BLOCK COLLIDER. A high speed multi chain ledger that consumes the blocks of other blockchains. Draft v0.9.3

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1 BLOCK A high speed multi chain ledger that consumes the blocks of other blockchains. Draft v0.9.3 Created: February 11th 2017 Updated: November 30th Abstract A protocol for joining blocks from other crypto currencies in order to create a blockchain ledger capable of executing complex transactions between blockchains without the use validators, relays or master nodes.

2 Introduction 3 Introduction: Use cases 3 Definitions 3 Overview 4 Technology: Implications of Block Collider technology 4 Technology and Process 4 Technology: Blocks on other blockchains 4 Technology: Block Rovers 5 Technology: Block Miners 5 Technology: Mining using Edit Distance 5 Proof of Edit Distance 7 Edit Distance: What is it? 7 Edit Distance: Using Edit Distances to mine the Block Collider blockchain. 7 Edit Distance: Example 8 Edit Distance: Why not use traditional Proof of Work? 8 Edit Distance: Combinatorial Challenge 9 Edit Distance: Maintaining Header State 9 Transactions 9 Transactions: Callback transactions for events that occur on other blockchains. 10 Transactions: Promise transactions for events that might occur on other blockchains. 12 Transactions: First Promise Example 12 Transactions: Second Promise Example 13 Transactions: Inter blockchain Transactions 13 Network 14 Network: Emblems 14 Network: Dynamic Block Size 14 Network: Emblems help miners avoid decrease exposure to improvements in mining hardware. 14 Network: Block Collider Blocks 15 Network: Emblems & Marked Tokens 15 Network: Forks 16 Network: Evolution Mode & Feature Development 16 Network: Voting Flags 16 Network: The FIX Protocol 17 Network: Optimising Block Routing 17

3 I. INTRODUCTION The Block Collider is a high speed distributed ledger built on ordered sets of blocks from other crypto currencies. The blockchain supports ultra low latency balance updates with the Financial Information exchange (FIX) protocol. The Block Collider blockchain is created by decentralized peer to peer miners who mine the chain by combining header hashes, state roots, and transaction Merkle trees using a proof of edit distance (PoED) algorithm. Introduction: Use cases 1. Build advanced smart contracts which rely on events or transactions on other blockchains. 2. Private or enterprise block chains can interact with public block chains through one interface. 3. Schedule the execution of callbacks and promises for automatic execution in the future. 4. Recycle already expended hash power from blocks issued by miners of other crypto currencies. 5. Voting mechanism allows for the addition of new blockchains, future proofing the collider % decentralized operation, no witnesses, master nodes, approved signatories, etc. II. DEFINITIONS Base Pairs : Two or more block header hashes below a maximum string similarity maximum. Collider Chain : A high speed distributed ledger for incentivizing the discovery and validation of blocks between blockchains. Collider Block Header Hash : A double blake2b hash which is greater than the minimum string deviation score for all hashes in a given base pair respectively. Distance Allowance : The maximum amount of combined transaction distances a miner can use in one block. This amount increases based on the number of Emblems owned by the public address. Emblems : A proof of stake signature address that permits blocks with a greater sigma allowance, fork chains, and proof asset ownership across chains. NRG : The unit of value within the collider chain which is required to execute transactions. This is the reward for discovering "matching collider chains" hashes and issued in escrow for promises. Block Rover : UDP/RPC/WebRTC process that traverses the other blockchains and seeds blocks, transactions, and on chain events back to the miners. Callback : Precompiled, pre signed transactions that have not been broadcast to their chain and are instead encrypted by the TX hash of a given blockchain. Callbacks include a fee which miners can claim once the TX is picked up by miners on another blockchain. Callbacks include an expiration block on the collider chain after which it can be removed from the TX pool.

