Bitcoin Forum

https://i.imgur.com/R62A4w6.png

What is Purple?
A new protocol that is being built with the sole purpose of offering the most scalable and developer-friendly platform for building and running smart contracts and decentralized applications. It has been built from scratch without any bias towards existing or emerging technologies.

What consensus algorithm does Purple use?
Purple uses a stateful asynchronous algorithm for achieving consensus on which transactions are to be written to the ledger. Being stateful means that there are a number of designated nodes that are actively participating in the consensus algorithm in the same way as in Proof of Stake. However, that is it's only similarity since the algorithm employed by the participants relies on tracking the causality of network events that are broadcasted by the participants and then assembling a partial causal graph that is then reduced to a total ordering of events.

The rules for assembling this causal graph make it so that all participating nodes deterministically choose the same events that are to be applied to the state, as long as up to a third of participants are either byzantine (malicious) or crashed. In order to prevent this, nodes wanting to participate in the consensus algorithm must solve a computational puzzle of deterministic complexity and to provide a valid Proof of Work. This entry phase represents the synchronous part of the system.

It can be said then that Purple is a semi-synchronous system with the synchronous part serving as an adjustable bottleneck for the asynchronous part.

How scalable is Purple?
With the current architecture, Purple can process more than a million transactions per second assuming there are more than a hundred active miners. This is made possible by dividing the ledger into shards each of which has it's own consensus algorithm and set of participating nodes. With the current unoptimized code, the consensus algorithm can process ~5000 transactions per second. What sharding does is enable the parallel processing of transactions. In Purple there will be 256 such shards, each represented by a single byte. This means that maximum throughput is equal to tps x num_of_shards which is 5000 x 256 = 1.2 million transactions per second. Future optimizations should increase this number even further.

Mining
From a miner's standpoint, it can be said that mining on the Purple network feels quite similar to mining on the Bitcoin or Ethereum networks. But this is only on the surface level, the mining process in Purple is actually completely different from any other protocol. In Bitcoin, miners approve transactions by providing a valid Proof of Work and by choosing a number of pending transactions to be written in the ledger. While this works, it also means that the main bottleneck is the Proof of Work algorithm. In Purple, miners who provide a valid Proof of Work are eligible to approve transactions in a designated period. During that period they broadcast network events that include the transactions that they wish to approve. After the period has ended they will be required to issue a leave event which transfers all of the fees of the transactions to the address chosen by the miner. If a miner crashes or behaves maliciously during it's designated period, it will be removed by the other participants and will lose all of it's collected fees.

Supported programming languages
The PurpleVM supports the execution of webassembly bytecode which means that any programming language that can compile to WASM can be used to write smart contracts and decentralized applications. The languages that are supported include:

* C/C++
* C#
* Golang
* Java
* Rust
* Haskell
* Python
* Typescript
* Lua
* Kotlin
* Scheme

What is the story behind Purple?
It started out as a mere curiosity in the technology powering Bitcoin and Ethereum and has since evolved into a thing of it's own. The main motivation behind building such a platform was the lack of tooling and ease of use for developing decentralized applications which along with the issue of scalability are the main impediments of mass-adoption. To this day there is no platform that offers all required properties which are: complete decentralization, scalability and ease of use. Most provide only one or two of the three. Purple strives to achieve all of the three.

Links
* Whitepaper - https://purpleprotocol.org/whitepaper/ (https://purpleprotocol.org/whitepaper/)
* Website - https://purpleprotocol.org/ (https://purpleprotocol.org/)
* Github - https://github.com/purpleprotocol (https://github.com/purpleprotocol)
* Twitter - https://twitter.com/purple_protocol (https://twitter.com/purple_protocol)
* Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/purpleprotocol/ (https://www.facebook.com/purpleprotocol/)
* Medium - https://medium.com/purple-protocol (https://medium.com/purple-protocol)
* Gitter - /purpleorg/purple]https://gitte[Suspicious link removed]/purpleorg/purple (https://gitte[Suspicious link removed)

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What is the story behind Purple?
It started out as a mere curiosity in the technology powering Bitcoin and Ethereum and has since evolved into a thing of it's own. The main motivation behind building such a platform was the lack of tooling and ease of use for developing decentralized applications which along with the issue of scalability are the main impediments of mass-adoption. To this day there is no platform that offers all required properties which are: complete decentralization, scalability and ease of use. Most provide only one or two of the three. Purple strives to achieve all of the three.

