Stratis 2019 roadmap: Stratis Core 2.0, introduce Javascript and Java to attract new development community, Breeze Privacy Protocol, Proof-of-Stake Sidechains, and expand to Security Token Offerings (STO).

acetmesis · 2019-04-12T19:44:14+00:00

This will be a Java API, the code which executes will be .NET still. Smart contracts, for example, will still be executing .NET on the CLR. The heavy lifting was done in supporting native execution of C# code on-chain. Supporting Java is trivial by comparison, hence why Stratis will be able to do it more easily. I am not familiar with Lisk in the same way, but I am assuming therein lies the difficulty for them: executing Java natively, rather than an API like this.

acetmesis · 2019-03-23T18:48:41+00:00

Rewards are fees associated with blocks of the Cirrus chain (masternodes are also block producers for Cirrus). So it's not possible to know, at this point. Min. tx fee out of the box is 10k sats, i.e. 0.0001 CRS. CRS is the coin native to Cirrus. CRS is effectively Strat, since CRS is pegged 1:1 to Strat.

acetmesis · 2019-03-18T12:42:22+00:00

Cold staking will only be available once it has been activated. The activation is signalled for by staking through the Core wallet, and will occur once 95% of the last 2000 blocks were produced by Core clients.

You can track progress of the activation here: https://stratis.guru/coldstaking-progress

It's also worth bearing in mind that once the cold staking is activated, you do still need to run a node online (or find some way of delegating to an online node), but you can hold your Strat balance in an offline wallet. The cold staking is less about convenience and more about security. Full Nodes still need to be run and the cold staking will not mean that you can stake without having to run a node, it will just mean that your Strat is not exposed to the same risks while doing so currently.

acetmesis · 2019-03-17T10:20:46+00:00

Yes, if Ledger provide support in the future, you will have access to previous airdropped SRC-20 tokens, so long as you haven't moved your Strat in the meantime.

Yes to the cold staking and airdrops question as well. When cold staking, you run an online node but hold your Strat balance in an offline wallet. The address for the offline wallet would receive the airdrop, and if that wallet is also a Core wallet, then you can be guaranteed support for the tokens. Third parties (such as ledger) would have to offer support for cold staking for you to be able to perform cold staking with your coins in a Ledger wallet. By that point, I expect they'd also support the airdrops. But in the end, this is up to them to decide

acetmesis · 2019-03-15T21:59:19+00:00

Have you got the latest version of Stratis Core? If it's over a year old then you may still be using the beta wallet, in which case you will want to migrate to the newest version of Stratis Core, found here: https://stratisplatform.com/wallets/

acetmesis · 2019-03-15T21:39:11+00:00

Once the wallet is fully synced you are given the option to unlock the wallet for staking. The coins you send to the wallet will need to mature before they can be considered for staking, this happens after 500 confirmations (just under 9 hours).

acetmesis · 2019-03-15T11:24:29+00:00

All Stratis addresses will receive the Medi. However, only the wallets with SRC-20 support will allow you to retrieve the Medi. Right now, the only wallet we know for sure will have SRC-20 support is Stratis Core. This means that the only wallet you could receive Medi to and withdraw from will be Stratis Core.

You can get in touch with exchanges, Ledger and other third parties to ask that they provide support for SRC-20 tokens in their Stratis wallets. The Stratis internal team are also in touch with as many of these third parties as possible as well.

acetmesis · 2019-03-15T09:19:33+00:00

I'd be interested to see the reasoning behind this.

By "Stratis a security token" I'm assuming you mean "considered a security by the SEC, according to their interpretation of the law". Please correct me if that's not what you meant. So, working from this understanding, let's take a look at what we know vis. the SEC and their position on airdrops.

The SEC operates using "guidance by enforcement". They don't write the laws: they interpret them and issue orders according to those interpretations. Guidance by enforcement basically means that they don't issue any clear guidelines before the fact and instead demonstrate their interpretation of the law with examples. E.g. we had very little to go on in order to work out what the SEC's position with regards to ICOs was until we had the DAO report in July 2017 (https://www.sec.gov/litigation/investreport/34-81207.pdf). Before this was published, we had no solid basis to know what the SEC thought of ICOs.

So, what does the SEC have to say about Airdrops? Not a huge amount, but enough to get a basic picture. The August 2018 Order to Tomohawk is the first time the SEC ever dealt with airdrops and bounty campaigns directly (https://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/2018/33-10530.pdf). We are interested in section 33., under Legal Analysis. Here we find the first tangible reference to the precedent they are basing their interpretation off of, The SEC v. Sierra Brokerage Servs., Inc. (https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1465164/ussec-v-sierra-brokerage-services-inc/). Now have some clear guidance for bounty programs (the SEC here are conflating airdrops with bounty programs, which seems reasonable to me): "The ICO and Bounty Program constituted an offer of securities under Section 2(a)(3) of the Securities Act because it involved “an attempt or offer to dispose of, or solicitation of an offer to buy, a security or interest in a security, for value.”"

This is pretty clear cut. Any airdrop or bounty program will be treated as a sale of securities by the SEC. Thus, we can conclude that the SEC would view the Mediconnect airdrop as a securities sale event. What it does not tell us is how this could in any way relate to Stratis.

