This is my first Steemit post. Thank you for taking an interest in my account and being curious enough to investigate at this post.
I’m going to talk about an incredible opportunity to get in at the ground level of an up-incoming public compute and blockchain project called RChain, which will be censorship-resistant, correct-by-construction, decentralized, economically secure, proof-of-stake, infinitely scalable, and sustainable. Judging by the recent drop in the price of RHOC (RChain’s ERC-20 ICO token), it’s safe to bet that you have never heard of this project. This is my motivation for writing this post.
I’ll start by saying a little about RChain’s technology and value proposition, but to keep this post accessible to nontechnical folks, I will provide references for those interested in a deep technical dive.
The first thing to understand about the RChain project (and possibly the most important thing for a nontechnical, non-developer) is that everything is based on rigorous mathematics (category theory and formal logic), published in peer-reviewed journals. This is not some moonshot by a bunch of crackpots making lofty, unsubstantiated claims. The core individuals, Greg Meredith (RChain) and Nash Foster (Pyrofex Corporation), have been in computation/mathematics for decades with proven track records. A quick internet search will prove my point. The mathematical rigor is what initially attracted me to the project, I am a mathematician: I am no expert in blockchain or cryptoeconomics.
In terms of the platform, as a global compute infrastructure, RChain will support smart contracts written in its native programming language, Rholang. Rholang is a concurrent programming language being developed by Pyrofex, specifically with performance (resource allocation/throughput) in mind. The formal semantics are also being defined in K Framework in accordance with the correct-by-construction mantra (technical details). This will allow for formal verification of smart contracts. Additionally, Rholang will be strongly typed, structurally and behaviorally, by a type system generating algorithm called LADL (Logic as a Distributive Law; paper) developed by Greg Meredith and Mike Stay (developer retreat video; interview with Greg).
The most distinct and exciting innovation that RChain brings to the table is the use of a concurrent model of computation (process calculus), known as RHO-calculus (Reflective, Higher-Order calculus), developed by Greg Meredith. Rholang and the RhoVM (virtual machine) are based on this model of computation, which allows for nonconflicting transactions/transitions, or comm events (the fundamental unit of computation on RChain), to be processed/validated in any order. There are no sequential constraints whatsoever on nonconflicting transactions/transitions. This allows for a more optimized validation process which ultimately increases throughput and scalability. Validators ultimately come to consensus on the ordering of events by using a proof-of-stake consensus algorithm.
RChain’s consensus mechanism is based on the proof-of-stake, CBC Casper framework, developed by Vlad Zamfir (paper outlining general framework) and implemented by Michael Birch and Kent Shikama (source code for RChain; consensus on RChain platform; RChain blockchain structure and consensus). Not all validators need to validate each transaction/transition as a result of the structure of Rholang and the sharding mechanism. The channels used in the code of smart contracts can be collected into groups called namespaces and validators only listen for events happening in their namespace(s) to validate.
I hope this explanation gives a decently clear picture of why this tech is so important. The only issue is that there has been some inner turmoil within the co-op recently and the price of RHOC has been steadily dropping for the last few months. As I see it, there are three ways to look at this situation: (1) Holy crap! Jump ship!; (2) don’t have RHOC, don’t care; or (3) buy RHOC while it’s cheap and HODL!
I, personally, believe in this project and the talented team of developers building the platform. The leadership is currently transitioning (new board members were announced last night) and there are also several new items of business regarding transparency and better financial management. I, personally, see this as a sign of changing tides and good things to come. Therefore, I’m definitely on team (3). The only question left to answer is which team are you on?
Please leave comments letting me know what you think! Tell me about what blockchain project(s) you're excited about and why.
Have a great day and thanks for reading!
How to become a member of the co-op: Join the Cooperative
Links to Rholang tutorials: Tutorial & Learn Rholang by Example
For more accessible info about the tech: RChain Blog
RHOC is available for purchase on KuCoin
Rchain is a great project.
Couldn't agree more!
YES! Isaac has arrived! Awesome post my friend. RChain is a fantastic project with a super high potential for massive growth. Appreciate you bringing that info to the Steem community 👊🏻 -Resteemed!-
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Hey! Thanks for the resteem, Ken!
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Thanks steemitboard! I feel like I just completed my first marathon!
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