Do you have detailed plan on how to address those 3 important properties of a coin?
Many altcoins are already addressing such features. But, up until now bitcoin is still the popular cryptocurrency that go mainstream.
Even if there are disadvantages of using the bitcoin network, still, most people prefer to deal with it.
Because it is already an established cryptocurrency, people already trust it.
Then, how are you going to establish the trust on your coin? Mass-adoption is really one of the hindrances in making a certain project successful.

wow! this is an absolute! dân đông sẽ thực hiện là một hợp đồng dự án. Defected the first users will be recommended at the first here. Kkhông can wait for your ICO to start.

IMO the only problem with Bitcoin is the fact that it is slow. It achieves the first point but fails at the second point and there hasn't been much thought given to the third, but the third point is not that important since a third party can develop a shiny interface for it. The main two points that do not really go together in any current cryptocurrency are scalability and decentralization, they either have one or the other. Most see PoS as a solution to this but it is inherently flawed by the fact that it relies on a few trusted parties to make the network function which is centralized.

Purple achieves both decentralization and scalability by adding an additional step besides Proof of Work, thus removing the transaction throughput bottleneck but maintaining it for allowing nodes to participate. As I have said in the first post, Purple's consensus algorithm is alike to PoS in the sense that they are both stateful i.e. both have a set of designated nodes that process pending transactions. What is different is the way in which those nodes are chosen, in PoS a node is eligible if it deposits a fixed amount of tokens in an address. In Purple, nodes are required to provide a valid PoW and such they are always being shuffled. Thus, the chance of any set of chosen nodes to collude is much smaller than that in Proof of Stake.

I appreciate your explanation. But, the main problem still lies on mass adoption.
Even if you design this project to have those 3 features on, still, you are relying from the community who will really utilize your platform.
Without large following, great features are almost useless. As most of time, the value of the coin depends on the community.
And, it would take at least 6 months to years to build such true community. They need to see real progress and usage here. Good luck!

There are so many "highly scalable and decentralized" smart contract platforms.
Such as: ETH, NEO, EOS, ADA..
And new platforms, such as Quarkchain, CyberMiles...

So what make Purple better than others?

Is there an ICO or what?
I look in the the webpage but nothing was said about the ICO and price. are these going to be distributed via airdrop?
Its not being said in the OP but if it can attract developers to create their smart contract then this could be one of the great project of this year.
I was thinking this is going to be like EOS.

I appreciate your explanation. But, the main problem still lies on mass adoption.
Even if you design this project to have those 3 features on, still, you are relying from the community who will really utilize your platform.
Without large following, great features are almost useless. As most of time, the value of the coin depends on the community.
And, it would take at least 6 months to years to build such true community. They need to see real progress and usage here. Good luck!

I agree with what you wrote above. It is necessary to adequately assess the ability and this race for a long distance. There are many advantages in the project, but there are big disadvantages, including that as for me the team clearly could be better.
Can you at one of the conferences take to yourself a couple of people who write code well for the idea and tokens of the project?

We do not yet have a date for when the ICO will start since we are working hard to have a working prototype before we fully commit to doing an ICO. But to answer your question, we plan to do it either in December or in January. We will announce on the thread when we have more details regarding the ICO.

In your code and whitepaper you do not give some credits to previous platforms, i mean, what are the different codebase and inspirations ?

You should consider expanding your readme with some build info for those unfamiliar with Elixir & Rust.
And first explain how to run a wallet, a node and its miner, in this early stage. At least a Docker command.
In your code and whitepaper you do not give some credits to previous platforms, i mean, what are the different codebase and inspirations ?

edit: I could not build purple

docker build .

iex> Purple.start_mining

Thanks for your explanations.

Yes I already have theses dependencies. Here is the way i went to this error :

To make me wait for my docker build, could you give us the getmininginfo to get an insight about the network ?

edit: the docker image doesn't work for me either:

There are so many "highly scalable and decentralized" smart contract platforms.
Such as: ETH, NEO, EOS, ADA..
And new platforms, such as Quarkchain, CyberMiles...

