung up everywhere; but for engineers who want to develop an actual blockchain ecosystem, these events were of little use. TXGX was launched to quench this thirst.
After an internal discussion on ways to provide an environment where engineers can effectively share in-depth information and discussions, Ground X allowed only developers and engineers who are in the field of blockchain industry to join the event. As a result, the participants were satisfied with the contents of the panel discussion. Leonid Beder, Head of blockchain Engineering and Security of Orbs, said that “the conference proceeded smoothly, and the participants had excellent understandings on the contents of discussions.”
Many notable overseas blockchain CEOs were invited as speakers for this event. The speakers of this year's TXGX are as follows: Dawn Song, a co-founder of Oasis Labs and University professor in UC Berkley; Dr. Loi Luu, CEO of Kyber Network; Ryan Singer, a co-founder of Chia Network; Leonid Beder, Head of blockchain Engineering and Security of Orbs; Xinshu Dong, CEO of Zilliqa; and Qi Zhou, CEO of QuarkChain.
[ PIC 2 ] TXGX 2018 SpeakersEach section is dedicated to a single topic including scalability, security, and consensus algorithm. The ‘lightning talk’ (i.e. a brief, concise presentation at conferences or forums) was followed. Here follows a summary of each of the sessions and the lightning talks.
Finding solutions for three issues that blockchain confronts
Session 1: Scalability
At the first session, three teams presented their solutions and discussed the scalability of blockchain: Kyber Network(Homepage), QuarkChain(Homepage), aelf(Homepage).
QuarkChain is a blockchain company focusing on sharding, which distributes transactions into several shards, and then process them in parallel. Qi Zhou, CEO of QuarkChain posed problems of how to distribute state information on each shard when applying sharding, how to derive consensus while maintaining the security of shard, and lastly, how to execute transactions between shards. As a solution, QuarkChain chose a two-layered-structure Root chain that verifies each shards and their blocks and also chose a method to add shard key information on address.
Next, Zhuling Chen, a COO of aelf, presented few designs of blockchain using side chain technology. By using specialized side chain for each dApp (decentralized application), he suggested a way to carry out resource segregation for each dApp. Each information of sidechain would be recorded to the main chain block in a form of merkle root; the core concept of this method is that a transaction within dApp is proceeded within sidechain and a transaction necessary for communication between sidechains is processed through mainchain. Also, aelf presented a solution that makes recording all necessary resource on the transaction metadata so that transaction that mainchain should process independently, in other words without dependency, could be processed in a parallel way.
On the other hand, Loi Luu, CEO of Kyber Network, received attention for his attempt to combine the aforementioned two methodologies. Differing from the other two projects that chose either sharding or sidechain, Kyber Network pointed out the pros and cons of each approach, and created a solution named Gormos by mixing the two methodologies. This solution specifically chose to combine Plasma (Ethereum sidechain solution) and sharding. It seems that Kyber network development team would focus on Plasma and sharding project for a while.
The first session was organized to introduce the unique approaches that each of the three teams took on handling the issue of scalability. The first presentation suggested sharding as a solution that makes blocks and tests them by dividing consensus nodes into small groups; the second presentation suggested a sidechain solution that creates additional blockchain with divided resources and connects it with the mainchain; the final presentation suggested a solution combining the two methodologies.
[ PIC 3 ] Dawn Song, a co-founder of Oasis Labs and University professor in UC BerkleySession 2: Security
At the second session, presentations on how to guarantee the security were followed. Zilliqa(Homepage) developed an independent smart contract language named Scilla to improve the security of smart contract. Xinshu Doong, CEO of Zilliqa, pointed out that eliminated or blocked tokens have amounted up to a total of $36QM(\400billion) in losses, and emphasized that Zilliqa considers security as its priority.
