RE: Comparing Steem Engine to dstors and dlive

[yabapmatt]

flag and ragequit!

But in all seriousness, I want to address a few of the points you made.

No whitepaper...But it'd be nice to see what their revenue model might be.

A whitepaper takes a ton of time to put together and that would delay actually getting a project out there to a community that has been waiting over a year to make simple tokens. As for a revenue model, aggroed and I are top 20 witnesses...lots of people ask what the top 20 do with their earnings. Well for us, this is one of things we do.

It claims to be a sidechain yet the industry hasn't really defined exactly what that is.

It's a separate chain of blocks created based on data from the Steem blockchain. If that's not a sidechain I don't know what is. In any case, like you said there are no real definitions for any of these terms, and I don't know of anything that more closely and simply describes what this is than "sidechain".

A real smart contract executes with public code and confirms cryptographically. These "actions" execute on a trusted node somewhere, and that's all we know for the moment. Steem Engine might eventually have fully realized smart contracts, if other pieces come together...Nodes are defined in a general sense, but not specifically for Steem Engine contracts. This means only Steem Engine is the authority for the tokens they've issued.

This one I really don't agree with, or maybe I just don't understand the issue.

Anyone can run the node software themselves and independently execute and verify all of the "smart contracts" used by Steem Engine. Additionally all of the smart contract code is public, so I don't see how you claim that "only Steem Engine is the authority for the tokens", or how "the actions execute on a trusted node". The actions do execute on a node, just like they do on any other platform, but it doesn't have to be trusted. Anyone can run their own node and validate the results compared to our node.

Not fully decentralized

This is really the same as the previous point. There's no reliance in any way on a central entity to run this thing. Yes, the steem-engine.com website is a centralized site, just like steemit.com is, but the software is published and anyone can run this thing. It has zero reliance on us at all. I'm not sure what your definition of "fully decentralized" is, but I think this seems to fit.

Comments

[whatsup]

!dramatoken

[jonmaim]

Anyone can run their own node and validate the results compared to our node.

You are the one with control over @steemsc actions and funds. What happens if you stop performing operations with this account? Well, all the token economies will collapse. Also we have to verify your transactions, we cannot just trust you implicitely. This is why you cannot call it decentralised. I understand you are very enthusiastic about the project but I don't agree how you market it as decentralised.

Please take this as constructive feedback and if you can solve these issues, I will be the first one to create tokens.

Posted using Partiko Android

[inertia]

It's a separate chain of blocks created based on data from the Steem blockchain. If that's not a sidechain I don't know what is. In any case, like you said there are no real definitions for any of these terms, and I don't know of anything that more closely and simply describes what this is than "sidechain".

By that definition, one might assert that hivemind is a sidechain. It even has a table called hive_blocks and that table has the block hash. So on a cursory view, it's a sidechain.

I say cursory because in all seriousness, I agree that hivemind is not a sidechain. The blocks it tracks are not its own blocks.

But it does have some of the trappings. It follows the Steem blockchain and creates its own index based on custom_json and other types of transactions.

So what makes steem-engine a sidechain and hivemind not? For instance, if hivemind added columns to calculate and track the hash of the block on its own, would it suddenly become a sidechain?

[jga]

Look the definition of Dan Larimer of what is a side chain back in 2016:

A smart contract on Steem can use side chains. A side chain is really a fancy way of saying a multisig account where the transactions that should be signed are agreed upon by consensus and then signed by multiple independent parties as defined by a smart contract. Steem Smart contracts can interact with the rest of the Steem blockchain just like any other user can. The smart contract consensus algorithm will generate and sign valid Steem transactions which get included in the Steem blockchain.

This definition make sense for me, meaning that a side chain should be able to perform transactions (like transfer steem) in the mainnet using smart contracts.

Steem Engine is almost that. It still needs a central actor to use real steem, not with multisignatures.

[inertia]

I think what Dan is saying is that implementing a side-chain next to a main-chain, where the main-chain itself already has smart contracts, is trivial due to multisignature (side-chains in Easy Mode).

Steem Engine is setting up a side-chain in Hard Mode, without a main-chain smart contract system. Then, in its own side-chain, it defines a smart contract system within the side-chain.

Without the benefit of main-chain smart contracts, Steem Engine needs to establish consensus some other way. This external consensus could possibly leverage side-chain signatures in some way. E.g., when a block is included in the side-chain, it's signed in some way by a block producer. I'm not sure if side-chain multisignature has a role in block production in this scenario.

We already have main-chain multisignature, but by itself, multisignature is not a solution without main-chain smart contracts.

By the way, check this out.

[jga]

Thanks for the link with the history of changes.

I'm not sure if side-chain multisignature has a role in block production in this scenario.

Suppose that the actions of @steemsc are made by consensus between several parties, like the witnesses of the side chain. In this scenario, @steemsc is a multisignature account, and one action requires 17 of 21 signatures to be performed.

The authorities (active/owner) of @steemsc are updated in the main chain as the witnesses change in the side chain.

I think that it is what Dan is saying in his article. In fact, he is saying that this is the way Lisk is working, and that we could do the same in steem:

Lisk relies on 3rd party multi signature solutions to evaluate the code and authorize any transfers out of the smart contract.
...
App developers could use Steem and BitShares to implement smart contracts via Side Chains in the same manner

[dramatoken]

You've got DRAMA!

^{To view or trade DRAMA go to steem-engine.com.}