BlockTalks x Sperax AMA Transcript!

13 min readAug 11, 2020

Hello! BlockTalkers & Blockchain Enthusiastic!

We recently hosted an AMA with Sperax, on 11th August 1 PM UTC. Many of you might have participated or many of not. But we make sure no one missed out from the knowledge shared by Joe Yu, Top researcher of Sperax & Frida Cai, Global Strategic Partner of Sperax. So here we are up with AMA transcript, for those who missed the live session, this blog post will be saver & feeder of knowledge for them.

Introduction Questions Asked By BlockTalks

Q1. Could you please introduce Sperax to our community in layman’s term?

Ans — Sperax is founded in 2019. We are a blockchain company focused on building a trusted infrastructure to enable decentralized financial services and create a decentralized economy. As the world continues to battle the pandemic crisis, centralized authorities are proven to have limited capabilities of salvaging business operations, keeping employment, ensuring non-interrupted transactions. As an alternative, a decentralized economy can provide far greater efficiency, flexibility and self-governance than the traditional economic model.
We have global talents working in Silicon Valley, Beijing and Singapore. Our headquarters is located in Menlo Park, CA, the heart of Silicon Valley.

Q2. What are the advantages of Sperax to other alternatives in the Blockchain field?

Ans — The Internet is an open network which is better modelled by what we call a partially synchronous network model. A partially synchronous network is one which alternates between a synchronous network and an asynchronous one with an unknown transition time called Global Stabilization Time (GST). We analysed many widely deployed BFT protocols for blockchains and to our best knowledge, all of them could go to deadlock before GST and then remain deadlock forever (even after synchrony).

In contrast, Sperax BDLS protocol is designed exactly based on a partially synchronous network model. In other words, our protocol is based on a more realistic model of our internet. So our protocol can provide a more secure method of consensus.

Also, our protocol doesn’t make the strong assumption of the existence of reliable communication channels for each node pair in the network. Thus, we take the possibility of DoS attack in a partially synchronous network into account.

Since our protocol is a blockchain version of the famous DLS protocol in the traditional cryptography literature, our protocol is thus named the BDLS protocol.

Q3. What are the major milestones Sperax achieved so far & what are in future pipeline?

Ans — For the rest of this year, we plan to launch our testnet, mainnet, stable coin wallet and to be listed at a major exchange.

In 1–3 years, we will focus mostly on building our infrastructure and ecosystem by investing in as many quality developers as possible to make Sperax a sustainable and robust platform, upon which decentralized financial services applications could be truly realized and benefit the world.

Questions Asked on Twitter For Sperax!

Q1. “cooperate with SperaxBDLS protocol” how does this work without subjecting to frequent malicious attacks?

If the investors still suffer from malicious attacks, what insurance do you have for the investors?

Ans — Blockchain networks operate on the top of the physical network. Since a network model directly determines the communication capabilities between nodes, and also indirectly determines the types of malicious nodes’ activities, this is one way to think of different network models.

A node in a Byzantine network gains greater malicious capabilities in an asynchronous network than in an synchronous network — in particular, such malicious nodes are capable of dropping messages or reordering messages in order to achieve their end goal of causing the system to be inconsistent. It’s here that we’ll begin our dissertation of the tricky challenges that follow, in a scenario where malicious nodes have maximum power.

To mitigate these security flaws, the Sperax protocol, similarly to Libra, handles this in waves of synchronous and asynchronous stages. Our consensus algorithm was authored by Professor Yongge Wang.

He has published over a hundred peer-reviewed scientific papers on cryptography, pseudorandomness, fault-tolerant computation, dependable distributed computation and secure communications. Most recently, Professor Wang implemented the post-quantum cryptography encryption technique RLCE which was included in NIST for post-quantum cryptographic standards round 1 competition. His papers speak to his experience designing attacks against various blockchain protocols.

Our BDLS guarantees:

1. Secure and Unpredictable random beacon or RANDAO

RANDAO not only has the characteristics of unpredictability which it inherits from the common random number generator, but it is also more accessible and provably fair. RANDAO’s protocol adopts a commit-reveal process that presents a joint random number, generated from the random strings committed by various participants in a given window of time. After a user gets this shared random number via RANDAO, he/she can then generate his/her own random number via some hash function.

One possible drawback of RANDAO is that the last user may influence the ending output RANDAO might present, because one can base his/her decision to reveal one’s number on the numbers others have revealed. However, threshold digital signature schemes solves this problem perfectly. BLS is one of the threshold digital signature schemes that can be used to generate random numbers with multiple participants, where the goal is to provide users with random numbers in a more efficient way on the premise of verifiable fairness.

2. Security design in the type II partial synchronous networks

Between asynchronous and synchronous networks, there also exists the concept of partially synchronous networks. Among these partially synchronous networks, there are two widely accepted main types of partially synchronous networks, illustrated in the paper. In particular, in the type II network which is a realistic representation of the Internet, Denial of Service (DoS) attacks are allowed and no reliable broadcast channels are assumed before GST. Furthermore, we may assume that the network alternates between good synchronous period and bad period. In designing Sperax BDLS, we adopt block-lock mechanisms and block self-proof mechanisms to ensure security against such potential forks. Most importantly, the liveness and safety properties of Sperax BDLS protocol has been proved here.