To avoid falling into unintended loops, Zilliqa created a non-Turing-complete language (If computer language could simulate Turing machine with conditional branch including if, then, else or with change in memory, it is regarded as Turing-complete), and said that they are developing Scilla, while considering compatibility so that the corresponding smart contract code function could be tested with COQ. During this session, Zilliqa team also presented a Scilla-based development environment (ide.Zilliqa.com) and a TestNet demo.
Professor Dawn Song of Oasis Labs(Homepage) suggested various ideas including those on contract security, privacy protection, and computation extension. By suggesting an essential structure of Oasis blockchain that applied safe smart contract computation based on Trusted Execution Environment, he gave an emphasis on the need of data analyzing system which ensures privacy.
Through the crypto system, presented by Professor Dawn Song, a structure that protects privacy and at the same time conveys computation results from off-chain TEE to blockchain consensus node, has already proved its potential in Ekiden research paper. When it comes to the interpretation of the research result, the computation step at blockchain could be separated from consensus, and under any decentralized condition, it is possible to perform a massive computation.
※ Ekiden: Network that provides privacy to maintain an expandable smart contract by using hardware solution
※ Reference: “Ekiden: A Platform for Confidentiality-Preserving, Trustworthy, and Performant Smart Contract Execution” April 2018, professor Dawn Song and others. https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.05141
Leonid Beder, Head of blockchain Engineering and Security of Orbs(Homepage), explained cryptology concepts step by step, starting from basic digital signature in order to introduce Threshold BLS Signature Scheme. The characteristic of the crypto system is that only when the certain number of the digital signatures are fulfilled, a valid digital signature could be implemented. Beder also introduced a distributed key generation technology which implements cryptography that has been embodied on Orbs blockchain.
Ground X (Homepage) team, having presented at the end of the security session, introduced the architecture of a blockchain platform, Klaytn. Eric Kim, a senior researcher of Ground X, explained how they design an incentive system either in a full node or in a ranger node, which, unlike other extant blockchain structures, does not necessitate participation in verifying the validity of blocks.
Consensus process of blockchain technology has been simplified as it transfers from PoW (proof-of-work) based bitcoin and Ethereum, to the consensus algorithm in a form of DPoS (delegated proof-of-stake) and DBFT (delegated byzantine fault tolerant). After this change, the scalability problem seems to have been settled to a certain extent; however, there was a problem that the number of nodes that verify the created Blocks also decreased accordingly. A protocol that Ground X has developed based on this awareness was presented to the participants.
[ PIC 4 ] Eric Kim, a senior researcher of Ground XSession 3: Consensus Algorithm
During the third session, it was intriguing to catch a glimpse of various consensus algorithms other than PoW or DPoS, which are broadly used in well-known blockchain projects.
Ryan Singer, a co-founder of Chia Network(Homepage), raised a problem that the bitcoin blockchain is actually an oligopoly and stressed that the Chia network consensus algorithm was designed to keep the system decentralized. The core concept is to replace PoW with ‘proof-of-space’ and ‘proof-of-time’. In order to participate in consensus, staking empty storage is required (this process is called ‘farming’) and this is the structure where the next block is more likely to be created if much more empty storage is staked.
The traditional bitcoin mining has centered on a small number of individuals capable of utilizing a plenty of low power ASIC chips. In contrast, the mentioned Chia Network consensus allows anyone with an empty storage to participate. Considering that the cost of storages will be decreasing, Chia Network sees there would be no minors purchasing massive amounts of storage in order to participate in consensus.
Lambda 256(Homepage) has announced its goal of establishing PoA(proof-of-authority)-based sidechain while using its mainchain with Ethereum. According to Bosung Kim, a team manager of Lambda 256, PoA is a consensus algorithm that is highly compatible with private blockchains. The central idea behind this algorithm is that every decision on whether to allow the entry of a new consensus node is made via the on-chain vote, and that an authorized consensus node creates each block and votes for the blocks.
