Join us for our new weekly town hall meeting on each Thursday from 3 to 4 PM UTC on Komodo Discord in the Town Hall voice channel. Have questions you want answered? Drop them in the Town Hall questions channel before Thursday at 8AM UTC.
The first ~30 minutes is dedicated to answering community questions from the previous week, while the second ~30 minutes is an open dialogue for anyone who wishes to take part in the community conversation.
The questions listed below were answered on the Komodo Town Hall Meeting that took place on Thursday, October 8th.
Question From Cryptoon
a) What is the status of dPoW 2.0, and will it be ready before the elections next year?
dPoW 2.0 is not prioritized and only minimal resources are currently allocated towards its implementation. It’s safe to say it will not be ready for the fifth annual Notary Node Election coming up in 2021.
b) Will the entire consensus mechanism change to dPoW 2.0, or will it be similar to how it is now?
There isn’t a lot of specific information to share regarding these details at the moment. The targeted improvements will make dPoW 2.0 more decentralized and effective than dPoW 1.0.
Question From suhthern-girl
From what I am hearing about the QFS, its nodes will be (are!) very powerful, Quantum systems. This means that these computers already exist and are operating. What comfort can the community be given that the Komodo blockchain will be secure from hacking by these incredible machines?
Komodo’s Dilithium module provides a solution against possible quantum attacks for independent chains built on Komodo’s multi-chain architecture. This lattice-based digital signature scheme adds an additional consensus rule that requires each transaction to be signed twice: once in accordance with the blockchain’s original digital signature process, and then a second time according to Dilithium’s new quantum-secured signature process. This ensures that each transaction on any blockchain using the Dilithium module is protected against quantum computing attacks. With that being said, none of the Antara modules are active on the KMD chain. However, the quantum security tech is there for us to activate as needed.
Across various blockchains (including Komodo-based chains), even with future advances in quantum computing, these attacks become more likely only when the public key is revealed to the network after the transaction is signed with the associated private key using a digital signature. If you have a lot of funds that you want to keep secure, it’s best to always generate a new address for each transaction and send funds there. This is known as the ‘single-use token’ concept. As outlined in our Bitcoin wallet address blog post, this is also a good practice for other reasons such as data privacy. That being said, private keys backed by the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) are currently secure against quantum attacks. Compared to other asymmetric encryption algorithms such as RSA (which isn’t used in blockchain applications), ECDSA and Komodo’s Dilithium module provide a much higher degree of quantum security.
Question From Sakata
How can we get more pairs on AtomicDEX? Will there be an API, or will it be based upon submissions? ($XMR & $ERG is a must! Along with other BPSAA projects)
The current path to getting more pairs on AtomicDEX is to be a developer and work with the Komodo team to achieve integration. The Komodo team currently works with projects to help them get listed; however, some assets require more integration work than others. One initiative we plan to start after the AtomicDEX stable beta release planned for the end of Q4 2020 is to create a clear path for projects or community members to get their favorite coins listed. Currently, AtomicDEX has the ability to support 99% of crypto assets in existence. The main exceptions are assets that use different architecture types (e.g. block-lattice/DAG-based networks like Nano, IOTA, or Fantom). With that being said, anyone will soon be able to add custom ERC20 tokens (e.g. Synthetix, Compound, YFI, or Wrapped Bitcoin) to AtomicDEX without requiring any coordination with the dev team. When this upgrade is implemented in Q4, you can add these assets to your non-custodial wallet on AtomicDEX and then trade them against listed assets or even other custom ERC20 tokens added by other users. We recently published a video that walks through this process.
Concerning XMR, here is a document that describes the atomic swap implementation and its exploration. There is also a conversation on our Discord discussing this integration. The short answer is that compatibility could be possible in the future if Monero makes some changes to their codebase. Our ultimate goal is to support all blockchains and protocols. However, it takes time to add support for new ones. Codebases for the other BPSAA projects, including ERG, haven’t been implemented yet. Developers are currently focused on QRC20 token standard integration for AtomicDEX Mobile & Desktop.
Question From cascrypto
How is the Komodo team spirit holding up with the pressure of delivering sensible projects and declining interest? Are you guys still having fun? What code/achievement have you celebrated last?
We’re holding up pretty well! It’s a different landscape than it was in 2014. There is a new set of challenges and opportunities. We’re starting to put our heads down and doing what’s necessary to continue to move the project forward. We are absolutely still having fun. Generally speaking, our team members all live by the old adage goes, “If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.” Our team is dedicated and passionate about blockchain technology and where Komodo is headed.
We actually aren’t seeing declining interest. It’s been quite the opposite. There is a lot of work on our plate. Developers have been busy working on very exciting stuff like the custom ERC20 feature, QRC20 integration, the public stress test, and other things coming up in Q4 for AtomicDEX.
One cool thing that happened recently is our dev team worked with Chips to successfully upgrade their chain to Adaptive Proof of Work (APoW). Now it's possible to mine CHIPS with CPUs all while preventing difficulty stranding attacks.
Closing Thoughts
As some community members may know, we are currently in the middle of a situation regarding compliance for AtomicDEX and are evaluating our options. This was one of the topics of discussion during this week’s town hall; however, we don’t yet have concrete answers to provide to our community. We will share more info as soon as we can.