Historically, Satoshi Nakamoto proposed Bitcoin as a decentralized payment system. During its early times, the operation of the system was as expected. However, Bitcoin started to face problems with scalability and decentralization with an increase in the number of users. Today, the community is actively searching for solutions and attempting to avoid mistakes by finding new ways to solve these issues.
In 2017, the Enecuum project announced its own solution: a blockchain with mobile masternodes and support for several parallel blockchains. After two years of active development and testing, the project is planning to launch the main network in April 2020.
Over past days, we have analyzed Enecuum’s technical documentation, received developer comments, and ended up focusing on the project’s mobile masternode.
Consensus algorithm
Enecuum uses custom Trinity hybrid protocol based on the Bitcoin-NG and the Proof-of-Activity (PoA) consensus.
A distinctive feature of Bitcoin-NG is the separation of Proof-of-Work (PoW) mining and the publication of transactions.
Bitcoin-NG has two types of blocks:
- Key blocks are based on the PoW, a link to the previous block, a reward for mining, and the public key of the miner.
- Microblocks store only transaction data. The key block miner is responsible for confirming transactions during the time until a new key block is calculated.
PoA (Proof-of-Activity) is a hybrid consensus algorithm that combines the elements of PoW and Proof-of-Stake (PoS). PoW miners solve a cryptographic task and create empty blocks. These ‘blanks’ will become full blocks after being signed by several randomly selected PoS miners.
Enecuum developers have significantly modified these algorithms: they added the concept of macroblock and PoA mining. In the Trinity protocol, transactions are not published immediately but are accumulated in a macroblock. Simultaneously, three types of nodes are responsible for creating blockchains: PoW (personal computers), PoS (coin holders) and PoA (mobile phones).
The basis of the Trinity algorithm is a combination of three different concepts.
The Enecuum blockchain is formed as follows:
- PoW miners find and publish an empty macroblock, i.e., a key block.
- Among the PoS miners, a PoS leader is randomly selected as LPoS. LPoS will be acting as the management instance during the time until the release of the next key block.
- The leader receives the full version of the secret key from other PoS miners. A secret key is a session key that is required to sign microblocks, which is distributed among PoS miners. Only selected PoS miners with the full version of the secret key can accept and sign blocks from PoA miners.
- PoA miners sign microblocks with transactions and send them to LPoS. Enecuum uses ID-based cryptography and this is why PoA miners do not need to download and recalculate the entire blockchain. PoA group verifies the authenticity of the PoS leader after verifying its signature. The leader can actually sign it only if a full version of the secret key is present.
- LPoS signs the microblocks and publishes them to the blockchain with a broadcast request.
- PoW miners collect and combine the key block and signed microblocks into a macroblock and publish it on the blockchain.
Creating macroblocks in the Enecuum blockchain
HyperDAG Technology
Enecuum supports the creation of simultaneously running blockchains as part of the main blockchain by HyperDAG means.
Note, the number of transactions increases with an increase in the number of blockchain branches. During testing, Enecuum was able to achieve a speed of 18,000 transactions per second.
SHARNELL Smart Contracts
Shared Noncommutative Exponential Linear Logic (SHARNELL) is a smart contract based on linear logic and a set of simple operations (hashing, signature verification).
By applying linear logic and previously listed operations, a smart contract could be described as the result of an arbitrary function. This way, errors could be found and the execution time of a smart contract at the compilation stage could be estimated.
ENQ Token
Enecuum has its utility-token ENQ. It is used for:
- rewarding miners;
- payment of transaction fees;
- issuing new tokens within the network;
- smart contracts.
Native ENQ tokens can be bought in the SUEX exchanger. KuCoin, CREX24 and GRAVIEX exchanges trade tokens of the ERC-20 standard.
In the first quarter of 2020, Enecuum will launch the migration of ERC-20 tokens to the main network.
Mining
Enecuum has three types of mining: PoW, PoS and PoA. PoW mining is designed for personal computers. PoA mining can be done on the smartphone. PoS operation requires a server.
The reward for the mined blocks is distributed between the miners. PoW nodes receive 10%, PoSs — 30%, PoAs — 60%.
Enecuum has a two-level referral program for PoA miners built into the protocol. Both referrer and referral receive an additional 10% mining reward.
Mobile miners require to have at least 25 and a maximum of 25000 ENQ. Owners of the 100 largest network wallets can become PoS miners.
Only PoS miners receive transaction commissions in Enecuum. Right now there are no network fees. Transaction fee will be of 0.001 ENQ after the mainnet launch.
Mining tokens
Mining tokens are user published tokens for PoA mining in Enecuum network. They can be used to expand community and crowdfunding.
The project plans to create a marketplace where users will choose tokens for mining based on price, ROI coefficient and current trading volume.
For creation of mining tokens no special hardware or software is needed. Token parameters: its name, emission period and total supply, — — are set at Enecuum website.
Smart Staking
Smart staking is an opportunity to stake with small wallets. Thanks to smart staking, PoS miners can earn more, and coin holders can receive part of the reward for conducting transactions.
The smart staking initiator publishes a business plan online. This plan indicates how many tokens the initiator plans to collect, how much will earn as a PoS miner, and what percentage of tokens holders will receive.
