VIZ blockchain system: technical description
Contents
- Foreword
- VIZ: what is it?
- Differences from other Graphene systems
- Cryptography
- Economics
- VIZ DAC
- Tokenomics
- Capabilities
- Conclusion
Foreword
The ideas that eventually shaped VIZ began to emerge in October 2017. CryptoStorm.funddomain had already been registered then, and I was asking friends and acquaintances for support and donations without any obligations. The decision to start the development was made in February 2018. Back then my plan was to take Steem code base (0.19.4 version) as a basis, but I faced a certain number of problems. The code for the new Steem version was too raw. It seemed that it had been overloaded deliberately, too many things were just falling apart in front of my eyes. Therefore, I made the decision to take Golos code base as a basis. I think it was the right step: the guys from GolosCore refactored the kernel well (many thanks, that was a great job for the benefit of the entire OpenSource community).
But there was also another problem: it was necessary to make a downgrade rejecting many things which contradicted the ‘keep it simple’ principle. Modifications were required for the concept of a light node with a possibility of raising the chain with unplanned genesis. It was only after 5 months of work on donations that we managed to deliver the code which worked as intended. A few interesting possibilities were already present in it, as well as anonymous registrations and, most significantly, the committee, which laid the principles of our DAC, similar to those of turquoise organizations.
To call VIZ a Golos fork would be the same as to call Seem a BitShares fork, and Binance Chain a Tendermint fork. This would be a completely wrong terminology. VIZ is based on Graphene technology. Golos in its 0.18 version was chosen as a code base only because it suited well as a starting point for further development.
VIZ: what is it?
VIZ is a DAC (Decentralized Autonomous Community), this is to say a blockchain system built with Graphene technology (used in BitShares, Steem, partly in EOS). One of its main distinctive features is the principle of equitable participation in the work of the system (fair consensus, fair economy, fair DAC equity management).
Consensus means the Delegated Proof-of-Stake revised. The share of the voter is divided among the witnesses he or she supports. The queue of the witnesses consists of 11 top ones and 10 support ones, which alternate in a round (top, support, top, support, etc.), thus solving the main DPoS problem — that of management centralization.
Differences from other Graphene systems
 BitShares |
 Steem |
 EOS |
 VIZ |
|
| Free-of-charge operations | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Consensus | DPOS | DPOS | BFT-DPOS | Fair DPOS |
| Inflation | no, due to transaction fees | damped 9,5% | constant 5% | fixed per year 10% |
| Management | centralized by the witnesses (because of the undivided vote) | centralized by the witnesses (because of the undivided vote) | centralized by block producers (fee for speed and BFT consensus) | unique witnesses quorum voting for the options |
| Committee | centralized by the committee (because of the undivided vote) | doesn’t exist so far | doesn’t exist so far (private initiatives do exist, Worker Proposal City) | fair equity participation |
| Rewards fund | ❌ | voting for economic entities within the blockchain, possibility of hostility, reward in a week | ❌ | account reward, no hostility, instant reward |
Fair DPOS is a so-called fair type of voting for witnesses, when a participant's share is divided by the number of votes. For example, a participant with a share of 100 tokens votes for witnesses A and B. The share taken into account by VIZ blockchain system will be 50 for each delegate. If the user votes additionally for the third witness C, the shares received by A and B will change from 50 to 33.33, and the same will be received by C witness. This allows to eliminate voting abuse (when one participant transfers the same share to each witness for whom he or she voted), as well as corruption and monopoly among top witnesses.
A distinctive feature of VIZ is the consensus on reserving the system’s bandwidth for accounts with a small share. This is made possible thanks to the bandwidth_reserve_percent and bandwidth_reserve_below parameters that the witnesses vote for. When this system is activated, accounts with a fraction smaller than the threshold get access to the reserve bandwidth percentage divided between all applicants for this reserve.
Cryptography
VIZ uses Secp256k1 — the standard for the current generation of blockchain systems.
Private and public keys are generated the same way as in other blockchain-based systems built on Graphene technology.
Economics
After researching Steem economy, it was decided to abandon the damped inflation, as it was leading to the unjust enrichment of the pioneers. Network participants who came later turned out to be at a disadvantage.
As an alternative solution, a fixed inflation model (10%) with one-year rounds was developed. The stable distribution of emissions according to such inflation model makes the system predictable and allows to work in stable conditions each round (each participant knows that he or she is on equal terms with other participants).
The economy is managed by witnesses who set the parameters for the emission direction. Consensus parameters are achieved by a median (middle) value and are recalculated each round (21 blocks, 11 top witnesses, 10 support witnesses).
The witnesses set the interest components of the emission according to the inflation model. For example, this is the situation at the time of this text being written:
- 40% of the emission goes to the committee fund (public works and DAC initiatives);
- 40% of the emission goes to the rewards fund (DAC participants awarding each other for useful actions);
- 20% of the emission goes to infrastructure maintenance by witnesses.
Managing the committee efficiently and rewarding the worthy endeavors leads to the growth of the network’s value. Rewarding the worthy ones for useful actions stimulates such actions and initiatives, which ultimately leads to meeting VIZ DAC participants’ needs.
