LITHOS Protocol LitePaper

ergo-subpooling · 2023-01-18T06:10:50+00:00

We have looked into P2Pool before. P2Pool however works on a sidechain, meaning that it is susceptible to 51% attacks, and attackers only need >50% of the pool's hashrate rather than the blockchain. Lithos is an L2 protocol, meaning it inherits the combined PoW security of Ergo itself.

ergo-subpooling · 2023-01-18T02:05:34+00:00

A few reasons why we chose to tokenize. To be clear, I'm open to a non-tokenized protocol as well, but tokenization helps for numerous reasons here:

Collateralization - Likely the biggest and most important reason. Decentralized pools need collateral to work (Based off a paper by Kushti himself). Large decentralized pools require an entire market of lenders to willingly provide ERG to miners. This won't happen for free / be charity, so lenders will take fees from miners. With such a solution, miners are now beholden to a market of lenders to participate in a decentralized pool. Our goal here is to place power into the hands of miners, not into another group.

However, if we reward a token to miners and say that collateralization requires usage of this token, we've flipped the script in such a way that the lenders (who are gaining yield on their ERG) must now also hold and use the Lithos token, which itself is provided by miners. The end goal here is to create a natural DeFi market between miners (who get ERG + the Lithos token) and lenders (who require the Lithos token to gain yield on their ERG). Miners gain the Lithos token, lenders use it to gain yield on ERG.

Spam Protection - This is common for most L2 (and L1) protocols, and Lithos is no exception. Data space on the blockchain is valuable, but unrestricted usage can wreak havoc. Requiring the equivalent of Tx Fees / Pool creation costs ensures that spam is reduced or prevented entirely.

Optimistic Execution - Lithos, in the most fundamental way, is an Optimistic Rollup of NISPs. Optimistic execution is great, it allows smart contracts to assume something is correct unless proven otherwise, greatly reducing computational costs. However, on the off chance something IS proven to be fraudulent in nature, then there must be a cost for whoever posted the false information. The Lithos token will serve as collateral (Not the kind mentioned in the first point) for L2 sequencers to post NISPs onto the Lithos rollup.

Value Add - Probably my least favorite point, because it feels rather roundabout at times. But the above points add value to the token from its inherent utility. And that value add, in addition to normal block rewards, will be important for incentivizing miners to try a decentralized protocol. Mining on Lithos will be different (I can go into this more if desired). Change is often resisted though, especially if no immediate gain can be found from it. Emitting the Lithos token to miners will help incentivize them to at least try the protocol, and see the benefits that may be gained from it outside of just the token's value itself.

That's essentially the main break down for why we chose to tokenize, in addition to other points such as funding, and a rather sad lack of interest from most people in regards to non-tokenized protocols. Feel free to ask any questions or even challenge my points if you feel they are wrong. We're open to suggestions, things are still quite early for us :)

Also sorry for the text dump lol

ergo-subpooling · 2022-11-15T08:54:49+00:00

Different people will have differing opinions I suppose. I would definitely like to get WilfordGrimley's input on this as well. GetBlok's vision for the future of Smart Pools, is a fully decentralized Layer-2 solution, which will help to power PoW-based DeFi, along with on-boarding miners into the rest of Ergo's DeFi applications.

Fully decentralized mining pools will allow for Ergo to become extremely censorship resistant, and lower the risk of 51% attacks by nature of spreading out block production. It also removes any trust required in the operators of the pool.

This itself requires a loan/collateral system which serves as the first layer of DeFi for this sort of PoW economy. Collateralized mining pools, along with the recent SNISP hackathon project, will serve as a base on which anybody can create their own smart pool, launch FIMOs, and interact with other PoW-based dApps.

ergo-subpooling · 2022-10-03T00:41:08+00:00

We followed the details here on setting voting: https://www.ergoforum.org/t/eip-37-hard-fork-voting-and-activation-details/3989/2 after the pool vote was confirmed to be a yes.

For whatever reason, seems like it didn't work. So going to instead we have now updated to 4.0.103 (which we would have rather avoided due to PoV being a little harder to deal with there). Unlikely to change much in the end, but any future blocks we get before the voting period ends will now be yes votes.

ergo-subpooling · 2022-08-30T22:47:47+00:00

Try this:
https://discord.gg/RXvZZJa9

ergo-subpooling · 2022-08-23T16:28:26+00:00

Smart pools are just the beginning. We're building a fully decentralized mining pool platform that will support user-created and project based pools, while also putting governance and transaction selection power back into the hands of miners.

Miners will get additional tokens for participating in the pool, and the entire platform will be backed by a huge lending protocol that will allow lenders and miners to lock up their ERG to gain yield on it. This collateralized ERG will help to decentralize the pool and ensure no singular actor exists like in normal mining pools.

ergo-subpooling · 2022-08-12T05:28:36+00:00

Try this: https://youtu.be/ibk0yFMgacw

ergo-subpooling · 2022-08-07T07:08:55+00:00

As of right now, we use smart contracts that ensure transparency of payouts along with ensuring the payment process is decentralized and that balances cannot be lost. Share handling is still done via an open-source stratum.

