VITE Primer for NANO Holders Part 1 — Technology
Who is this guide for?
You may have known about Nano since it was known as RaiBlocks as it was distributed though CAPTCHAS, or maybe you learned about it recently after one of the recent or very recent pushes for environmentally friendly crypto. You like a lot of Nano’s features, namely fast feeless transactions, the genuine and friendly community, the simplicity of the design, or the philosophical stance underpinning the ecosystem. You’re here because you like Nano and you know Nano will be an important currency in the future, but also because you believe that that Nano will be one part of a larger feeless crypto ecosystem.
If that’s why you’re here, there are many others like you, and a lot of us think that Vite will join Nano in being a cornerstone of this feeless ecosystem. A group from the Nano community took it into their own hands to start a Vite-Nano gateway to facilitate cross-chain transactions. They’re currently operating both Nano and Vite nodes, distributing generous rewards to both Nano and Vite voters, and they’re planning additional Vite airdrops to Nano/Vite users in the near future through chess tournaments. And with Vite smart contracts for Defi being developed, this will be a big step in the process of bringing NANO further into Defi.
I believe Defi should be a key focus, and it will be exciting when feeless DAGs become the central technology of Defi simply for reasons of scaling and efficiency. If you think BTC/ETH are doing well, here’s Charles Liu’s view of the future:
I think this is only the beginning. Nano is gaining a lot of steam now, and the other high performance DAGs will be following shortly. If you want an overview of the basics of Vite, and to know why I believe Vite effectively complements Nano, please read on.
Intro to Vite
Vite’s own whitepaper cites Nano as playing an inspiring role for Vite technology, acting as a prime example of how DAG blockchains / block lattices allow for fast and efficient transactions, as well as how effective Delegated Proof-of-Stake can be in playing a role in securing the network. Vite adopts both of these key features in its blockchain, which serve as a foundation for additional technology built on top. This base feature set allows for Vite, like Nano, to be fast and feeless.
However, there are several key features that Vite adds to the base technology that may be unfamiliar to Nano users. The most important of these are Snapshot Blocks, a Quota System, and Smart Contracts, which I will introduce below. There are also other additional features in Vite not discussed here, such as support for minting native tokens and transaction memos, which can also play essential roles for many dApps.
Snapshot Blocks
Snapshot Blocks are key component of the Vite network that are produced constantly by Snapshot Block Producers (SBPs). These blocks are produced roughly once a second, and form a linear hash chain that stores the state of the entire DAG up to the time the snapshot block is produced. Any send or receive transactions made on the DAG between snapshots will be slated for inclusion in the next available snapshot. This design retains the high speed of the asynchronous DAG structure shared by Vite and Nano, while also providing a mechanism for confirming/cementing transactions. Operating these nodes requires significant time-locked stakes of Vite, ensuring the operators have a vested interest in the network.
Though the mechanism is different, SBPs play a role similar to the Principal Representatives of the NANO network for determining consensus and preventing double-spending attacks. And, as part of that process, each user/wallet can choose to vote for their SBP of choice, akin to choosing a Representative. Additionally, the snapshot blocks create a global clock for the Vite network, which is important for implementing the Quota system, synchronizing network upgrades, and facilitating features of smart contracts.
Quota System
Similarly to Nano, Vite requires a small Proof of Work (PoW) calculation for all transactions as an anti-spam measure. This approach works well to limit spam while still allowing legitimate transactions to be performed without fees. However, this PoW calculation can be problematic for high throughput applications such as decentralized exchanges, gaming platforms, wallets, and other dApps. In the Nano ecosystem this has led to some clever distributed PoW factories like BoomPoW to make it easier for large-scale applications to source the needed calculations.
However, in the Vite network there is an alternative to the small PoW calculation: A user can lock an amount of Vite tokens to receive a buffer of Quota. Quota can be spent instead of performing the PoW calculation to allow for more rapid transactions. The user’s Quota buffer is replenished as Snapshot blocks are produced, so a user can lock just enough Vite to cover their expected peak transaction rate. If the user’s expected usage changes they can simply increase/decrease their Quota buffer by locking/unlocking Vite as needed.
A typical user might not have any need for a buffer of Quota and may be content with performing the PoW calculation (producing Quota on-demand), or perhaps they will stake for a small buffer of Quota such that a single transaction can be sent instantly without PoW. Meanwhile dApps like an exchange might require a large buffer of Quota to perform the volume of transactions needed. Vite also provides a way for Vite holders to lock their Vite to provide Quota for other wallet addresses, to allow Vite holders to support projects they believe in, or in exchange for compensation (such as staking Vite on the ViteX exchange).