4 Promise : A promise is a transaction on the block collider that only occurs when one or more conditional transactions are found. An escrow amount of NRG can be included which is redeemed in the event conditions in the promise are not met. Promises include an expiration block on the collider chain. Bore Lock : A 2 of 2 encryption process for storing n signatures in verifiable sets. Used for the execution of Callbacks and Promises across blockchains. III. OVERVIEW Cryptocurrencies are "walled gardens" that cannot reuse, trigger, or execute transactions with other blockchains. If Alice wants to execute Bob's smart contract, Bob can only accept cryptocurrency from the blockchain upon which he deployed the smart contract. This lack of cooperation stifles innovation. Block times and fees make blockchains ill suited for heavy transaction volumes or trading. Side chains erected to alleviate the pressure centralize the network and are in the hands of a few mining pools or startups. In addition, the interfaces people use to interact with blockchain technology are functionally limited and difficult to use. The education and subsequent deployment of smart contracts is a consequence of the complex process. Technology: Implications of Block Collider technology Compatible with the blockchain or crypto currency they use now. No code changes. Transactions and smart contracts can run or be executed by contracts on other blockchains. Transactions can occur between blocks on a chain without "witnesses", "trusted nodes", or centralization of any kind. The resulting collider chain is stronger due to a combination of blockchains while more resource sensitive due to recycling mining power. Exponentially lower transaction fees with consistently faster blocks. IV. TECHNOLOGY AND PROCESS Technology: Blocks on other blockchains In the Bitcoin blockchain a sequence of blocks are chained together to avoid double spending and unauthorized credits/debits of value. Each block is a combination of the merkle root transaction data, a state root in some chains, the header hash, and a reference to a previous block s header hash. The block itself can be uniquely referenced by its header hash and therefore used as a caching key or query key.

5 BTC Block Hash #0: d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26f BTC Block Hash #1: a8e6886ab5951d76f afc90947ee320161bbf18eb6048 Each of these hashes forms a sequence of block headers with the most recent validated block in the chain being the largest "block number" and head of the chain. At the time of writing this paper according to CoinMarketCap there are 585 blockchains which mine, each issuing these hashes at varying speeds across a network of hundreds and thousands of machines. Technology: Block Rovers The Block Collider chain is built from the millions of blocks being issued by other blockchains through a process that rapidly distributes and fuses them together, incentivises truthful work, and gives back to the community by seeding chains to new client nodes, even if the node itself is not synchronizing the Block Collider s blockchain. To begin the process of fusing chains together we introduce, in addition to miners, new network based workers called "block rovers" which assist miners in relaying blocks from other blockchains back to the miners for processing. In the beginning, rovers are automatically built into the mining applications provided by Block Collider core developers and the development community. For example, a block rover who is traversing the Bitcoin blockchain is constantly seeking new blocks at the header of the chain in order to relay these blocks back to the miners. The rover seeds the blocks from the Bitcoin blockchain in the same way a traditional Bitcoin node might join and participate in the network. The only key difference is that a block rover will maintain a group of 100+ remote clients from which to seed blocks instead of, in Ethereum s case, a default 25. Rovers are setup for each member chain like Waves, Ethereum or Counter Party. Technology: Block Miners The "mining" of the collider chain is the computational challenge of finding a hash that satisfies a minimum edit distance between the hashes of member chains, its transactions, and its previous block. Proof of Edit Distance (PoED) is based on the Ratcliff Obershelp string distance algorithm which scores the similarity of two strings. Technology: Mining using Edit Distance RO(HBS, BTC Block Hash) < D && RO(HBS, Eth Block Hash) < D == true Miners must find a string that when hashed resolves the above statement. Upon doing so, they propagate their solution to the network to win the block reward which includes some of the fees allocated in the transactions submitted to that block. Each Block Collider block contains references to the previous block and the header states of any relevant blockchains used in its construction. While the Block Collider blockchain has much of the same functionality as a traditional crypto currency, due to the mutations of blocks from header hashes the Block Collider blockchain is consistently faster than the fastest member blockchain that is being absorbed. For example, since there is currently a new Ethereum block every 30 seconds and