3. High efficiency consensus algorithm design

Scalability is another angle from which to evaluate any blockchain system. All of today’s projects spare nothing to present their users with high performance. In PoS algorithm design, this desire for efficient consensus highlights the bottleneck of multiple communication processes. Another way to evaluate efficient consensus is to understand the complexity of the messages passed. Although in general the performance of PoS consensus varies with the implementation, it can also be evaluated on the order of O(n2). In terms of the communication processes in SperaxBDLS however, there are only two unicast and two broadcast processes, with a O(4n) message complexity, which contributes to a linear consensus efficiency.

Q2. We often hear that some Defi platforms has been hacked, talking about the quality of the Defi platform’s security. How confident Sperax to ensure the safety of financial system platform?

Ans — From 1- 10, I personally would say 10, because security is one of our primary pursuits at the infrastructure level.

Built with our original BDLS consensus protocol, Sperax offers a high-performance blockchain that is truly secure in the real internet environment compared with other top-ranking BFT consensus-based blockchains, such as Cosmos (Tendermint), Polkadot (GRANDPA), and Ethereum (Casper FFG).

On top of our blockchain consensus infrastructure, the Sperax Foundation issues a native multi-currency stablecoin sCOIN, the first among public blockchain ecosystems. It bridges the gap between Internet users and crypto-native applications.

sCOIN is fiat-pegged stablecoin issued on the Sperax blockchain. Moreover, it is the native stablecoin of Sperax blockchain. It is minted through depositing fiat currencies by users and is issued by financial nodes (regulated financial institutions with fiat custody) in the network.
There are multiple benefits introducing a native stablecoin. By providing a digital token with a price pegged to fiat currency, sCOIN could lower the barrier for users to adopt the usage of blockchain. Moreover, by partnering with licensed financial service providers in different countries, sCOIN network is able to serve a global user base. At launch, payment, global transfer and remittance would be supported for stablecoin users; however, the network will be an open platform for developers and liquidity providers to launch innovative products based on the blockchain and financial infrastructure.

Q3. Sperax claims “decentralization” but that word can be relative (e.g. an entity can split into nodes they still control & claim that). Can you offer a provably verifiable proof that Sperax is decentralised, trustless & with no dominant party in control?

Ans — The randomness used for determining whether a user is a potential leader or member is based on the following entropy: a random string that the user committed in a previous round, a joint random string output by the random beacon protocol (RANDAO + BLS signature scheme). It guarantees that the joint random string is fairly generated and any t corrupted users do not have a control on the output of the joint random string — where t is a threshold for the number of nodes that the adversary can corrupt.

All users can verify whether a user is a potential leader or member, after the potential leader publishes his/her previously committed random string. Each of the potential leaders of a particular round collects the maximal transaction set they’ve seen thus far, confirms these are valid transactions, and goes about building a candidate block. This user then propagates the message to the entire network. Since there may be several potential leaders, the verification committee is needed to determine the actual leader, and finalize a chosen block.

Each user is selected to the committee some fixed number of times, and with some probability, a subset of the online users are chosen to be verifiers. Then, in order for each user to mark a proposed block as the final block for this round, each user checks that this block has received signatures from ⅔ of the online verifier nodes.

Secondly, from a personal perspective, Sperax implements a flat management internally. There is no hierarchy. Each person is in charge of different agendas, though a few of us wear multiple hats mostly haha. For instance, here is no chain of order or seniority between Joe and me. I think by exercising decentralization ourselves is the best proof that Sperax has no dominant party in control.

Q4. Sperax builds trusted infrastructure for decentralized economy, now I already build with ETH solidity and Cosmos SDK, Why should I switch to Sperax, what’s your competitive advantage for Developers.

Ans — The Internet is an open network which is better modelled by a partially synchronous network model. After analyzing many widely deployed BFT protocols, all of them could go to deadlock before GST and then remain deadlock forever (even after synchrony). Compared to other protocols that are built upon a simpler internet models, Sperax BDLS protocol is based on a more realistic model of our internet. So our protocol can provide a more secure method of consensus.

Second of all, we achieve efficiency at the mean time. The most common angle to measure efficiency is “scalability.” However, there is another important angle from which to evaluate the efficiency of any blockchain system — communication complexity. Most current BFT consensus blockchains need O(n²) communication complexity. Since it is a “square,” it requires plenty of efforts to accomplish the communication task before reaching consensus. Even the fastest current BFT consensus needs O(7n) communication complexity, which means multiplying 7 to the input task. By comparison, BDLS consensus only needs O(4n). This means that BDLS nearly has double the speed of the current fastest BFT consensus in terms of communication complexity.

Q5. Sperax Makes DeFi Services Accessible to All Global Citizens. This sounds interesting and amazing, could you tell us the methodology Sperax adopts in making this actually possible in reality?

