Welcome to the fourth edition of “This Week in Quai,” an initiative by the development company of Quai Network, Dominant Strategies. This Week in Quai offers weekly updates to the Quai Community by aggregating popular Quai quotes and social posts from the past week and offering a schedule for upcoming events.
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What is Quai?
Quai Network is a pre-launch cryptocurrency. Quai is the first blockchain protocol that is simultaneously decentralized, censorship resistant, and infinitely scalable. Quai, in contrast to traditional cryptocurrencies, functions as a network of many interoperable blockchains braided together. Due to a breakthrough discovery that occurred during research on Proof-of-Work, Quai Network utilizes a new consensus mechanism, Proof-of-Entropy-Minima (PoEM), which eliminates all consensus-based forks, and enables all Quai nodes to remain in “perpetual consensus.”
Quote of the Week
“The ultimate goal here is that by the time we launch, we have a protocol. And we don’t have a roadmap. The roadmap is ‘This is a protocol. It does everything that it needs to do.’ Our goal is to create a network that is what it’s supposed to be when it launches.”
– Quai co-founder Dr. K, via Twitter Spaces on April 19, 2023
Dr. K is the co-founder of Quai Network and the CTO of Dominant Strategies. In this quote, Dr. K makes it clear that the ethos that Quai is being developed with is significantly different than other projects. Nearly all existing Layer-1 blockchains have some sort of roadmap or planned improvements. The goal of Quai Network, however, is to implement all desired features prior to the Mainnet launch of the protocol.
When Quai Network is complete, it will be a decentralized protocol that can function as money for all of human commerce. When this mission is delivered on, the only further changes to the Quai protocol that may be required would be ad-hoc bug fixes.
Technical Term of the Week
Stale/Orphan / Uncle Block – A valid block that is not included in the main/canonical chain. Stale/orphan blocks are slightly different from uncle blocks – a stale/orphan block, generally specific to Bitcoin, is completely discarded. An uncle block, as used in PoW Ethereum, is not completely discarded, but is referenced into the blockchain in a different way.
Stale/Orphan / Uncle blocks are the leading cause of forks within hash-based blockchains. These forks occur when two equally valid blocks are proposed near-simultaneously, causing nodes to have no preference between the two blocks. When one of these forks eventually outweighs the other, it is made canonical, and the other block becomes either a stale/orphan block or an uncle block.
Consensus-based forks negatively impact the performance of a hash-based blockchain by diverting computational resources and creating inefficiencies in the system. The generation of stale/orphan and uncle blocks represent wasted computational effort, as these blocks, despite being the product of substantial mining, do not contribute to the length and security of the blockchain. In Ethereum, for example, while uncle blocks still provide a reduced reward to miners, this reward is less than what would have been earned from a block on the main chain, indicating an underutilization of computational resources. Additionally, such forks create uncertainty about the state of the blockchain until the majority of the network reaches consensus on the valid chain, potentially disrupting services and users relying on it.
Quai Network’s Proof-of-Entropy-Minima (PoEM) consensus mechanism completely removes this period of uncertainty by ensuring accurate weighing of blocks. When running the PoEM algorithm, nodes will always have a preference between any two proposed blocks.
PoEM doesn’t directly reduce the occurrence of stale/orphan or uncle blocks, but it completely removes their impact on the performance and security of the network. In the event that two blocks are proposed simultaneously – a scenario that can still occur under PoEM – the consensus mechanism ensures that nodes can immediately discern between the two competing forks, because no two blocks can ever be weighted equally. This distinctive feature of PoEM, unlike other consensus models where a preference might not always be immediately clear, allows the network to immediately isolate the lesser-weighted block and classify it as a stale/orphan block or an uncle block.
The ability to instantly resolve such forks not only minimizes disruptions to the network but also optimizes computational resources. Rather than waiting for the network to eventually favor one fork over the other, which can be a resource-intensive and wasteful process, PoEM allows for instant decision-making, leading to a more efficient blockchain with less wasted computational power.
