Plasm has conducted two lock-up airdrops, and the total amount of tokens will be determined after the third lock-up airdrop (DOT lock-up for the parachain slot for auction).
Original title: “Understanding Plasm: ETH 2.0 on Polkadot”
Written by: PolkaWorld
Plasm is a scalable smart contract chain based on Polkadot , developed using Parity’s Substrate and designed as a parallel chain of Polkadot. Becoming a Parachain of Polkadot means that Plasm needs to win the auction of Parachain slots.
Plasm Network first has a layer 1 smart contract chain with good compatibility. EVM and WASM are introduced in Layer 1 to connect to the smart contract of Ethereum; in order to improve the scalability of the chain, Plasm also has a Layer 2 solution. Those who have studied the Polkadot parachain know that many parachains will have their own contract functions in the future, but they are not focused on the smart contract chain. Plasm is mainly focused on the smart contract infrastructure (Layer 1 + Layer 2) In terms of development, it provides DApp developers with a well-expandable infrastructure. You can understand that Plasm is to create an ETH2.0 on Polkadot .
Polkadot’s relay chain does not have the function of smart contracts. If DApp developers want to develop applications based on Polkadot, they must use Polkadot’s parachain or choose a smart contract parachain for deployment. For ordinary developers, the former has a higher development cost, and the cost of bidding for a slot is also very expensive. Some project parties expect it to be around 300W DOT. So the best way is to deploy DApp based on a smart contract parachain. Due to its excellent scalability, Plasm will be a good choice for DApp developers to deploy smart contracts.
What problem is Plasm solving
Polkadot itself is the blockchain of the blockchain, so the Polkadot relay chain belongs to the Layer0 blockchain, the parachain on Polkadot belongs to the Layer 1 blockchain, and Plasm is designed as a parachain on Polkadot. It mainly The problem solved is the problem of Layer 2, that is, scalability and interoperability problems. Plasm is the only network that supports Layer 2 expansion technology from the beginning. When it comes to Layer 2, it not only means higher transaction speed, but also cheaper fees and higher flexibility. At present, the transaction fee of using Ethereum is very expensive, and the fee for sending a transfer is basically between 30 and 40 US dollars.
Scalability
Due to the decentralized consensus mechanism, the blockchain cannot be extended by design. TPS (Transactions Per Second) is much smaller than a centralized database, and there is an upper limit on the data that can be stored in each block. Therefore, users on the network may notice that their transactions are unconfirmed or pending for a long time, resulting in a poor user experience. For smart contract developers, this will become a key bottleneck.
Layer 2 of the Plasm network can solve the scalability problem, which means that using Plasm to deploy DApp has:
- Higher TPS
- Lower transaction costs
- Faster block determination
Interoperability
We now have many different blockchains, but few have interoperable features. To transfer “value” from Bitcoin to Ethereum, we need a centralized exchange. Polkadot is a sharding protocol that allows blockchain networks to work together seamlessly. Plasm Network is compatible with Polkadot. By connecting Plasm Network to Polkadot, we will have true interoperability.
Plasm’s innovation
Management rights transaction
Operator trading is a mechanism for buying and selling DApp/smart contracts in the Plasm network, which is very similar to a merger and acquisition mechanism. With the help of the DApp reward mechanism, smart contract administrators (Operators) may benefit from it. Developers need to allocate operators for chain maintenance and management or other scenarios. Operator will transfer the rights of the smart contract to opponents. As long as opponents gives the expected value of the operator, those who get the rights of the operator smart contract can get the corresponding buyout benefits. This mechanism will create a new off-chain market .
DApp rewards
DApp rewards are a reward mechanism for smart contract developers or administrators (Operators). 50% of the staking rewards in the Plasm network will be used for DApp developers who increase the value of the Plasm Network. The Plasm network allows each smart contract to be assigned a smart contract administrator, which is called an “Operator”. Other users in the network can also participate in the smart contract. This participation is called “nomination”, and these participants are called the nominators of the DApp. As shown below, smart contract administrators who have received many nominations can get newly issued PLM tokens from the chain. DApp nominees can get rewards proportional to their pledge amount.
In addition, operators can get corresponding rewards based on the proportion of smart contract equity they own. This is a solution to the problem of how to make money for application developers (administrators) on the chain. At the same time, this also encourages the nominator to participate in the pledge of the smart contract, thereby increasing the value of the token.
Airdrop
Lockdrop is a method of token distribution and a new low-risk economic incentive mechanism. Participants lock the tokens of other blockchains (DOT or ETH) within a certain period of time to obtain the native tokens of the blockchain. It uses opportunity cost instead of legal currency (or assets) as collateral. Plasm uses the mechanism of multiple lock-up airdrops to issue tokens with monetary value.
Benefits of locked airdrop:
- Prevent the uneven distribution of tokens and reduce the purchase amount of “big whale users” at the first issuance.
