Hello, Satoshi clubbers Another AMA took place in Satoshi Club and we would like to introduce to you the AMA session with our friends from Themelio and our guest was . The AMA took place on the 11th of January<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The AMA session was divided into 3 parts with a total crypto reward pool of $500<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this AMA Recap, we will try to summarise the most interesting points for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jonah <\/strong>🏅🎹<\/strong>\n| Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Hello Satoshiclubbers welcome to Another AMA session <\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah <\/strong>🏅🎹<\/strong>\n| Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Our Guest today is from Themelio<\/p>\n\n\n\n Robocop | Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n We are pleased to announce AMA with Themelio and today our guests is @nullchinchilla<\/p>\n\n\n\n nullchinchilla<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Hi everybody! Excited to participate in this AMA <\/p>\n\n\n\n Robocop | Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Welcome @nullchinchilla to Satoshi Club!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah <\/strong>🏅🎹<\/strong>\n| Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n We are Glad to have you here @nullchinchilla <\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah <\/strong>🏅🎹<\/strong>\n| Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n How are you doing today?<\/p>\n\n\n\n nullchinchilla<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I’m doing great <\/p>\n\n\n\n Robocop | Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, let’s start our AMA!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah <\/strong>🏅🎹<\/strong>\n| Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Let’s start with an introduction, can you introduce yourself\nto us how you got into crypto and how Themelio started?<\/p>\n\n\n\n nullchinchilla<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sure! I’m Eric (Yuhao Dong), otherwise known on the internet as nullchinchilla. I am the founder and CEO of Themelio Labs, the company behind Themelio. My blog: https:\/\/nullchinchilla.me<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n I got into crypto from my background as a cypherpunk and\nsecurity researcher. Growing up between China and Canada, I was always\ndisturbed by how centralization and insecurity on the Internet facilitates\noppressive social control \u2014 see China’s Great Firewall, for example. Since I\nwas also into computers, it’s natural that since I young age I’ve been very\ninterested in security & privacy tools like Tor and Bitcoin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In college, and later during my PhD studies at the University of Waterloo, I focused on researching and designing privacy-protecting technologies. During this period I also released Geph (https:\/\/geph.io<\/a>), a VPN with unique cryptography-powered privacy protection and censorship circumvention. It is now a profitable business with more than 10K regular users, mostly in heavily censored countries like China and Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What got me into blockchains was the problem of the root of\ntrust: any secure system ultimately relies on trusting somebody. But the\npresent-day internet\u2019s security depends entirely on trusting centralized\ninstitutions, like CAs, DNS servers, etc. This is terrible, since when these\ninstitutions go rogue like in China, security becomes impossible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I found the solution in using blockchains as decentralized,\nautonomous roots of trust and security. But after building two naming systems\non Bitcoin, I concluded that existing blockchains are not up for the task. So I\nmade Themelio, a revolutionary public blockchain based on my PhD thesis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah <\/strong>🏅🎹<\/strong>\n| Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n You have an incredible background and passion for this <\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah <\/strong>🏅🎹<\/strong>\n| Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Can you now tell us a little about Themelio, what is it all\nabout?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Robocop | Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n wow that is really great background in cryptocurrency, btw\ncan you explain a little about what is Themelio?<\/p>\n\n\n\n nullchinchilla<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The central idea behind Themelio is simple and bold:\nexisting blockchains miss out on most of the potential of blockchains by\ntargeting the wrong layer of the application stack. Both Ethereum-type\n\u201capplication platforms\u201d and Bitcoin-type \u201c blockchain apps\u201d are far too close\nto the application layer, causing tight coupling with the unstable and fickle\ntrends of app development. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This leads to frequent community spats and protocol upgrades\nthat shake the very \u201ccode is law\u201d foundations of blockchain security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Themelio instead aims to be a low-level, IPv4-like\nfoundation for a decentralized Internet. It’s intended to last decades without\nchanges to its core protocol once the 1.0 version stabilizes. This of course\nrequires very careful design and engineering, as well as a minimal protocol\nthat \u201cdoes one thing and does it well\u201d, but the reward is completely\nsidestepping the notoriously tricky problem of \u201cblockchain governance\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah <\/strong>🏅🎹<\/strong>\n| Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I see that what your project focusses on solving are\ntechnical issues of existing blockchains<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah <\/strong>🏅🎹<\/strong>\n| Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Not all projects have the ability to do so <\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah <\/strong>🏅🎹<\/strong>\n| Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Thank you for the introduction<\/p>\n\n\n\n Robocop | Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Thank you for the great introduction, now we have 6 question from community in part 1,\nare you ready ?<\/p>\n\n\n\n nullchinchilla<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Haha yeah. I wouldn’t say they are technical issues, but\nmore like deeper, design philosophy issues<\/p>\n\n\n\n nullchinchilla<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sure!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah <\/strong>🏅🎹<\/strong>\n| Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh yeah.. and I see\nyou have the knowledge to solve them<\/p>\n\n\n\n Robocop | Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Q1 telegram user @Highpee<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Themelio is developing its own unique uniquely flexible and usable UTXO-based data model known as MelVM. Can you explain more about this virtual machine and how it operate similarly or better than the popular Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)? Will developers need to learn additional programming language in order to be able to build application stacks that are MelVM compatible and can it be used to facilitate cross-chains dApp deployment similarly to what is obtainable on EVM compatible protocols? Also, can you explain how MelVM empowers complex dApp and how it grants better security guarantee?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n nullchinchilla<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n MelVM is intentionally very different from EVM:<\/p>\n\n\n\n – It is based on purely functional data structures<\/p>\n\n\n\n – It is non-Turing-complete, and gas usage can be determined\nstatically<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is because covenants in Themelio’s extended UTXO model\nare very different from smart contracts in Ethereum. Themelio covenants only\nconstrain how coins are spent, and they do not have mutable storage, dynamic\ngas costs, etc. The entire data model is different \u2014 for example, we don’t have\n“accounts”, and transactions look much more similar to Bitcoin\ntransactions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It would be hard to port most EVM dapps to Themelio. But\nthat is intentional, because we believe that most EVM dapps do not belong on\nlayer 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n MelVM is instead designed to focus on implementing logic\nthat does belong on layer 1: ordering and constraining graphs of critical\nevents, like money transfers or name registrations. For these applications, the\nextended UTXO model actually has much better security and performance. Whole\nclasses of bugs from bad storage management are gone because there’s no mutable\nstorage (e.g. in Themelio creating a custom token doesn’t require implementing\nyour own account math). And parallel processing of transactions greatly\nincreases TPS without hurting decentralization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah <\/strong>🏅🎹<\/strong>\n| Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n You Talked about the extended UTXO model having much better\nsecurity, have you carried out an Audit of your project to determine if there\nare vulnerabilities?<\/p>\n\n\n\n nullchinchilla<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Not yet, but we plan on doing so during the betanet period,\nbefore our protocol stabilizes. In any case, our protocol is much simpler than\nmodern layer-1 protocols like Ethereum or Solana, and we think that it’s much\nless likely to have hidden bugs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Robocop | Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Thank you for the detail answer, its really clear for me,\nbtw when will the betanet period? can you share the roadmap from Themelio?<\/p>\n\n\n\n nullchinchilla<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Our roadmap is here: https:\/\/themelio.org\/roadmap.html<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n We are in the middle of a website revamp though, so some\ninfo might be out of date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We are currently in the betanet period!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah <\/strong>🏅🎹<\/strong>\n| Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Thank you for your answers<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah <\/strong>🏅🎹<\/strong>\n| Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Ready for the next question?<\/p>\n\n\n\n nullchinchilla<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yep!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Robocop | Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Q2 telegram user @Rotoxy<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Your token $MEL is said to be the first truly decentralized, fiat-independent stablecoin. Can you explain how MEL stability is attained when it is not pegged to a fiat? How does it bridge the dichotomy between trustless minting and low volatility of conventional cryptocurrencies and how does it tackle the systemic risks of oracle-based fiat peg stablecoins? Lastly, since you have only mentioned stablecoins, does it mean that the only currency you will have is this stablecoin? Are there no plans for a secondary token that will have a feature of a regular crypto asset and which can be suitable for trading, governance or other utilities?