Monthly Report (Jul - August 2018)

Posted on August 20, 2018

Headline

NKN has deployed thousands of nodes globally to verify our testnet network scalability and will also open up community nodes for developers to join very soon. NKN will start to build up our mining community. Early mining participants will receive mining rewards by simply sharing and co-building data transmission network on our testnet.

R&D Progress

NKN JavaScript Wallet Repository Source Code Opened

Github link of NKN Javascript Wallet Repository: https://github.com/nknorg/nkn-wallet-js

NKN has created an open sourced Javascript wallet located on our Github site as nkn-wallet-js. This repository provides a JavaScript-based SDK (software development kit) that includes compilation, usage instructions, API (application programming interface) instructions, and a use-case demonstration. It should be noted that the NKN wallet only stores static information, such as an encrypted private key, an address, and the like. All dynamic information needs to be queried from an NKN node. Therefore, before using the NKN wallet SDK, a user needs to first set the node information and NKN token ID to be connected. The example use case below can help developers quickly understand how nkn-wallet-js is used.. (https://github.com/nknorg/nkn-wallet-js). Example:

NKN Javascript wallet SDK use case demonstration

NKN TestNet Further Scale Expansion and Adding File Transfer Demonstration

NKN Testnet adding new use case of file transfer based on blockchain

The NKN testnet has been expanded to thousands of nodes in worldwide deployment, which will let NKN test the scalability of the NKN network. The expanded testnet will further provide a solid foundation for the upcoming experimental mining testing. Details of the mining will be announced after the release of “Lemur” milestone.

In addition to the previous instant messaging (IM) use case demostration provided as part of the NKN testnet preview (http://preview.nkn.org/usecase/file_transfer_based_on_nkn), a new file transfer use case, based on the NKN blockchain, has been added. The file transfer operation allows developers the ability to log in with their own NKN wallet, recharge a prepaid account with a certain number of NKN tokens, set a transaction ratio/fee, and proceed to initiate a file transfer.

Illustration of the general block diagrams of file transfer based on NKN network

The chart below shows the flow of Token Incentives within the NKN network. First, the sender pays a small fee via token to transfer data over the shared network.hen the relayer nodes, including the block producer, can obtain NKN token rewards for relaying the data transmission. Finally, from the nodes involved in the data relay, one node is selected as block proposer and awarded mining reward. This simple case describes NKN’s economic model of incentivizing communities to build a new, shared Internet via blockchain technology. This new file transfer operation is available on our preview testnet and can be accessed through the NKN official website links or directly by clicking http://preview.nkn.org/usecase/file_transfer_based_on_nkn.

NKN.ORG Official Website Adds NKN DApps Link

Although NKN’s development is still in the testnet phase, we have had a number of decentralized applications (DApps developed based on our SDK. Many of these apps were top winners of our NKN sponsored hackathons community volunteers. Now, these works can be viewed on NKN’s official website at NKN.ORG or directly via https://nkn.org/dapp/en as shown below.

NKN Core Repository Update Highlights

In order to achieve the NKN Lemur milestone at the end of August, a number of new features and enhancements were added including:

Added a test function of online data transmission payment based on blockchain; NKN relay nodes collect the sender’s transaction fee by forwarding the file to the destination; the payment part includes the prepay process and the implementation of the payment model according to the signature chain;
Enhanced consensus mechanism, added the legality verification function of the block producers;
Implement the gossip forwarding of transaction information and block information;
Optimized Chord DHT network neighbor nodes functionality;
Optimized code supports for large-scale deployment of NKN nodes;
Implement block synchronization based on neighbor voting;
Implement timeout reselection function when the block producer is offline;
Consensus code optimization, modularizing mining and block signature functions;
The signature chain structure is upgraded, and the relay node can select whether to participate in mining;
Implement the permission access interface of JSON-RPC;
Support the seed node list function, a new node can specify multiple seed nodes and join the NKN network;
Refactor the build script to support more compilation options, including support for cross-platform compilation;
Community contributors also submitted bug fixes, documentation updates, etc;
Command line optimization, including error handling of nknc programs, parameter format changes of nknd programs;
Added IPv6 support of node connections;
Optimization of asset data storage format, so that asset information is distributed in different blocks to prompt database performance;
Utilized dynamic neighbors to improve security of the consensus voting process;
Block synchronization pool optimization to support receiving and counting the number of votes of different blocks of the same height;
Added the node synchronization state, and the processing flow for different states of the node;
Large-scale node deployment framework development to support one-click deployment of thousands of nodes;
Testnet nodes are deployed on a massive scale in the cloud.

BD & Ecosystem Progress

NKN and Datapace, are pleased to announce a joint collaboration to bring Datapace’s data exchange application to NKN’s decentralized, blockchain powered peer to peer network. The partnership will provide integrated solutions and new monetization opportunities in areas such as IoT, 5G, medical, and more. Datapace is a blockchain powered data marketplace with technical and policy-based data verification, and access to the worldwide network of sensors. Datapace, sponsored by Nokia DIA (Digital Innovation Acceleration), is a solution used by Nokia products such as Sensing-as-Service.

Community Progress

NKN was thrilled to be selected as one of the top 12 startups to participate in Founder Friendly Labs Summer 2018 program, with a reward over $200k in credits from partners including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), IBM Cloud, First Republic Bank, and HubSpot.Founder Friendly Labs (FFL) is the equity-free startup accelerator for experienced tech industry professionals.Their founders are experienced tech industry professionals and include veterans from Google, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft etc, expertising in AI, Machine Learning, Marketing,Marketplaces, Deep Learning, IoT, and more.
NKN was invited to participate in the ABC Blockchain Awakens Hackathon that took place on August 4 and 5 in San Mateo, California, along with QuarkChain and HyperLedger. Hackers from 20+ countries with experience at companies like Google, Facebook, Linkedin, Uber, and PayPal, were challenged with using one or multiple of the SDKs provided by these three platforms. NKN’s co-founder and CTO- Dr. Yilun Zhang was on the hackathon’s panel of judges, along with Dr. Whitfield Diffie- World-renowned cryptographer and NKN Technical Advisor, Jannie Affeld- Google Engineering Director, and Ella Zhang- Head of Binance Labs etc.

In order to keep China community members posted on NKN news and latest status, we’ve held an online AMA in China in July. The three NKN founders Yanbo Li, Bruce Li and Yilun Zhang shared the project’s future vision, as well as answered questions from community on project status and technical details. You can see the AMA doc in CN version here: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/XJTqhu42BsInbZtoBKRREw
Justin Wang, VP of technical marketing was invited to join meetups in Shanghai and Hangzhou hosted by BlockVC. A keynote speech was given to the audience as well as addressed audience questions regarding NKN’s consensus algorithm based on Cellular Automata, mining and user scenarios.