Top Posts of the Week
- The winner of the Quai Network Telegram Sticker Competition was selected and announced:
- Quai co-founder Alan participated in a live AMA on Twitter Spaces discussing the process of developing applications on Quai:
- A Tweet was posted about Quai’s energy efficiency. Quai keeps all the environmental benefits of Bitcoin’s Proof-of-Work as outlined in the Quai docs, while also operating more than 10,000 times more efficiently:
- Quai Community Member and Discord Moderator Pavil shared some Quai-themed street-art:
- The Quai booth will be making a comeback in Austin, Texas from September 11-13 for Permissionless 2023:
- Mining pools will be supported in the Iron Age Testnet via Stratum Proxy:
- The Quai Network May Developer Roundup was posted on the Quai Blog:
- Dr. K discusses how Quai is the first system to facilitate cross-chain transactions without introducing any new aspect of trust:
Upcoming Events
Quai Network Office Hours with Justin: June 6, 2023 @ 10am CST – Join Dominant Strategies team member Justin for a casual discussion/AMA on Quai Network’s technology.
Quai University Call #9: June 7, 2023 @ 11am CST – Join Quai co-founder Dr. K for the FINAL University Call hosted live in the Quai Discord! This University Call will focus on “mined transactions,” Quai Network’s solution to MEV. Don’t miss out on Dr. K’s first public explanation of this groundbreaking technology, which will be supplemented by future research papers and documentation.
Quai Network Office Hours with Max: June 1, 2023 @ 9am CST – Join Dominant Strategies team member Max for a casual discussion/AMA on Quai Network’s technology.
IRL Quai Network Community Meetup & Happy Hour: June 8, 2023 @ 6pm CST – Join the Dominant Strategies team and the Quai community for a meetup in the real world! The meetup will be hosted at Skinny’s Off-Track Bar in Austin, TX. If you show up in Quai merch, drinks are on us! If you don’t have any Quai merch yet, don’t worry – there will be plenty of swag there!
Join us to build a better blockchain.
Quai Network is an open-source Proof-of-Entropy-Minima blockchain network utilizing the capabilities of merged mining to increase throughput and security. Users of Quai Network will enjoy fast transaction times without compromising decentralization and security. Miners will have competitive mining opportunities across the many blockchains within the network.
Capable of thousands of transactions per second, the Quai Network is a new solution to scalability that is soon to be ready for mainnet release.
Terms & Conditions / Disclaimer
The entirety of the Quai Genesis grants program, including the content of this article, is subject to the Terms and Conditions outlined here.
Opinions, ideas, and statements shared in this update are delivered with numerous assumptions, risks, and uncertainties which are subject to change over time. There are multiple risk factors, including those related to blockchain, cryptographic systems, and technologies generally, as well Quai’s business, operations and results of operations, that could cause actual results or developments anticipated not to be realized or, even if substantially realized, to fail to achieve any or all of the benefits that could be expected therefrom. We reserve the right to unilaterally, completely, or partially change plans, expectations, and intentions stated herein at any time and for any reason, in our sole and absolute discretion, and we undertake no obligation to update publicly or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future developments, or otherwise. ACCORDINGLY, WE RECOMMEND THAT YOU DO NOT RELY ON, AND DO NOT MAKE ANY FINANCIAL DECISION OR INVESTMENT BASED ON, THE STATEMENTS CONTAINED IN THIS UPDATE OR ANY OF OUR UPDATES/ARTICLES — INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY SELLING OR TRADING OF QUAI TOKENS, ETHER, OR ANY OTHER CRYPTOGRAPHIC OR BLOCKCHAIN TOKEN, OR THE SECURITIES OF ANY COMPANY.
The views, opinions, and statements made in this update are those of an individual author and not those of any institution, University, or legal entity operating within the jurisdiction of The United States or beyond. There is no association between these views, opinions, and statements and any for-profit or non-profit entity, particularly with Universities, Foundations, and other Agencies located within the United States. Any perception of such an association is purely accidental, and will be rectified immediately if brought to our attention by the reader.