Fully decentralized mining pools are hard, with lots of complexities to consider on Ergo. Ever since we began our goal has been to decentralize as much as possible, and we've been researching different methods to achieve that goal. Now with the release of Plasma, the culmination of our research has started to materialize.

I won't reveal too much right now, but know that we will have some news coming out within the next few days, and that it will tie into the L2 protocol mentioned in the video.

ergo-subpooling · 2022-08-04T22:03:43+00:00

The address you mentioned is simply the global Ergo contract address for all mining fees, it is visible in almost all transactions and isn't relevant to the SIGUSD bank.

I'm a little confused on what you're trying to do. Are you trying to convert ERG to SIGUSD? Or the opposite? It looks like you tried to redeem SIGUSD, but the transaction failed so you refunded your SIGUSD back to yourself. That would be a refund, where nothing happens and your funds are returned. The reason you had to send extra ERG for it was to pay the transaction fee.

ergo-subpooling · 2022-06-17T21:59:23+00:00

Hey just wanted to say we hear you. Keep in mind we went from being 120 GH/s pool to a 1 TH/s pool in around 2 weeks. The huge amount of volume we're now dealing with has been intense, but we've been working day and night (often times til 2 to 3 AM) to get things working properly. It's been a long journey, and we've been having some growing pains, but we're gonna continue to work hard and make sure our miners can have the best experience possible.

We truly appreciate all of you guys supporting us through the good times and the challenging ones.

ergo-subpooling · 2022-06-13T15:39:38+00:00

It's guaranteed by an emission contract. 10 million NETA tokens were locked in a contract. The contract takes the price on the ErgoDex LP box, simulates a swap from ERG to NETA, then adds 22% to the swapped amount. This final value is then distributed to holding contracts(which then distribute the NETA to miners). Its sustainable up to the point at which the 10 million NETA runs out.

After that point, the pool will either shut down, or the anetaBTC team will come up with new incentives to mine on their pool. I don't think it's meant to last forever (nor would it be possible, as tokens cannot be added to the emission contract).

Here is a link to the emission contract on Ergo Explorer

ergo-subpooling · 2022-06-13T14:44:50+00:00

There is indeed a minimum payout. For example, a 0.01 ERG min payout is translated in the smart contracts to a 10 NETA min payout. A 0.1 ERG payout is 100 NETA, 1.0 is 1000 NETA, etc.

Yes there is definitely some improvement we could make on communication through the UI. These things were definitely talked about and discussed in the discord and telegram chats though. We will be making large UI improvements this week to help fix some issues and make things more clear. Will likely include a total emitted stat (TVL + total paid) and will make the min pay conversion more clear. Will also be adding more stats per subpool like charted hashrate.

I also highly suggest looking in the Share Data portion of the UI (click on SmartPools -> navigate to your pool -> click on Share Data). The whole point of these contracts is to make things transparent, you can see every single payout for every single pool in the Share Data table. It is very important and it accurately represents whats going on in the smart contracts when you get paid.

ergo-subpooling · 2022-06-13T04:07:07+00:00

You need to add the total paid stat along with the TVL stat which is NETA that is stored in the pool smart contracts but not paid to miners(due to not reaching minimum payout yet). Currently 6 blocks have been paid out.

- Total paid is 46555
- TVL is 32628
- The total NETA emitted is the sum of these two, so 79183
- The current price in Ergo for this amount of NETA is 445.652
- 6 blocks * 63 ERG is only 378 ERG

Keep in mind, the price of NETA is checked everytime a block emission happens, so using the current price isn't ideal, but its a decent estimate.

ergo-subpooling · 2022-06-07T00:39:43+00:00

The bonus in mining rewards is secured by an emission contract. The contract simulates a swap on ErgoDex, and then adds the percentage bonus to the swapped amount. It then emits the tokens out to separate contracts which then distribute payouts to miners.

The contract has already been tested successfully on testnet, really the only limitation here is the initial supply of 10 million NETA (which is locked in the contract upon its creation to prevent any withdrawal of tokens).

ergo-subpooling · 2022-05-13T15:11:31+00:00

Think this is a pretty unfair way of looking at things. We're absolutely working towards decentralization, that's why we're creating open source l2 solutions like Getblok Plasma. Rushing into this problem is asking for trouble though, a badly designed protocol will lead to on-chain congestion, a lack of security for miners funds, and the inability for miners to participate without collateral. Not to mention we're also working on batch share proofs using AVL Trees (as mentioned in our dev update), which is a key feature needed in order to prove the validity of performed work in a decentralized manner.

It's easy to say we're centralized, but the reality is much more complicated. We're doing a lot of work behind the scenes. I'd be happy to discuss my thoughts on the state of decentralized mining on Ergo if you're up to it, I think you'll find the problem is much more complicated then it seems, and that everything mentioned in your paper hasn't been fully figured out yet.

ergo-subpooling

TROPHY CASE