Long Vuong, CEO of TomoChain (Homepage), introduced the revised content of its consensus algorithm from PoA to PoSV(proof-of stake voting). According to his presentation, TomoChain is stake-based and has a built-in blockchain governance in a form of dApp. Moreover, TomoChain demonstrates a method of electing a master node through smart contract. He also stressed that unlike other DPoS-based blockchains, TomoChain has been structured in a way that the users who voted for the master node can receive a share of the profit when the elected master node successfully creates a block and receives incentives. Besides, TomoChain revealed that they adopt a structure of shards that partly overlap with each other.
[ PIC 5 ] Panel DiscussionWhat was on lightning talk
Many officials from the blockchain industry and academia competitively discussed and shared various topics during the two-day lightning talk. The following are some of the topics discussed. Taerim Oh, CEO of Gluwa(Homepage), opened the first lightning talk and brought up the issue that the online identity does not directly connect to the actual users. He also suggested a private key generation idea based on bio-data. He suggested a way to generate a new private key by combining bio-data of a device which has been entered through the device.
Minjung Kim, a postgraduate student at KAIST, pointed out that Stella’s Quorum Slice is not embodied in a real code. In other words, unlike what has been mentioned in its white paper, users can only choose Quorum, not the Quorum slice. She also mentioned the vulnerability of Stella’s blockchain through the presentation of a simulation result showing that even failure of a few nodes can lead to the failure of the whole network.
[ PIC 6 ] Yongdae Kim, an Electrical and electronic engineering professor at KAISTYongdae Kim(Homepage), an Electrical and Electronic Engineering professor at KAIST, introduced Shadow, a blockchain emulation platform, and pointed out the need to test various consensus algorithms in virtual environment that have been suggested from blockchain projects. Professor Sukyoung Yoo(Homepage) from KAIST quoted the words of Bruce Schneider, an internationally recognized cryptologist, saying that the past incidences of cryptocurrency hacks have resulted not from the problem of cryptology but from the problem with smart contract code written in the programming language Solidity.
As blockchain technology is also a database technology, Melvin Woo, a software engineer from Ground X, attempted to use evaluation indexes of database to evaluate the performance of a certain blockchain. So far, only the TPS figure is mentioned as an evaluative tool. Woo suggested that we could evaluate blockchain according to its relevance, portability, simplicity and scalability from the blockchain industry’s evaluation index. Also, as per the multi-angle evaluation index for blockchain performance, Woo suggested to evaluate blockchain based on the concepts of throughput, latency, scalability, fault tolerance, and security.
President Jaeyoon Kim from Decipher(Homepage), a blockchain academy at Seoul National University, shared the idea of Lynx blockchain with an emphasis on Edge computing. He also shared his own ideas on how to create efficient incentive structures to encourage a provision of computing resources of nodes, and on ways to mutually verify program-computing results through the blockchain system.
[ PIC 7 ] Attendees and speakers of TXGX 2018Concluding the TXGX 2018
The participants of this year’s TXGX, which was hosted by Ground X, said how hard it was to participate in the event that solely focuses on technology, and unanimously agreed that this TXGX was such a great benefit to learn new blockchain technology trends and to share ideas. The representative of Ground X introduced future plans, saying that “TXGX is not a one-time event and will be further developed and continuously held with fruitful and meaningful programs.” Along with the aspiration to develop TXGX as a representative event for global blockchain technique specialists, we look forward to seeing TXGX’s contribution to the development of Korean blockchain industry.
[Ground X introduction]
Ground X, a subsidiary of Kakao, is a blockchain tech company creating a revolutionary platform and services by integrating blockchain with other innovative techs in a global market. We aim to build a blockchain platform which will serve as a reliable and scalable solution to meet the needs of players in the blockchain community. We aim to establish an alliance amongst players in the blockchain industry in which the leading technical players share and test ideas in a collaborative environment. We plan to make this platform as user-friendly as possible and extend its use to our partners with a service-oriented mindset.
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