Blockchain 3.0 DemystifiedEverything you need to know about Metabase, Without Reading the White Paper.We've been getting a lot of good questions about Metabase both online and face to face - we decided to put together a short FAQ on some of our most frequently asked questions to help people get a quick overview of what Metabase is and what we're building.
What is Metabase?A High Performance Blockchain and Smart Op-Codes Platform to Build Next Generation Businesses.
Who is Metabase for?Entrepreneurs and developers who want to build solutions on a high performance and future-ready blockchain platform, that is multidimensional in design, and provides a comprehensive platform to build advanced and innovative businesses. These types of people generally want to build complex dapps, secure smart contract libraries, and monetize them via Smart OpCodes in a manner that is not available on existing blockchain platforms.
What can I do with Metabase, that I can’t already do with Ethereum?You can get faster confirmation rates for your transactions with scalability features like chain splitting and priority pools. You will pay less to create transactions, even in case of steep increase in price with Monetary Policy changes: Store-of-Value vs Medium-of-Exchange. You will be able to deploy complex software functions as Smart OpCodes on a marketplace similar to Apple AppStore/Google PlayStore and monetise them while also enriching the developer ecosystem.
How is Metabase different from other “ blockchain 3.0” platforms such as EOS, and Cardano?There are a few examples of blockchain 3.0 platforms that are respectable and worthy of use and experimentation. However, with Metabase we do not look at scalability as simply a linear function, but something that is multidimensional that requires a systems design approach in order to fully realise true scalability.
Metabase features an upgraded Ethereum style virtual machine. The Metabase virtual machine will have an augmented “Smart” OpCode space which will unleash a more vibrant ecosystem of programming on the blockchain, and will provide new ways to develop advanced Dapps and monetisation capabilities for blockchain developers.
We also incorporate a dynamic monetary policy system into our scalability solution to create a platform with stable transaction fees for when the platform adoption skyrockets.
Why does Scalability matter for Blockchain technology?To be future ready for mass adoption, blockchain platforms need to have the ability to increase ithier transactional throughput as more apps, users, and miners join the network.
Scalability is the capability of a system, network, or process to handle a growing amount of work, or its potential to be enlarged to accommodate that growth. Second generation blockchains have a hard TPS limit which doesn’t increase with adoption. This severely limits the performance and the aspirations of the applications on the blockchain.
What is Chain-splitting?Chain splitting is a method of horizontally scaling a blockchain to increase its transaction throughput.
As user adoption increases over time, increasing the incoming transactions, the blockchain systematically splits into multiple sub-chains and spreads the increased incoming transactions across these sub-chains. The Metabase chain splitting protocol does this to increase the transaction throughput, while maintaining the tenets of security and decentralisation.
For details refer to
https://scalability.metabase.network.
What is a Ray Network?The purpose of a Ray Network is to enable instant P2P payments off chain.
A Ray Network enables faster off-chain transactions similar to a Lightning Network on top of Bitcoin. The difference is that Lightning Network is built separately on top of the Bitcoin protocol, whereas on Metabase, the introduction of Ray Networks will come as an integrated part of the Metabase protocol with appropriate linkages between the on-chain protocol and the off-chain Ray Network.
What is a Spectrum Network?The purpose of a Spectrum Network is to enable instant smart contract transactions off chain. Similar to the Ray Network, the Spectrum Network will come as integrated part of the Metabase protocol with appropriate linkages between the on-chain protocol and the off-chain Spectrum Network.
What is a Priority Pool?A Priority Pool allows a transaction creator to prefer eg. speed-up a transaction confirmation by paying a premium on the transaction fees.
Want your transaction to confirm faster? Set it at a higher priority pool and pay a premium over the base transaction fees. Do you have time to wait for your transaction to confirm over the next few blocks? Set the Priority pool at the lowest priority and simply pay the base transaction fees.
We plan to have 8 priority pools although this can be altered by governance mechanics. Transaction fee per unit of instruction will be “x” in the lowest priority pool and 8x in the highest priority pool.
What is a Smart Op Code?A Smart Opcode is a custom virtual machine instruction on the platform layer that encapsulates a complex operation. Typically, the number of OpCodes available on the platform layer are finite and all code written on the application layer in say Solidity compiles down to these OpCodes.
SmartOpcodes can be created, showcased, and monetised using the Metabase marketplace. This incentivises developers to build complex operations on the platform layer — simplifying app development on the higher application layer.