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n nullchinchilla<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n MEL’s stability comes from the fact that it’s pegged to an\nindex called a “DOSC”. It\u2019s defined as the cost of running a\nsequential computation for 24 hours, using the fastest processor available. For\nexample, a DOSC in the year 2000 is the cost of occupying the fastest single\nCPU core available in 2000 for 24 hours, while a DOSC in the year 2021 is the\ncost of doing the same with a 2021 processor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The DOSC has two cool properties:<\/p>\n\n\n\n – It has a stable purchasing power! In most of history, using up a CPU core for 1 day costs around $0.30, including electricity and CPU depreciation costs. We did an analysis here: https:\/\/github.com\/themeliolabs\/dosc-analysis<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n – We can trustlessly measure this on-chain, without any\noracles!<\/p>\n\n\n\n A more detailed explanation is available on our docs: https:\/\/docs.themelio.org\/whitepapers\/melmint-v2\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, we actually do have a secondary token that is\nmostly fixed-supply. It’s our dedicated Proof-of-Stake token, SYM. SYM, unlike\nMel, will not have a stable price. Validators stake SYM to participate in\nconsensus and earn gas fees from people using Themelio. And if Themelio\nsucceeds, SYM will go to the moon <\/p>\n\n\n\n We’ll be selling SYM during our token sale, currently\nscheduled for Q1 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We’re working on a document summarizing the tokenomics of\nMEL vs SYM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah <\/strong>🏅🎹<\/strong>\n| Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Are the staking details and the percentage of fees stakers\nwill get as rewards available?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Robocop | Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I see, so can you share the tokenomics from $MEL and $SYM ?<\/p>\n\n\n\n nullchinchilla<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n We are still working on a user-friendly tokenomics webpage.\nBut in short:<\/p>\n\n\n\n – All fees go to SYM stakers. We use a system similar to EIP-1559 to set stable fees, but unlike EIP-1559, all fees go to stakers, including the “base fee” which is split between stakers. This is due to cryptoeconomic modeling that shows that this system optimally aligns incentives between users and stakers. More info: https:\/\/docs.themelio.org\/basic-concepts\/03-consensus\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n – Staking has no minimum stake, but also no built-in\ndelegation. You will be able to join staking pools like in Eth2, but we\nintentionally don’t support EOS-style delegation. This is for decentralization\nand incentive alignment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n – SYM also is used as collateral to stabilize the MEL peg.\nThis is similar to MKR stabilizing Dai. So MEL becoming popular also makes SYM\ngo up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah <\/strong>🏅🎹<\/strong>\n| Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Thank you for your Detailed Answers <\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah <\/strong>🏅🎹<\/strong>\n| Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Ready for the next question now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n nullchinchilla<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Robocop | Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Thank you for the clear answer let continue to next question<\/p>\n\n\n\n Robocop | Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Q3 telegram user @Giniwhite<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I read Themelio is a public blockchain that enables open, secure, and resilient decentralized apps. An example is Mel, an independent, stable-value cryptocurrency that anyone can freely use. Inspired by previous blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum, Themelio nonetheless takes a very different design approach: radical immutability inspired by the architecture of the Internet. Since Ethereum and Bitcoin are very succesfully projects how do you plan to use this inpirations to make Themelio Competitive? how do you plan to attrack more developers?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n nullchinchilla<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Themelio will be competitive not by imitating Ethereum and\nBitcoin, but through its refocus of the blockchain on its core purpose:\nendogenous trust. Endogenous trust means security based on incentives and\ncryptography, not the arbitrary decisions of developers or ill-defined user\ncommunities. It’s the old “code is law” principle that blockchains\nthese days has almost forgotten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ethereum and Bitcoin can’t ensure endogenous trust, because they’re tightly coupled to applications. Applications keep changing and need to evolve — this then forces the blockchain to change with them. And we are forced to trust whoever decides the changes! I have a blogpost where I explain why Themelio is against the whole idea of blockchain governance (https:\/\/nullchinchilla.me\/posts\/against-blockchain-governance.html<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Themelio therefore is decoupled from applications and is\ndesigned for building intermediate, layer-2 protocols, rather than directly\ninterfacing with dapps. This approach will also make application development\nmuch more flexible. For example, if you want to write a Telegram-like chat app\nwith decentralized trust, instead of writing a bunch of expensive smart\ncontracts and selling tokens, you can just combine a Themelio-based PKI with a\ntraditional end-to-end encrypted protocol like OTR or Signal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Themelio thus encourages writing apps that use the\nblockchain for security-critical functionality, but are mostly off-chain. We\nalso hope that this will attract more “traditional” security-minded\ndevelopers turned off by the existing web3 world full of hype, memes, and\nterrible usability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah <\/strong>🏅🎹<\/strong>\n| Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In other words Themelio is trying to ensure that true\ndecentralization is maintained<\/p>\n\n\n\n nullchinchilla<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Exactly!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Robocop | Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Themelio really unique <\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah <\/strong>🏅🎹<\/strong>\n| Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This is indeed a Unique and well thought out concept<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah <\/strong>🏅🎹<\/strong>\n| Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Kudos to you Eric! <\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah <\/strong>🏅🎹<\/strong>\n| Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Thank you for your answers<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah <\/strong>🏅🎹<\/strong>\n| Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Ready for the next question?<\/p>\n\n\n\n nullchinchilla<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yep<\/p>\n\n\n\n Robocop | Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n btw this idea come alone from yourself or do you have team\nbehind this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n nullchinchilla<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Well the ideas mostly come from my PhD thesis, but I do have\nan excellent team of engineers helping me implement them!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah <\/strong>🏅🎹<\/strong>\n| Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh great How many are you in the team at the moment?<\/p>\n\n\n\n nullchinchilla<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n We’re a pretty early-stage startup. Including me, there’s\njust 5 people, haha<\/p>\n\n\n\n Robocop | Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n oh wow what a great team Themelio have <\/p>\n\n\n\n nullchinchilla<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n We’ll have a team page on our website soon<\/p>\n\n\n\n Robocop | Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Thank you for the answer, lets continue to 4th<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah <\/strong>🏅🎹<\/strong>\n| Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n That’s still a decent number for an early-stage startup.. we\nhope to see you grow beyond this soon<\/p>\n\n\n\n Robocop | Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Q4 from Telegram User @Rozielyna<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I read on your website that Themelio is still under heavy development, recently entering the betanet phase of our roadmap. Which means that although the tooling is far from complete, you do have a feature-complete persistent mainnet and testnet running. And in participating one can participate by running a thin client or full node. When will the testnet and mainnet start running? What are the features of each of the Mainnet and Testnet? Are there Incentives or benefits attached to participating testnet? What are the distinct differences between the thin client and full node when participating?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n nullchinchilla<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Right now, we already have a mainnet and testnet running!\nBut they are beta-quality, and the protocol isn’t fully stabilized yet. You can\nthink of Themelio now like Bitcoin in 2009 \u2014 there’s a mainnet and testnet, but\nneither is stable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The mainnet has persistent history, and once we do our token\nsale and “really” launch the network, that’s the one that’ll launch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The testnet is occasionally wiped, and history there is not\npersistent. You can also randomly give yourself as much money as you want on the testnet, so assets\nthere are worthless, haha<\/p>\n\n\n\n We are planning on a series of incentivized testnet\ncontests, like airdropping MEL to whoever can spam the most testnet\ntransactions in a day, etc. Since we already have a mainnet, we’re gonna reward\npeople with real, mainnet MEL, even before our token sale!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right now you can run both full nodes and clients. Full\nnodes replicate the entire blockchain history, while clients just query little\npieces of information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonah <\/strong>🏅🎹<\/strong>\n| Satoshi Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Can you share links and details on how users can participate\nin the ongoing betanet?<\/p>\n\n\n\n