New State connector blog post

[Seoulite]

https://medium.com/flarenetwork/the-state-connector-is-live-on-songbird-b0e45edfbcbb

[Seoulite]

A lot of this is not news to us, but some stand out parts:

”A grants program and a set of native rewards will be announced in the near future to incentivize developers to build out FAsset, smart contract bridge, and relay systems across as many chains as possible.”

“In addition to being able to trustlessly read the state of transactions on any blockchain, the State Connector can also trustlessly read the state of any deterministic real-world data source and prove the outcome to any contract on Flare. This avoids the risks associated with current centralized models, and opens up incredible opportunities for new utility and business models.

Through the State Connector, dApps can be created that react to real-world events, such as bank transactions, insurance claims, sports outcomes, house purchases, or educational attainment. A universal identity system could be created, that takes attestations from external systems through the State Connector.”

And an initial concern for many will be this:

“When an application on Flare requests a proof of a blockchain transaction or a real-world event, the State Connector emits this request to a decentralized group of Attestation Providers (APs). The APs are a separate group to the FTSO data providers and validators.

Anyone may operate as an AP without any capital requirement. The security assumption is that if an independent attestation provider is correctly attesting the requested state, then they will always be able to diverge from an incorrect default relayed state and end up on the correct branch of the Flare state. A detailed explanation of how this process works is available in our recent white paper, and a simplified version will be provided in a separate article. More detail is also available on the Flare Technical Documentation pages.”

 

[jn_r]

I am not completely familiar with the technical details, but my concern with the state connector is the following. Based on the state connector technique an f-asset can be created on flare network. e.g. FXRP or FBTC. But the F-asset will not have the same amount of decentralisation as the original chain. The decentralisation will only be as large as the number of entities that provide state and rely on a majority of those.

e.g. if there are 10 entities measuring XRP chain and injecting XRP state in Flare, then the security of the FXRP relies on only those 10 entities. Those 10 may check each other, but 10 is still less than 34 (the current UNL size). In the case of Bitcoin the difference will even be more distinct. What if the F-asset is worth millions/billions, the trust will still be on the shoulders of those 10 entities? It might take only 6/10 entities to collude or get hacked..btw '10' is an example, no idea how many state-providers there will be.

To me the gest is, up till a certain threshold of number of entities providing state, F-assets can not be regarded as save as the original assets, be aware of the extra risk involved.

 

[Seoulite]

On 3/30/2022 at 4:46 PM, jn_r said:

I am not completely familiar with the technical details, but my concern with the state connector is the following. Based on the state connector technique an f-asset can be created on flare network. e.g. FXRP or FBTC. But the F-asset will not have the same amount of decentralisation as the original chain. The decentralisation will only be as large as the number of entities that provide state and rely on a majority of those.

e.g. if there are 10 entities measuring XRP chain and injecting XRP state in Flare, then the security of the FXRP relies on only those 10 entities. Those 10 may check each other, but 10 is still less than 34 (the current UNL size). In the case of Bitcoin the difference will even be more distinct. What if the F-asset is worth millions/billions, the trust will still be on the shoulders of those 10 entities? It might take only 6/10 entities to collude or get hacked..btw '10' is an example, no idea how many state-providers there will be.

To me the gest is, up till a certain threshold of number of entities providing state, F-assets can not be regarded as save as the original assets, be aware of the extra risk involved.

 

I’ve asked on the telegram about it. We can see what the flare team say. I think that the answer you are looking for may lie in this document:

https://docs.flare.network/technology/state-connector/

[Seoulite]

Also response from Tim Rowley:

People put trust in bridges which rely on much less secure methods, such as BitGo who as a central company, holds the assets that are being bridged. Passing through to Flare it’s being backed by bandwidth providers who have collateral on the line. Once it’s on Flare it’s backed by the security of Flare nodes and Validators which are able to scale. I’m not sure if the question is about the bridging process or the assets being on Flare.