Ans — I think the most appropriate example here would be our latest integration with Chainlink Oracles.

We are thrilled to share with BlockTalks friends today that our mission to make decentralized financial services globally accessible is marking another milestone, thanks to our upcoming integration with Chainlink. By integrating Chainlink, we can finally bring real-world data into the Sperax ecosystem and connect to traditional non-blockchain systems. This allows our developers to create smart contracts connected to off-chain data feeds, APIs, traditional payment infrastructure, and more, which greatly expands the number of use cases we can build solutions through DeFi and other large markets.

Within our DeFi ecosystem, Chainlink oracles will aggregate market information from a variety of high quality data sources to serve as reference prices for assets such as cryptocurrencies, fiat currencies, commodities, indices, and more. DeFi applications can then use those price feeds as the basis for making automated decisions like how big a loan a user can take on, whether or not to liquidate someone’s collateral, and whether or not a payment actually occured off-chain.

This integration will enable Sperax to leverage Chainlink’s decentralised oracle network to bring real-world data to any smart contract running on the Sperax network, and ultimately steer users and developers towards better financial decisions and more passive incomes through highly accessible and reliable financial products.

You can check out the official press release here: https://twitter.com/chainlink/status/1291526745255018511

Questions Asked by our BlockTalks Community Members during live Session for Sperax team!

Q1. How does Sperax solved the scaling problem And how did it overcome the threat of centralization in its?

Ans — For scalability, I prefer a more general term — performance or efficiency. Since the main goal here is for us to improve the processing speed in blockchain.
Our BDLS protocol has significantly improved processing speed or efficiency by enhancing communication complexity of our consensus.

Q2. How does Sperax provide security of the data?
How will Sperax plan to dominate DeFi market?

Ans — Ever since this June, DeFi has been in the spotlight. The total value locked in DeFi surged from 1 billion USD to 4.5 billion USD. That is more than two-fold.
Project-wise, Compound, Balancer, Synthetix are all very exciting experiments. We Sperax designs a unique financial layer in our blockchain system to further the development and mass adoption of DeFi. We invite every DeFi projects to try on our Sperax blockchain and I am sure they will not regret haha

We will continue to work on our infrastructure, minting it as secure as possible. People invent and improve technology so it could serve us. Sure, it is natural for people to care about the application and landing scenarios of technology, besides the infrastructure underneath it. However, it is crucial for us to realize that overlooking the protocol or infrastructure would make applications and landing scenarios mere empty talks. So simply put, we need to pay attention to consensus and infrastructure.
Secondly, there is another problem. The problem of narrative. One of the major paint points in the blockchain industry is not about the killer app, not about technology, but about narratives — how we tell the stories, how we educate, how we deliver the obscure blockchain technology to the general public, relate with more people and help more people benefit from it. I believe this is a question that every blockchain practitioner should seriously think about.

Q3. Please explain about the UTILITY of Sperax, the real life use case and application.

Ans — 1. Xiaomi Financial Virtual Bank with full licenses authorized by Hong Kong Monetary Authority Proposed Sperax stablecoin for the following uses cases: Use the fiat gateway and accept cash equivalent; Support cross-border transactions based on the stable coin network and offer more competitive rates

2. A Sand Hill Road based Venture Capital
Tokenize its emerging crypto-focus fund
Integrate its mobile gaming portfolio companies on Sperax networks

3. A costume martial-arts TV series, The Untamed, with 8 billion views on Netflix and WeTV:
Tokenize its worldwide fan meet-ups and concerts tickets
Tokenize celebrity merch’s online marketing places

Q4. What are the major milestones Sperax achieved so far & what are in future pipeline?

SPERAX is a very technology-oriented platform. I think besides from our BDLS, our latest achievement would be our IEEE paper.

Our team’s latest paper, Sperax: An Approach To Defeat Long Range Attacks In Blockchains, was accepted to the top-ranking computer science conference IEEE INFOCOM Edgeblock. Joe @yuzhou87 was invited to deliver a keynote speech at the conference.

IEEE INFOCOM is one of the top-ranking academic conferences in the field of computer science. Aka International Conference on Computer Communications, it covers both theoretical and systems research. For INFOCOM 2020, the conference includes a legion of paper from internationally renowned academic institutions (e.g. MIT and Princeton) and global technology enterprises (e.g. Microsoft and Amazon). The Technical Program Committee consists of worldwide academic experts. Due to its strict peer review process, the widely-recognized conference maintains a high standard.
Sperax team was informed that our paper got accepted by IEEE INFOCOM at the beginning of this year. IEEE INFOCOM has a rather rigorously-high bar of admitting blockchain-related studies. Only a handful of blockchain enterprises have been able to publish their academic papers. For example, Ethereum foundation ConsenSys and ZCASH. Because it has always been a core value to Sperax that research is the foundation of blockchain projects, this academic achievement on IEEE INFOCOM indicates an acknowledgement of our technology, furthering our dedication in blockchain research.

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