This helps evolve and expand the complexity of operations available on the platform layer itself. The enrichment of operations on the platform layer enable easier app development on the higher application layer.
Beyond the finite OpCodes available on a platform, Metabase will allow addition of custom OpCodes onto the platform layer. These are called Smart OpCodes — developers will be incentivised by the monetisation mechanics of Metabase to build and submit their Smart OpCodes for deployment on the platform.
What can I do with a Smart Op Code that I can’t do with a Smart Contract?Smart OpCodes will enable developers to create and monetise useful programming constructs and make them available directly as encapsulated instruction units on Metabase. Additionally, other developers — instead of foraging GitHub for useful (and hopefully secure) smart contract code snippets — can directly use security vetted Smart OpCodes available on the platform.
Why does a blockchain need a Monetary policy?Because blockchains are decentralised systems, actors on the system can’t be governed by a central party, instead they are incentivised to act in certain ways by the rules of the system. Typically, the incentive/disincentive rules are captured via tokens. For eg. incentives are rewarded with tokens and disincentives are punished via tokens.
Critical to incentivising the right behaviours are the quantitative metrics of the tokens — like total token count, token supply curve etc. — Hence a monetary policy for the tokens is critical to a blockchain design.
Will I have to learn a new programming language to use Metabase?We are still working on how the Metabase smart contract programming language will perform— with considerations across functional programming languages & also procedural languages (think Solidity but less terse and more secure).
YES, this would involve learning a new language but our goal is to construct a language syntax similar to one of the popular programming languages so that developers can pick it up fast and build applications with a low learning curve.
What kinds of Dapps can I create with Metabase?All kinds of Dapps! the limit is your imagination. Anything from sophisticated financial applications to digital asset marketplaces to games can be built on Metabase. Dapp development will benefit greatly from
Scalability & A Dual Currency Monetary Policy
Which will enable performant usage of the dapps with sustainable transaction fees
Smart OpCodes
Which will help standardise programming constructs across domains as OpCodes on the platform layer enabling easier app development on the application layer. For eg. building an ICO is easy if functions like a) Multi-Sig Wallet b) Transfer Calculation Functions are available directly as security-vetted OpCodes on the platform.
Is Metabase miner friendly?With Metabase, our goal is to integrate as many users as possible to the mining process. We are aware of people with significant hardware investments and expertise of running a mining operation. On the other hand, we observe the increasing amount of individuals trying to be a part of the mining ecosystem without having any capability of managing hardware resources.
With Metabase, we aim to include both profiles by adopting a hybrid consensus model. PoW and dPoS has their own merits, covering different aspects of blockchain platforms security and inclusiveness. By integrating both, we hope to create a diverse/heterogeneous miner base for Metabase, providing opportunity for both profiles.
What kind of mining setup do I need for Metabase?No surprises
for PoW GPU’s are the dominant mining equipment and miners software is already present for multiple platforms (Windows, Linux etc.)
for dPoS participants will ‘stake’ tokens to elect block Signatories (block signers) and share the reward
We hope that this is helpful to everyone curious about our project. Metabase is a project that attempts to overcome the technical, design, and usability barriers that stand in the way of blockchain technology adoption and we’ve design this platform with you: the developer and the entrepreneur in mind.
To get a deeper understanding about Metabase, please have a look at the following links:
Introducing Metabase: https://introduction.metabase.network/Metabase White Paper: https://whitepaper.metabase.network/Metabase Token Economics: http://token.metabase.network/Research Roadmap: https://roadmap.metabase.network/Scalability Deep Dive: https://scalability.metabase.network/A Letter to our Token Holders: https://letter.metabase.network/Best of all is to join the whole team in our telegram channel and ask us questions directly
Metabase Telegram Group: https://t.me/metabasenetworkThe community is very active and talkative. So join us and introduce yourself!
It’s a positive place where we talk about the project details and our early announcements about special offers and initiatives.
About
Intrepid Ventures: https://intrepid.ventures/Based in Hong Kong, Intrepid Ventures is a blockchain venture studio that designs and builds new companies and decentralised platforms.
We serve global businesses at the intersection of blockchain and financial technology across Initial Coin Offerings, Enterprise Software Development, Cryptocurrency Research and Advisory Services, as well as New Media and Event Management.
Originally published here:
https://medium.com/metabase-blockchain/blockchain-3-0-demystified-373e2da2a118