So what make Purple better than others?

cool logo and idea, but seems a bit low effort. purple protocol seems to have potential but will the idea be properly filled and fleshed out?

Can some please explain me the difference between byzatine and normal pow :/ ?

We have just uploaded a new version of the whitepaper which contains graphics and the economic model of Purple: https://purpleprotocol.org/whitepaper/

Anyone managed to run this ?
I can't figure what are the right version of erlang & elixir to install on ubuntu from here :
https://www.erlang-solutions.com/resources/download.html

I like that you solve these pressing problems. Such decisions will lead our world to a more rapid development, and we will all benefit from this.It's a pity that you did a little, but I see that you are working on this

I have just posted an article regarding the current problems that the crypto community faces. Check it out: https://medium.com/purple-protocol/blockchain-wont-save-the-world-but-it-will-enable-the-things-that-will-ae2b3738ee1

Thanks for the interesting and important article. it's very meaningful and interesting to read. many useful points on which to focus attention.

So Just Correct me if I am Wrong - This coin is Distributed via POW + ICO ? Also it's algo/structure is what makes it unique ?

We have just uploaded our new website! Check it out here https://purpleprotocol.org (https://purpleprotocol.org)

Damn the website looks really good. Good job! I think the token creation will be VERY ATTRACTIVE to people looking into this. The ability to create a new token without any knowledge of coding is pretty damn awesome!

it will support C#?

Any ETA on when we'll be able to see the team profile on the site?
Yeah, it's not really a priority for most. However, I like to follow up on team to see if they really know their salt and its worth. It's one thing to have an ambitious project. It's another having the manpower and talent to execute it

We will try to post a list of the team members in the following weeks.

Bump

You're risking your account by bumping (using the word bump) on an ANN thread instead of posting something constructive (even if mildly). BTW, where are we on the team profile? It's been over a week if I recall correctly

SHOW US THE CODE AND PRODUCT :'(

I've read on the forum rules that it is allowed to bump a thread once every 24 hours. I try to keep the bumps as constructive as possible but I don't have something constructive to write each day.

Regarding the team, we are working on an updated version of the website which will also contain the team section but it is still a WIP. 

Any ETA on when that will finally be out?
Meanwhile, would love to run something by you through PM if you don't mind. Can I PM you?

Been checking in daily for updates - yeah, I know, I'm jobless like that. Haven't heard a peep - yeah, I know, new blockchain development is time consuming. So, just asking if there's a morsel of an update to be had  ;D

We have received feedback that the technical side is not detailed enough so we began writing the protocol's wiki which will contain an in depth explanation of everything. We will announce here when it is released.

Back to twiddling my thumbs and hoping for the best.
This waiting game can make a saint out of anybody.
Could you help a saint with an ETA?  ;D

A few updates regarding the status of the project:

- Because of several issues regarding sharding (cross-shard smart contract calls are very hard to implement right, shards are difficult to merge and partition tolerance pretty much fails with sharding) we have decided to stop focusing on it at this moment, simplifying the whole architecture and making the codebase much smaller.

- Because sharding has been dropped, we have decided to re-write the code in the Rust programming language in order to optimize the consensus algorithm as much as possible and such we are now looking for contributors who either know Rust or C/C++.

- I have moved a few weeks ago to Berlin and the legal entity will most probably be established here in Germany.

- Because of the regulatory issues regarding ICOs we do not believe any longer that we will host an ICO. This will only happen if the legal landscape gets better in the following months.

So, no crowdsale or offering of any kind? How are people going to get a hold of the crypto then? By mining it?

Does that mean we have to hold on till the blockchain is release before we can acquire it. No placeholder ERC20 to keep first and swap later?

Also, sharding isn't off the table right? Just on hold?

Reading between the line, seems like a lot of thought has been put into the long-term sustainability of this project and how it's gonna improve on existing tech. Love it. Can't wait for further development and get my mints on the coin. Wish there was a more concrete ETA

I wish that there would be a more concrete ETA available however with the drop of ICOs our options for funding have shortened and I do not want to promise unrealistic things.

With all this in mind, I can say that we are continuously trying to catch lightning in a bottle and create the best protocol that there is. This requires an incredible amount of effort and preparation and with limited options for funding, unfortunately this also means that a lot of time has to be spent and I would rather have the launch delayed if it means that at the end of the day everything works flawlessly.