The initiator takes risks. A smart contract freezes its tokens in the amount of payments to participants in the contract. Users will receive these tokens for any outcome.
Smart staking allows to earn on transactions to users who cannot become PoS miners. In addition, it incentivizes PoS miners to work for the benefit of the network.
Mobile applications
Enecuum has developed two mobile applications used for a wallet and running a node.
Wallet is available on Google Play and AppStore. Currently, you can only get the node app from Enecuum website on an Android device. Minimum requirements: Android 4.4, 1GHz processor, 1.5 GB of RAM.
Apps have a similar interface. Once got acquainted with one app, it will be easy to deal with another.
In order to start, you need to create or import a public/private keys that are paired. After that, you can mine tokens and access your wallet.
The mining application runs in the background. To make it reliable you need to allow autorun and background activity.
Node almost does not affect the battery. The application consumes about 1–1.5% of the charge. For comparison, Telegram consumes 4.5%.
Profitability of mobile mining
The reward for PoA mining depends on three parameters: the number of staked tokens, the computational power of the phone and the quality of the connection (the most significant one).
The computational power of an average smartphone is enough to sign microblocks. But the phone will not receive a reward if it does not send the signed microblocks before the publication of a new key block. The main rule of PoA mining is to always be online, i.e., Active.
For ten days of mining on Xiaomi Mi5, we got 13 ENQ. After the first week, we got 9 ENQ — a little more than the Enecuum forecasted in the ROI calculator. Although the node was not online for several hours, the weekly mining yield was 0.8%.
The profitability of mining depends on the total number of tokens at stake. At the time of writing, the ROI for the maximum stake of 25,000 ENQ was 41% (10,250 ENQ). Profitability for referrals was higher — 45% per annum (11,250 ENQ).
BIT Testnet
Currently, Enecuum offers two coins: ENQ and BIT. Each coin has its own purpose and platform.
ENQ is used in Enecuum’s Neuro Testnet and can be mined in our mobile mining application utilizing the Proof-of-Activity algorithm. ENQ can be swapped to a tradable ERC20 token and vice versa.
Unlike ENQ, BIT is not intended for trading; its sole purpose is testing of Enecuum’s Trinity protocol: a combination of Proof-of-Activity, Proof-of-Work, and Proof-of-Stake algorithms. By launching BIT, Enecuum allows users to experience mobile mining without buying minimal stake and to try out PoW and PoS nodes before the Mainnet release with a tradable ENQ.
BIT Testnet Components
Currently, we deploy four components of the BIT Network: Proof-of-Activity, Proof-of-Stake, Proof-of-Work, and Fullnode. Each of them has a specific purpose in the network, and the components can also work separately.
Proof-of-Activity nodes contribute to the network by validating m-blocks containing transactions. PoA is distributed through Enecuum BIT App. The only difference from Enecuum Masternode App is a little redesign to distinguish our two applications. As usual, it requires a minimal stake to start mining; but since BIT is not tradable, you can get it with our faucet.
Proof-of-Stake nodes receive rewards for voting for a PoS leader that publishes macroblocks. In our current BIT implementation, the conditions for becoming a PoS node are simplified — all you need is to have is a non-zero balance and specify an arbitrary secret PoS share. In the final protocol version, a PoS candidate is supposed to be in the top 100 wallets list and get a secret PoS share from a PoS coalition according to the corresponding Trinity protocol.
Proof-of-Work nodes generate k-blocks, which are the basic structure of our blockchain, with your PC’s CPU power. No minimal stake is required. Currently, BIT PoW mining difficulty is low, and as a result, CPU resources are not used a lot. But HDD usage is still high, as it is required to sync with the blockchain history.
Fullnode consists of the Blockchain Explorer and a module that recalculates referral rewards. Since the Blockchain Explorer demands a lot of resources, it was separated from PoW. Fullnode synchronizes with BIT Testnet.
PoW+Fullnode is an upcoming solution that allows users to both mine BIT and use Blockchain Explorer.
Team
Enecuum is an international project with the headquarters in Hong Kong.
Among the Enecuum developers:
- Prof. Sergey Bezzateev — head of the research department, Professor at the Faculty of Information Technology Security SUAI, author of more than 50 publications in the field of cryptography and information security.
- Mikhail Sayfullin — CEO of the project, in business since 2002, in IT — since 2014.
- Konstantin Zhidanov — CTO of the project, a developer with programming skills in low-level languages, a lecturer of SUAI.
Conclusions
Enecuum is a project with an interesting hybrid consensus algorithm and a low entry threshold for users.
Mining on mobile phones practically does not require investments: you only need an application and 25 ENQ ($ 0.5). The Enecuum test network has more than 1,800 mobile nodes from 60 countries.
Masternodes location can be viewed in Enecuum blockchain explorer.
The combination of three proof algorithms is expected to avoid problems with the centralization of the network: the concentration of computing power in regions with cheap electricity and the seizure of power by “rich wallets”.
Now we are waiting for the main network launch to see if Enecuum succeeds.
Get more info about Enecuum here:
Official Website
Download Masternode APK
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