Meros is an entirely new, instant, and feeless cryptocurrency, designed to live up to the term and be a currency. Our goal is to enable payments between anyone, anywhere. We don’t believe in shouting buzzwords or centralization. We believe in providing the best tech possible, for the best currency possible, focusing only on elements that improve the currency itself. We set out on this journey with no ICO, no corporate backing, and no venture capital, yet have actively developed Meros for almost an year, building a functional and secure network.
For a quick summary, all Meros transactions are stored on a DAG, allowing non-latent transactions, yet a blockchain also secures the network, providing heightened security via Proof of Work. The two work together according to the brand new Merit Caching Consensus Mechanism, designed and written for Meros. Meros also offers data transmission, yet makes sure that transactions will always be prioritized over data.
Our purpose in this announcement is to grow the Meros community and establish our presence on the cryptocurrency playing field.
Specifications:
- Name: Meros
- Symbol: MR
- Block Time: 10 Minutes
- Block Reward: 50 to 1 MR, calculated via a negative sigmoid which is a function of the difficulty
- Total Supply: Not applicable
- Mining Algorithm: RandomX
- Signature Scheme: Ed25519 (Transactions) and BLS (Verifications)
- Address Format: Bech32
- Premine: 352800 MR, time-locked over 2.5 years
FAQ
How far along is Meros?Meros has been in development for over 11 months now. We have completed two Developer Testnets, which were open to anyone who compiles the node.
How is Meros instant if it uses a blockchain?This is due to the Merit Caching Consensus Mechanism. The Merit Caching Whitepaper is linked above, yet to summarize it:
- All transactions are published to the DAG.
- Merit Holders submit Verifications, which are valid as soon as they are received.
- A transaction is confirmed when it gets 50.1% of the weight.
- The blockchain archives these Verifications.
How is this PoW if there’s "Merit Holders" and weight?The blockchain is mined via RandomX. Mining the blockchain earns weight in the form of Merit, which is used to verify transactions on the DAG. Verifications are then archived on the blockchain, and new Meros is distributed based on those Verifications.
Why does Meros have data transmission but not a smart contract engine?Data transmission enables a smart contract engine, yet we believe that is a separate project than a currency, best left to a second layer. We will offer a BTC style scripting engine in order to enable second layers though.
How does Meros handle spam?Typically, transaction fees stop spam. Since Meros doesn’t have those, we have an adjustable spam filter where users must ‘spend’ CPU cycles to prove their transaction isn’t spam. Data transmission has a separate spam filter, which is how we make sure transactions will always be prioritized over data.
Why is the total supply not applicable?In order to continue to reward miners, when there’s no transaction fees, there will always be a block reward.
Why are you using two different signature schemes?Ed25519 is simply a better algorithm than the ‘traditional’ SECP256k1 algorithm. That said, BLS allows signature aggregation. This means we can have one signature for hundreds, or even thousands, of Verifications, and verify them all at once.
Why are you doing a premine and not an ICO?A time-locked premine means we only make money if we deliver a working product and the coin succeeds. An ICO means we make money for having a great marketing team. It’s fairer to the community to do a premine.
When will Meros be launched?We planned on launching our mainnet at the end of Q2, 2019. Before launch, we need to match our updated protocol specification, create a quality GUI, do a few more testnets, and have our codebase thoroughly reviewed, pending a full audit. We could launch at the end of Q2, with just a CLI and without proper testing, yet the team considers it their moral responsibility to make sure a new monetary platform is secure, and our community has decided they'd prefer a delay over having only a GUI at launch. For these reasons, our current statement on when Meros will launch is "2019".
What is Ember?Ember was the original name of the Meros cryptocurrency. We rebranded due to conflicts with dead projects.