Launching early is the capital sin of open blockchain projects.

This I can agree with. While it's gonna be sad, popping in from time to time for signs of life and being met with an empty room, my confidence in the project has grown immensely.  Would rather wait for everything to be ship-ready. Seen my own fair share of early launches and its attendant damnation

Help us raise funds to further develop the Purple Protocol by participating in our crowdfunding campaign! Read here (https://purpleprotocol.org/blog/participate-in-purple-crowdfunding-campaign) how.

Market seems to be on the uptick. An ICO with a softcap of $250,000 is actually feasible with the right tools and contacts. The question is what do they get in turn for contributing? Based on the gofundme campaign, can't see any sort of return for contributing atm

Purple has turned 1 year old today! Read about our story so far here (https://purpleprotocol.org/blog/purple-turns-one-year-old).

Congratulations and this is hoping for many more years. Better yet, this is a toast to the beginning of bigger and better things from Purple. Can't wait for it to step out in all its royal glory and take its rightful place. How goes the development?

Thank you for the kind words!

For the past month I have been focusing entirely on the virtual machine and smart contracts aspect of the protocol and all I can say is that the design of the vm is mostly finished and it is quite a beauty. There will be a blog post detailing this soon.

The development speed is still quite slow since I am still the only active core developer but I am currently attempting to onboard other enthusiasts so this might change soon.   

How about just putting up your entire requirement on angel.co and have the community come to you rather than you going to them. Pretty sure you'll be inundated by applications in no time if you post there

I don't exactly have the resources to hire people right now (which, I presume, is what angel.co is for) but I could certainly try this and maybe have a bunch of passionate people find out about this which wouldn't hurt at all right now.

The experimental nature of the project doesn't help either in this regard. Most people I met say they need some kind of proof on my part that it will actually work and this is quite hard to provide until the code is mostly written, which is what I need the devs for. It becomes a chicken and egg situation. Imagine Satoshi trying to recruit devs for building Bitcoin before he had any proof that it will actually work. I think that's why it was written by one or maximum a few people and after the concept has been proven, everyone realised that it was working.

All I can do is to suck it up and continue to write code by myself up until a basic testnet will always stay up. In a way I am grateful for this, even though it is very hard. The difficulties I encounter right now must have been much greater for Satoshi back in the day so I cannot complain.

See a few ads on angel.co that have zero payment and offered some sort of compensation model mostly in the blockchain's native cryptocurrency... Doesn't hurt to try, right? At the very least, you get more eyeballs for the project. Wish I wasn't so mathematically retarded...

A big problem right now is that the token is not liquid yet and I intend to keep it this way until the project is more mature.

I am mostly focusing on getting right the consensus algorithm this month. If this is written well and tested all the way I believe I can start to focus actively on talking with and recruiting more people. Let's hope this goes well. Also, if this is done, I believe a basic testnet is not that far away.

In order to provide a better way for the community to engage with us, we have replaced our telegram channel with a dedicated group which anyone can join and use for any kind of discussion related to the Purple Protocol. Join the discussion now! https://t.me/purple_protocol

Finally! Physical space for real-time discussion!

Ok, well telegram is as close to physical as we can get to interact with development team. BTT is great too, but not as real-time as one would often wish. Also, saw that the Testnet is estimated three months from now!

Awesome!

We have just added the contribution guideline (https://github.com/purpleprotocol/wiki/wiki/Contribution-Guideline) and faq (https://github.com/purpleprotocol/wiki/wiki/Faq) pages to the purple wiki. Check it out!

We have just posted the April 2019 development update! Check it out on our blog: https://purpleprotocol.org/blog/april-development-update

Architecture updates

In order to not break the validator pool, we have to make the state transitions explicit somehow. To achieve this, we will need to determine the sequence in which validators are joined when put against the stream of blocks that is produced by the pool.

Do you think that such dramatic changes will scare the big players? It’s not just small changes its change everything.

This is the biggest update yet! Was away for a while and came up to see the market's gone into some sort of run and now this. Also think we owe this ""Dr. Brain" some sort of gratitude for bringing those pain-points to light

Indeed, his input helped quite a lot and I am very grateful for it. However, I am still not aware of his true identity or if he wishes to reveal it.