VIZ DAC
VIZ doesn't have a team. It never had ICO, advisers or co-founders. VIZ was created as a DAC and remains a DAC. It's all about shared management.
Each participant of the network can manage his or her share; vote for the witnesses that reflect his or her ideas about witnesses; initiate projects and create applications to the committee or vote for such applications; reward other network participants or even users outside VIZ blockchain system through social gateways.
When creating the network, its participants donated assets and tokens of various blockchain projects without any obligations. Subsequently, the initial volume of VIZ DAC shares was distributed among them. Some of these participants came to consensus and agreed to work within VIZ network.
VIZ DAC rules are simple.
Each VIZ DAC participant can do whatever he or she wants. Code is law.
Each VIZ DAC participant organizes his/her interaction with the DAC himself/herself.
Nobody owes anything to anybody. If you want something, just do it yourself.
This the unofficial VIZ motto: Just do it yourself.
VIZ cannot have an official website. There can be no official representative, group, company or organization. This is the very essence of DAC: everyone takes on the obligations he or she considers necessary to be taken. He or she can do it publicly if he or she wants to communicate with other DAC participants, find common interests and contact points for synergy.
Tokenomics
VIZ token is the utility token of VIZ blockchain system. It is used for VIZ DAC share conversion and in paid subscriptions system (to register a bilateral agreement on automatic payments).
VIZ DAC share tokens (also known as SHARES) allow one to take part in VIZ DAC management:
- vote for witnesses (Fair DPoS, SHARES are divided between all the votes for all the witnesses);
- take part in managing the committee (vote for applications in the committee of public works and initiatives, which can be done linearly using one’s share with a potential set from 0 to 100%, both positive and negative);
- reward worthy participants or social gateways of VIZ blockchain system (100% of energy share potential regenerates in 5 days, linear competition for rewards fund using reward potential against other rewards during the previous 5 days).
Since VIZ economy is designed with a fixed-10%-per-year inflation in mind, there is no economic incentive to just hold the VIZ tokens without using them (other than the speculative one). Each year, there is an emission of 10% of the calculated tokens at the beginning of the round, thus, the maximum efficiency for a VIZ holder will be achieved by converting the tokens into VIZ DAC shares and participating directly in the system’s management.
Capabilities
Every participant of VIZ blockchain system can send a transaction that contains operations which can be categorized as follows:
- Account managing
- account_create — create account
- account_update — update account access
- account_metadata — update account public metadata
- change_recovery_account — change your trusted account to restore your account in case you lose access
- request_account_recovery — request to restore access through a trusted account
- recover_account — respond to a request to restore access through a trusted account
- Asset management
- transfer — VIZ token transfer
- transfer_to_vesting — convert VIZ tokens to VIZ DAC share (SHARES)
- withdraw_vesting — reverse conversion of SHARES to VIZ (28 days withdrawal in equal parts of 1/28 of total SHARES amount each)
- set_withdraw_vesting_route — set the share’s withdrawal direction when converting SHARES back to VIZ tokens
- delegate_vesting_shares — delegate VIZ DAC share to another participant
- DAC — rewarding the participants
- award — award with a percentage of VIZ DAC share potential taken from the energy that self-replenishes in 5 days (competition for the awards fund), the ability to specify several beneficiaries (split the award into several participants with different ratios)
- DAC — committee of public works and initiatives
- committee_worker_create_request — create an application to the committee
- committee_worker_cancel_request — cancel an application to the committee
- committee_vote_request — take part in voting for an application to the committee
- DAC — voting for witnesses
- account_witness_vote — vote for a witness with your share
- account_witness_proxy — transfer the right to vote for a witness with your share
- System of invite codes (vouchers)
- create_invite — сcreate an invite code with the transfer of VIZ tokens
- claim_invite_balance — claim VIZ tokens assigned to the invite code
- invite_registration — use an invite code to register an account in VIZ blockchain system with automatic conversion of VIZ tokens into VIZ DAC share (SHARES)
- System of automatic payments agreements (paid subscriptions)
- set_paid_subscription — set the agreement terms for periodic payments
- paid_subscribe — sign an agreement with the terms of the agreement
- Data storage in the blockchain system (architecture for dapp applications)
- custom — send VIZ public row with contents in JSON format to the blockchain system
- Witnesses
- witness_update — set a signing key for a witness (or a statement of intent to become one)
- versioned_chain_properties_update — flexible translation system of the blockchain system desired parameters to participate in the configuration of network parameters, with the participation of a round of 21 witnesses
- System of transactions made through an intermediary (a guarantor)
- escrow_transfer — create a transaction through an intermediary
- escrow_dispute — request the intermediary to resolve the dispute between the parties of the transaction
- escrow_release — release tokens from the transaction
- escrow_approve — confirm the transaction
- Multi-signatures joint management system (proposal)
- proposal_create — create a signature proposal
- proposal_update — update proposal
- proposal_delete — delete proposal
Conclusion
VIZ blockchain system is valuable for its DAC control mechanics and subsystems to integrate with third-party applications and web services. Self-governance and the concept of rewarding the worthy ones by integrating VIZ with social groups both contribute to the fact that the number of participants grows and they participate consciously in the life of VIZ DAC.
Just do it yourself.
Useful links: