Everything to know about the imminent SINOVATE mainnet upgrade, the BETELGEUSE!

SINOVATE is innovating to build the decentralized Cloud (aka dCloud or Cloud 3.0) for the future of businesses and individuals’ data storage. After two public testnets in June 2021 and February 2022, SINOVATE is happy to announce the official release of the BETELGEUSE upgrade on the 31st of March 2022 (block height 900,000). Therefore, we remind our users it will be mandatory to upgrade their wallet to its last version, where the links are provided at the end of this article.

This challenging everyday objective allowed the main blockchain to be more scalable, secure, and decentralized. The following describes what is SINOVATE before this novel upgrade to understand our path, what brings the Bitcoin core 0.22 to our network, a brief description of Proof-of-Stake, and the next steps of our network evolution.

The existing technologies of SINOVATE

SINOVATE had its blockchain genesis on the 26th of September 2018. Its creation has initially been to tackle the scalability issue of Proof-of-Work (PoW) technologies by bringing a new GPU mining, X22i, with a block size of 1MB generated every 2 minutes for 40 transactions per second (TPS). The founder, Tamer Dagli, proposed to the community to rebrand to SINOVATE to become the most efficient dCloud infrastructure that will compete with centralized solutions.

In June 2019, SINOVATE evolved the X25X algorithm to be more eco-friendly and ASIC/FPGA-resistant and introduced the Proof-of-Burn (PoB) mechanism and the first iteration of the InfinityNode technology. PoB enabled SINOVATE to have a self-regulated circulating supply by burning transaction fees and coins in the commitment of the InfinityNode contract. InfinityNodes were essential to be explicitly created because they will communicate with users for transferring and storing data. Hence, burning the collateral of the InfinityNode contract forces the owner to maintain a 100% uptime to retrieve its funds and earn a certain APY. InfinityNodes are then the keystone of our dCloud infrastructure called SINOVATE Nephele: The Incorruptible Data Storage.

In December 2020, SINOVATE improved its website and offered the possibility to set up an InfinityNode from the wallet in only one click. This came with implementing an improvement proposal with a deterministic InfinityNode reward system. This completely removed any luck possible in rewards distribution while improving security by using the InfinityNode-oriented algorithm called LockReward.

In 2021, the development team provided a Mobile wallet solution where it is possible to set up an InfinityNode from these devices. In addition, the team focused on multiple iterations of BETELGEUSE implementation to bring all the features from Bitcoin Core 0.22 in the SINOVATE technology while creating the fourth generation of Proof-of-Stake.

Bitcoin 0.22: Novel solutions and blockchain specifications

InfinityNodes will be the medium of file storage. At the same time, the blockchain must be scalable, secure, and reliable for file transfers and coins transactions. Furthermore, the blockchain infrastructure plays a non-negligible role as the backbone for providing smart contracts, tokenization, and sidechain technologies released in further releases. Therefore, updating SINOVATE to the last Bitcoin Core provides us with the possibility to enjoy the previous technological breakthrough done by the Bitcoin community. Moreover, it enables any developer to adapt quickly to SINOVATE infrastructure in decentralized applications or any Bitcoin-related services.

The Bitcoin Core 0.22.0 is mainly a tech-wise-oriented update to improve the development ecosystem and the blockchain infrastructure. As a result, regular users will notice a performance improvement during the network synchronization and smoother wallet usage.

This update will guarantee a higher degree of security for “light client” wallets of users, exploiting a “Bloom filters” mechanism that seems privacy-unfriendly. This filter requests from the client wallet a validation of blocks that only concerns the client itself. With Bitcoin Core 0.22, this mechanism is replaced by a “compact client-side block filtering” method. Instead of having the wallet doing this operation, it is full nodes of the network which create the filters and send them to the “light client” wallets. Then, the wallet will process the data with filters, fetch the whole blockchain database, and pick what is relevant for the client.

The update introduces other features such as descriptor wallets, new broadcast attempts control, TOR V3 Support which is major because TOR V2 is becoming deprecated in one year.

The developers improved the options with SINOVATE by activating Taproot natively to use the Schnorr signature efficiently. From Binance Academy, Taproot is: “… a soft fork that enhances Bitcoin’s scripts to improve privacy, efficiency and the network’s ability to handle smart contracts. It is considered the most significant Bitcoin upgrade since the SegWit upgrade in 2017.”

Proof-of-Stake: First Iteration of the Fourth Generation

The scalability of the blockchain is required for the efficiency of the SINOVATE Nephele solution. However, even though the Bitcoin Core 0.22 provides novel features that will considerably play for the smart contracts and Layer-2 solutions, the Layer-1 consensus with PoW consensus does not allow it to be rightfully scalable. Hence, SINOVATE changed the consensus layer with a hybrid consensus mixing X25X PoW with the fourth-generation Proof-of-Stake: PoS4. PoS is a cryptographic proof in a peer-to-peer network where peers provide their stake instead of computational effort to create valid blocks. The stake is based on the number of coins held. Yet, fair participation for all is enforced through heavy maturity requirements on stake transactions.

To be eligible for staking, PoS4 integrates a novel feature called LockStake, where a transaction can not be spent for a considerable time. This safety guard ensures a lower attack surface of an already complex vector. In other words, it will require a user to stake coins for ten days, where a block will remain unspendable for one day (1,440 blocks). Furthermore, it will be necessary for the user to have a permanently connected wallet to the network to enjoy the staking rewards.

The Changes of the SINOVATE Blockchain

Furthermore, it allows developers to fully consider segregated witness (SegWit) technology by increasing the block size from 1MB to 32 MB and 64 MB with SegWit. This block size is significant for SINOVATE. It must guarantee that the users can transfer their data quickly and at a low cost. The transaction fees can also be easily adjusted with an e-governance vote to follow the SIN coin market and the dCloud infrastructure evolution.

PoS4 allows SINOVATE to reduce the block generation time from 2 minutes to 1 minute, reducing the time to wait for the first confirmation. Plus, a block full of non-SegWit transactions, standing at around 32 MB in size, would allow about 2,420 TPS with this new block generation time.

However, if this block was full of SegWit transactions, instead, we would be looking at double the number of tps, around 4,000 TPS.

The reduction of block generation time leads to changes in the reward distribution model. Indeed, keeping the same value would double the rewards per InfinityNode. In order to keep the same network state, the developers will reduce by half per block. In this way, the InfinityNode owner keeps the same ROI as before. It reduces by two the number of lost rewards by uptime issues. The new InfinityNode reward per block (every 1 minute) is:

BIG: 876 SIN coins,

MID: 419 SIN coins,

MINI: 280 SIN coins.

What is next?

The main blockchain is as scalable as the VISA system. It ensures SINOVATE as a suitable payment medium while being an ultra-secure and decentralized data storage by fusing InfinityNode LockReward, Proof-of-Work, and 4th-gen Proof-of-Stake. In addition, BETELGEUSE brings many improvements for guaranteeing a scalable, decentralized, and secure blockchain. PoS4 will consider implementing Casper and Slasher elements for a unique mechanism in further modifications.

SINOVATE will focus on numerous upgrades and innovations that will make its dCloud, the most efficient one. For example, explorer, websites, and mobile wallets will be enhanced to guarantee the best user experience. Furthermore, alongside improving the current technologies, SINOVATE will integrate the blockchain-based File Transfer Protocol (bFTP) fundamental for storing and transferring data in the InfinityNodes. Hence, it will bring the first piece of a long list for becoming a worldwide, decentralized Cloud infrastructure.