- It allows observing the results of the code so that the team can ensure that the plasm network can be expanded and decentralized. The security and integrity of the blockchain depends on the distribution of node token holders. Repeating lockdrop three times allows us to understand the distribution of tokens among the holders, and can also reduce the maintenance cost of fixing the problem and the further risks that follow.
Plasm has a total of 3 lock airdrops. As of the post, Plasm has performed two lockdrops, and both lockdrops use the opportunity cost of Ethereum, which is to obtain PLM tokens by locking ETH. At present, 150,000+ ETH (currently valued at approximately US$150 million) has been locked, and 14.4722 billion PLM has been released. The total number of tokens will not be set at the time of creation, and the total number of tokens will be determined after the third lock-up airdrop (DOT lock-up for the parachain slot auction) ends. In addition, after the third time, another 35% of the tokens will be minted for community, market, grant, etc.
What is the use of Plasm’s tokens?
Plasm’s token ecosystem is built into Polkadot. Therefore, Plasm and Polkadot have the same consensus.
PLM has four main roles:
- Stake to maintain consensus, reward validators and nominators
- As a transaction fee to prevent harmful behavior
- As a block reward for DAppsoperators, a sustainable reward designed for applications
- Used to vote for DAppsoperators
PLM is issued through multiple Lockdrops to prevent zero value mortgage and increase the number of token holders. In an ideal state , the ideal ratio of PLM token staking to liquidity in the future is 1:1. However, in a real environment, when the DApps Staking function is activated, the liquidity ratio will gradually decrease. When Plasm becomes a parachain, it is expected that more than 75% of the tokens will be locked, because the participants of the third Lockdrop have a vesting period, that is, the tokens will be unlocked gradually within a certain period of time.
The adoption of the Plasm network is also the NPoS mechanism. In an ideal state , the maximum inflation rate of the network is about 17%, of which the inflation rate of the validator node is 10%, and the inflation rate of the smart contract operator is about 7%. The inflated tokens are used to reward DApps and validators and nominators who protect the security of the chain. Therefore, there are two types of staking operations in the Plasm network:
- Staking of validators (NPoS mechanism)
- Staking of smart contracts (DApps reward mechanism)
The rewards of both types of staking are directly proportional to the number of pledges. Users who staking on validators/smart contracts are collectively referred to as nominators. The ideal ratio of validator staking tokens and smart contract staking tokens is 5:1.
current progress
Mainnet situation
Plasm has launched the mainnet, but it was initially launched as a PoA network. The network has authorized 10 validator nodes, and they will be rewarded by the network on average. Plasm will switch the network to NPoS before the Kusama auction (expected in February), and after bidding for the slot, it will turn the previous validator into a collector.
Token situation
PLM is a mainnet token, not an erc20 token. At present, a total of 22.27 billion PLM has been issued through two LockDrop and an additional 35% (for teams and communities). However, because the Plasm network is still in the PoA stage, and to prevent fraud in the secondary market, the Plasm network uses a sudo module to manage the PLM transfer function, and transfers are currently not possible. The token transfer function is expected to resume before the slot auction.
Parachain progress
Technically, it is now ready to connect Plasm’s parachain testnet to RococoV1 on January 11.
Locked position
At present, two lock-up airdrops have been carried out, and nearly 150,000+ ETH has been locked-up on the Plasm network. The third lock-up airdrop will be used for the Polkadot Parachain slot auction. The third Lockdrop has not yet started. PolkaWorld will continue to pay attention and share with you the progress of Plasm slot auctions.
Grant situation
As of the date of posting, a total of 6 grants from the Web3 Foundation have been obtained, and the fifth and sixth grants are currently being completed.
- Plasma modules for Substrate (GitHub)
- ink! Playground (GitHub)
- Plasm Chain + OVM Implementation (GitHub)
- ECDSA for Polkadot JS (GitHub)
- Hardware ECDSA for Polkadot JS (GitHub)
- ZK Rollups Pallet (GitHub)
team
SotaWatanabe Founder: CEO of PlasmNetwork, he worked for Chronicled, a blockchain startup company in San Francisco, and also worked for SoftBank Group. After returning to Japan to become a blockchain researcher at the University of Tokyo. After that, StakeTechnologies was founded. PlasmNetwork is an open source project of this technology company.
Takumi Yamashita: PlasmNetworkCTO, nominated by the Japanese government as one of the 16 best engineers in 2018, Master of Computer Science from the University of Tokyo.
Alexander Krupenkin: One of the core developers of Plasm Network, a master of ITMO computer science, has been involved in Bitcoin since 2009, and has been involved in the open source development of Ethereum in 2015. He is also one of the early contributors to Substrate.
The Plasm team also includes two doctoral engineers Tomomasa Matsunaga and Yoshinobu Shijo from the University of Tokyo and Osaka University, the IPhO Physics Olympiad world silver medalist Task Ohmori, the early Polkadot ambassador Hyungsuk, and Hoon Kim and other ACM-ICPC competition medal winners.
sms: Tomorrow is a software engineer of Plasm, and is currently also responsible for communication with the Chinese community market.