[jn_r]

3 hours ago, Seoulite said:

I’ve asked on the telegram about it. We can see what the flare team say. I think that the answer you are looking for may lie in this document:

https://docs.flare.network/technology/state-connector/

Hi Seoulite, yeah, thanks for that. Curious to find out more :-) I did find that page on the state-connector. Particularly the branching of several 'truths' is not quite clear to me yet how that works. 

3 hours ago, Seoulite said:

Passing through to Flare it’s being backed by bandwidth providers who have collateral on the line.

Are 'Attestation Providers' the same as the 'bandwidth providers'? As I understand it now (but stand to be corrected) is that an attestation provider does not supple collateral, but gets rewarded if his provided data seems correct. Otoh the bandwidth provider is a party that makes use of the state-connector. It does provide collateral.

The parties at risk then would be the bandwidth providers (since it's their collateral at stake)? So not so much the F-assets themselves ..  

edit: hmm.. no that's not exactly correct, 'bandwidth providers' seems to be a LayerCake term, F-asset system needs 'Agents'

Edited March 31, 2022 by jn_r

[Seoulite]

11 hours ago, jn_r said:

Are 'Attestation Providers' the same as the 'bandwidth providers'? As I understand it now (but stand to be corrected) is that an attestation provider does not supple collateral, but gets rewarded if his provided data seems correct. Otoh the bandwidth provider is a party that makes use of the state-connector. It does provide collateral.

Exactly, the sticking point is Attestation Providers. I said on the Telegram that the team will need to make it very clear what their roles and responsibilities are, because it's not clear why they wouldn't just collude and cheat the system. If they don't have the power to do that, then that should be very clear. 

Tim's response that people already trust much less safe stuff isn't particularly reassuring. 100% safe is not possible, but people like to hear 'safe' not 'less dangerous'. 

[BillyOckham]

34 minutes ago, Seoulite said:

Tim's response that people already trust much less safe stuff isn't particularly reassuring.

^this.

 

A very poor argument and using it is a bad sign.

[ftso_au]

A brief overview of the State Connector.

 

[jn_r]

Thanks for that. I might need some more understanding of the branch protocol..

Are the individual nodes branches that deviate from the default branch also stored in the consensus ledger? If so, wouldn't that possibly create a large bush (many possible trees?) i.e. Each node its own believe and each external chain its own branch? I guess probably, the nodes do not store their own believed correct branch in the consensus ledger, but they communicate their own believes (branch). Majority will lead to the default branch.

Does this mean that each state connector system (per external blockchain) creates sort of its own isolated consensus? You wouldn't want the complete Flare chain to stop functioning if one of the state connectors fails to achieve consensus

[ftso_au]

A follow up video on the State Connector 

 

[BillyOckham]

6 hours ago, FTSO_AU said:

A follow up video on the State Connector 

 

Excellent explanation and video.  Well done.  Are you Tim?  Or a composite of folk or someone else from the team?

Or is that a rude question, in which case, just ignore this post and please accept my apology.

 

[ftso_au]

17 hours ago, BillyOckham said:

Excellent explanation and video.  Well done.  Are you Tim?  Or a composite of folk or someone else from the team?

No, it’s Neil here. I do all the social media. 

[BillyOckham]

3 minutes ago, FTSO_AU said:

No, it’s Neil here. I do all the social media. 

Hi Neil,  thanks for clarifying.  And thanks for your engagement here.  It’s much appreciated.

You are not on show in front of the camera….    perhaps you are like me?  A great face for radio?     

Just joshin….    

[brianwalden]

15 minutes ago, BillyOckham said:

Hi Neil,  thanks for clarifying.  And thanks for your engagement here.  It’s much appreciated.

You are not on show in front of the camera….    perhaps you are like me?  A great face for radio?     

Just joshin….    

Don't sell yourself short, @BillyOckham. You don't just have a face for radio. You were made for radio from head to toe, except maybe your voice, I've never heard it. Most people aren't that lucky. They only have a slightly crooked toe made for radio or something like that. But you're the whole package.