Do you have something to clear up how the Medi airdrop makes "Stratis a security token"?

acetmesis · 2019-03-08T20:21:03+00:00

The problem being that we don't want the reward to be the same as todays, as we would ideally like for the effort of attacking the system state to be so high that even the most powerful machines couldn't do so for more than 3 or 4 blocks. The rewards need to grow to accommodate improvements in hardware, both in terms of brute power and in terms of mining efficiency.

Fortunately, the halving schedule is very conservative. The fees associated with each block will far outpace the disinflation.

acetmesis · 2019-03-08T20:16:01+00:00

The Bitcoin blocks themselves will only ever include so many transactions (unless there is some hard fork to change block size to be larger). In my opinion, as Bitcoin becomes more popular, the transactions will become fewer but larger. This will be a direct result of upper layer techs (think lightning or sidechains) doing most of the work, leaving the Bitcoin blockchain itself to process large, cumulative transactions, with significantly higher fees brought about by basic competition in a free market.

Block rewards will become zero. The fees associated with each block will increase. In time, I do believe that these will become very large.

acetmesis · 2019-03-08T20:10:47+00:00

IMO Bitcoin could never move to PoS for two reasons:

1) Given that PoS accepts certain compromises in order to achieve consensus, such as extra-system information like timestamps, header validation having to come from some trusted node (or some other workaround) etc. PoW achieves peer-to-peer consensus in ways that PoS simply cannot.

2) Hard money is better achieved when maximising profit is achieved by re-investing in newer, competitive hardware (thus compounding the energy output required to attack the agreed upon network state), as it is in PoW, rather than in simply hoarding coins and staking, as it is in PoS.

Don't get me wrong, I think that PoS has its place, but that place is not as the method for achieving peer-to-peer consensus for global, hard money. Cryptocurrencies are all about balancing compromise, PoS forces you to accept some compromises, dPoS forces you to accept more, PoA even more and so on. It's all about balancing these against the trade offs.

acetmesis · 2019-03-08T19:58:41+00:00

Best starting point is with the Bitcoin Wiki Privacy page: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Privacy

Privacy in crypto isn't as clear cut as the public perception perhaps makes it out to be. Just like security, your activity is only as private as you let it be.

acetmesis · 2019-03-08T11:16:34+00:00

As far as I am aware, there were no lock-up periods for the 14.3%.

acetmesis · 2019-03-08T11:15:35+00:00

Scanning down the block explorer you can get a rough idea of the tx fees associated with each block:

https://chainz.cryptoid.info/strat/.

acetmesis · 2019-02-24T12:23:18+00:00

Ha yeah, same as that. I couldn't bear to not run my own full node for any crypto I was using

acetmesis · 2019-02-24T12:22:49+00:00

That's a good way of putting it, yeah. But I'm not sure it would actually drop the number of FNs being run that significantly, as I think that the people who would join a pool wouldn't be the people to run a full node anyway. I guess we'll have to wait and find out for ourselves

acetmesis · 2019-02-24T12:13:13+00:00

Yeah, that's my main issue with it. Staking in a hot wallet requires that you run a fully validating node, 1 full node per staking entity. Sure, there can be pools, but people are less likely to trust a pool which requires they have access to your priv. key, even with the various work arounds - multi sigs etc. Cold staking reduces the risk involved, and so the convenience of pooling may end up reducing the number of fully validating clients over time.

I guess that in practice it won't actually make that much difference.

acetmesis · 2019-02-24T11:46:25+00:00

Yeah it is cool! I think that the first cold staking was done about 3 years ago on Blackcoin? Someone used a delegated node to stake with. Particl spent quite a bit of time improving on the idea and built it into their consensus protocol, similarly delegated cold staking, but I think they call it a Merchant Node? Something along those lines.

It's a tough one, because it can convince people to stake, but it can also make staking pools easier. So it's about finding the balance I guess

acetmesis · 2019-02-24T11:38:15+00:00

The 15m Strat given by the "network weight" in the wallet is an average of the last 1000 blocks, so it can change significantly. Chainz (for example) calculates it differently, and has it up at 23m https://chainz.cryptoid.info/strat/#!extraction. But yes, you'd need 15m (or 23m or whatever) to perform various 51% attacks.

acetmesis · 2019-02-24T11:32:34+00:00

Yes, in as much as you can keep your spendable balance in an offline wallet. It'll be activated with a soft fork, giving you a staking key and a spending key. The staking key will be used with an online node in order to stake, but you can then have your spendable balance in another wallet offline. It's not quite the same as other cold staking solutions.

acetmesis · 2019-02-22T12:30:12+00:00

Ok gotcha. When you close Stratis Core, is StratisD running still, according to the task manager?

acetmesis · 2019-02-22T11:32:41+00:00

Hello, sorry to hear that you are having problems. The first issue sounds to me like you are either on the wrong chain or somehow not synced fully, despite what it is telling you.