As Quota is one of Vite’s anti-spam mechanisms, it is also relevant to discuss spam more specifically, as recent spam attacks on the Nano network have caused significant delays and usability issues. Upgrades to the Nano network (v22 and the upcoming v23) have addressed many of these issues, but it will be of interest to Nano holders that the Vite devs have considered the possibility of spam attacks:
- While Nano allows the pre-computation of PoW calculations to provide quicker transactions, this has the side effect of a malicious user being allowed to pre-compute a long chain of superfluous transactions and release them rapidly in an attack. This type of attack is prevented in Vite as the network requires PoW calculations to reference the hash of a recent snapshot block, preventing pre-computation. This feature along with the Quota system still allows for near-instant transactions, while providing additional spam protection.
- The description of the Quota system above only considers the network during low congestion. When the rate of transactions approaches the network limit, the Quota requirement for transactions effectively increases, so that attackers will require increasingly larger amounts of Vite or more complex PoW calculations. The scaling of this Dynamic Quota is designed to exponentially increase the cost of a large scale spam attack.
This tweet-chain discusses some of these anti-spam measures, as well as some links to more information.
Smart Contracts
The focus for Nano is to be a currency. As such, requests for features like memos and smart contracts are often considered beyond the scope of the project. This is a fair rationale, but developers do request these features for a reason: they want to develop advanced dApps on a feeless DAG chain.
As such, smart contracts are probably the most important base-level feature for Vite, and are also one of the more impressive development efforts; asynchronous smart contracts have advantages in throughput, but are not an easy problem to solve! To program contracts, Vite features Solidity++, an extension of Solidity to an asynchronous design, while retaining familiarity to ease migration for developers from other platforms. Once a contract has been developed, it can be deployed on the network at the cost of permanently burning a small quantity of Vite.
Fortunately, the key advantages of the Vite network remain: smart contracts require no fees to call, which will allow for the development of many new contract ideas that are not feasible on a platform like Ethereum. This is made possible in part by the Quota system; users can spend PoW or Quota to use a contract, or the contract deployer can lock vite to provide Quota to a deployed contract to allow users to instantly invoke a contract. This allows ease of use while also putting a rate-limit on contract calls to limit spam.
Vite Ecosystem
To me, one of the most impressive parts of Nano is the community and dApps that have developed around it: As one of the most needed additions to the web, developers have built various paywall and micropayment services; as Nano doesn’t have built-in memos, someone built a service to supplement the network; To foster community and support contributions, there are various tipping tools; And there are many many more creative uses with one of my favorites being a fun “paint” application that stores pixel information on the Nano blockchain using transactions of minuscule amounts of Nano.
This barely makes a dent in covering the Nano projects out there, but I want to emphasize that all of these services were created without smart contracts. Many of these services on the Nano network were only useful or possible because of the free transactions available using Nano. Meanwhile, if you look at the Ethereum ecosystem, there are a wide variety of applications that are only possible due to the addition of smart contracts, but unfortunately these smart contracts have ridiculously high fees. Now imagine what sort of creative applications will be developed with free transactions and free smart contract invocations.
Or, take a look at the most prominent existing and upcoming services on the Vite network:
- The ViteX decentralized exchange, an exchange that has been operating securely for over 2 years, and is going to see significant upgrades in the coming year. Any operator is allowed to list tokens on the exchange and there are no KYC requirements.
- ViteBridge, a cross-chain protocol enabling trustless transfers of assets between blockchains. This is a highly anticipated feature of Vite, and when integrated into ViteX it will allow the exchange to function completely trustlessly (i.e. the ViteX exchange will become non-custodial). ViteBridge will also allow trustless cross-chain transactions (e.g. one will be able to directly convert BTC to ETH in a decentralized, secure, but non-custodial transaction).
Feeless transactions and smart contracts are a powerful tool that will be in high demand in the near future; as Nano is focusing on being the ideal currency, Vite will strive to be the ideal smart contract platform.
Summary
A while ago someone on reddit encouraged me to try Nano out just once. They were sure that experiencing such a quick transaction after dealing with BTC would get me hooked. And it did. If you like Nano I’d encourage you to try it out Vite in the same way, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. And when Vite smart contracts allow you to put your Nano to work in Defi, I think you’ll be happy you did! Heck, if you made it this far and go to the trouble of setting up a Vite wallet, I’ll send you some Vite if you ask nicely in the comments. Cheers.
This was a quick overview of some key features of the Vite network that may be new to Nano users. In Part 2 I will talk about some of the philosophical differences (and similarities) between the communities surrounding Vite and Nano.