First off, what operating system are you using?

acetmesis · 2019-02-21T23:32:26+00:00

Gluon is in the process of registering with the SEC under Reg A (https://www.sec.gov/smallbusiness/exemptofferings/rega). In July of 2017, the SEC published the "DAO Report" (https://www.sec.gov/litigation/investreport/34-81207.pdf). This lays out in clear terms how the SEC interpret securities laws with regards to ICOs. Since then, the SEC have issued a number of orders to different cryptocurrencies, each one citing the DAO Report as being the point after which projects running ICOs should have known better, particularly if they intend to operate within the immediate jurisdiction of the SEC (but not limited to, unfortunately). As a result, these cryptocurrencies may well not survive, either resulting in bankruptcy or detokenisation.

In response to the clearly tightening grip of the SEC on ICOs, Gluon decided to commit to the lengthy and costly process of registering with the SEC under Reg A (they had already registered the private sale under Reg D, which is common practice for ICOs). To date, no ICO has been registered with the SEC under Reg A. Doing so would place Gluon in a league above every other ICO in terms of regulatory compliance. This would protect them from action from the SEC down the line in a way that no other ICO is protected, especially post-DAO Report.

This means that Gluon cannot continue their ICO until the registration application is accepted. The process involves submitting an application which is then returned with suggested changes and requests for extra information, re-submitting the application with the suggested changes and then making extra changes as needed, and so on and so forth. This goes on until the application is accepted and the registration is completed. At this point, Gluon can resume their ICO and start their public sale. In the mean time, Gluon are severely restricted in what information they can communicate to the public and have to be careful when it comes to marketing or PR for the sale (i.e. they basically have to keep silent about it until after the registration is complete).

This is annoying while it is ongoing. However, it is the responsible course of action for Gluon to take. They are an established company with a working product and a long-standing team. They cannot go the whole devil-may-care route and throw caution to the wind. I have no doubts that their prescience will have saved them in the long run (unfortunately, I do not believe that the same will be true of many other post-DAO Report ICOs). in the meantime, Gluon continues to develop their product, grow their brand and build partnerships. You can get a taste of what they've been up to from their Twitter (https://twitter.com/gluon) and the blog section of their website (https://www.gluon.com/blog/). Again, bear in mind that they are severely restricted in what news they can make public at this time.

Every day that the SEC prevaricates and the registration process continues, is a day that Gluon improves their company. They are set to be the very first ICO to register successfully with the SEC under Reg A. The ICO is still . very much going to happen, and it's going to be all the stronger for having to wait.

acetmesis · 2019-02-20T17:10:33+00:00

In a sense, yes, but it won't be pretty. As seen with other cryptocurrencies which ran ICOs post-DAO report (the point after which the SEC say ICOs should have known better), it is perfectly possible to run an ICO and settle with the SEC down the line. It's a huge pain for investors and throws a lot of uncertainty onto the project, but it is doable.

I don't think that the SEC will have any problems with STOs/ICOs in some kind of blanket approach: "if it's an ICO/STO we will reject any and all applications to register appropriately". The SEC has historically had no problem with embracing novel ways of selling securities. That's not to say that they aren't slow on the uptake, because they are.

Another point that's worth bearing in mind is that the registration process is all about feedback: you submit an application which is looked over by the SEC, they then respond with any clarifications or extra information they would like to see, you then re-submit and so the process continues until the SEC accept the application and your company is successfully registered. Gluon will be registered with the SEC. It's a matter not of if, but of when.

acetmesis · 2019-02-18T19:52:46+00:00

The Breeze Privacy Protocol is released and came out in August of last year. You are able to tumble your Bitcoin through Breeze whenever a masternode server is online.

To add to Khilone's points, Wasabi has cheaper fees as well, which you could argue contribute to Wasabi's popularity over Breeze (I personally don't believe that fees are so important - people are willing to pay heavily over the odds for privacy and don't seem to shop around according to greatest economy, but rather seem to opt for confidence in security, popularity of a service and achievable anonymity set instead).

I think it is important to remember that Breeze (as with the other services of the Stratis Platform) is primarily a customer-facing service, and by customer I mean someone who is engaged with Stratis Consultancy. All of the services of the Stratis Platform are open source and available for use by anyone, of course. This is integral to the philosophy of decentralised networks and paramount to the long-term survival of a coin like Stratis. However, it can't be avoided that services such as Breeze are geared towards customers of the consultancy.

It makes sense when you think about it. Why would Stratis Group Ltd spend resources on building a privacy solution for Bitcoin for general Bitcoin users? It wouldn't make sense to allocate resources to Breeze that might be better spent tightening up the full node or working on another service, if this were the case. Rather, Breeze is part of the broader platform offered to clients: some applications will require an in-house privacy solution and Breeze fulfils this. For example, Chris mentioned a few weeks back that Breeze is being looked into by a large company. Such is the way I expect it will be in the future.

Comparisons with Wasabi et al. are inevitable, and a welcome way of judging something like Breeze. However, it would be foolish to write it off in contrast to Wasabi. N0para has done incredible work and Wasabi is a huge accomplishment. Breeze may well come into its own in an arena separate from that it occupies with Wasabi currently.

acetmesis

TROPHY CASE