6 a new Bitcoin block every 9.2 minutes the Block Collider would have a new block for every new combination of blocks. Consider the following example (not to scale): TABLE I. ARRANGEMENT OF BITCOIN AND ETHEREUM BLOCKS. BTC BLOCK 1 ETH BLOCK 1 BLOCK 1... ETH BLOCK 2... ETH BLOCK 3... ETH BLOCK 4 BLOCK 2 BLOCK 3 BLOCK 4 BTC BLOCK 2 ETH BLOCK 4 BLOCK 5... ETH BLOCK 5 BLOCK 6 Notice Ethereum Block 4 is reused once. This is to demonstrate the real life combination rules used by the collider chain in that the pair such that: BTCBLOCK 1 + ETHBLOCK 4 < BTCBLOCK 2 + ETHBLOCK 4 Similar to Bitcoin s longest chain rules, the collider chain accepts new blocks which are higher in combination as new lineage pairs. A lineage pair is essentially concatenating the header hash of blocks from the same blockchain to form one hash upon which to mine. This enables transactions to be conducted between block issuances. In the above example, the Ethereum blockchain at ETH Block #4 is an instance of Block Collider being the fastest chain. This concept becomes clearer when we add a third blockchain into the mix. In the example below, for every two Ethereum blocks 1 WAVES block is issued. TABLE II. ARRANGEMENT OF BITCOIN, ETHEREUM, AND WAVES BLOCKS. BTC BLOCK 1 ETH BLOCK 1 WAVES BLOCK 1 BLOCK 1... ETH BLOCK 2... BLOCK WAVES BLOCK 2 BLOCK 3... ETH BLOCK 3... ETH BLOCK 4... BLOCK 4... BLOCK 5

7 WAVES BLOCK 3 BLOCK 6 BTC BLOCK BLOCK 7... ETH BLOCK 5... BLOCK 8 Keep in mind that Table 1 and Table 2 represent the same period of elapsed time. Note the increased block issuance rate of the Block Collider chain in that its total blocks went from 6 in Table 1 to 8 in Table 2. This is due to the addition of Waves blocks which makes additional combinations possible. Adding one additional chain does not necessarily increase difficulty for miners as the process of searching for a random string with a maximum distance for 2 hashes simply becomes a maximum distance for 3 hashes. In the previous example, miners in the first iteration of the Block Collider formation, BTC+ETH, are looking for base pairs while in the second they are looking for base triples for BTC+ETH+WAVES and so on. In this way, the collider chain leverages the variance in chains to create a singular rapidly moving blockchain while supporting trusted inter block issuance operations which are especially useful for high speed asset trades or operations. Due to the variability of block discovery on all blockchains, where Ethereum for instance ranges from 6 seconds to 2 minutes and Bitcoin commonly ranges from 5 to 15 minutes, it will be difficult for miners to try to preempt combinations that cause the Block Collider blockchain sequence to favor one chain. This makes it computationally impossible to conduct attacks that involve shifting mining power from processing blocks on the Block Collider. V. PROOF OF EDIT DISTANCE Edit Distance: What is it? Edit distances are a class of algorithms that score how close two strings are to each other. For instance, while the Edit Distance for ETH and ETC is , two identical strings would score a 1. There are many other algorithms also in the string similarity space including the Levenshtein Distance, Smith Waterman Gotoh Distance, and the Ratcliff Obershelp Distance. Edit Distance: Using Edit Distances to mine the Block Collider blockchain. Let s say there exists a theoretical root blockchain which represents the perfect state of all blockchains at any given point in time. Among many other things, if this data was structured as a blockchain, it would be the optimum location for storing events for execution between blockchains.

8 Using Edit Distance and the header hash of other blockchains, we can mine and subsequently create this root blockchain. To do so, miners compete to find a string that when hashed in a normalization process is above a minimum distance threshold. This string could then be the hash of the root blockchain and the header hash for the next block. Let Minimum Distance Threshold be t, String to find be B, and Edit Distance Function be ED. Such that each blockchain header hash h satisfies: EDS( H(h), H(B) ) < t Or in the case of merging three blockchains: EDS(H(h1),H(B)) < t && EDS(H(h2),H(B)) < t && EDS(H(h3),H(B)) < t === true Edit Distance: Example Assume there are only three blockchains in the universe. We would then start with three strings each representing the header hash of a block from another blockchain. BTC: abfe31e59af9f81b3fc84a1a25a8fdc095e429dc6dffa ETH: 0x73413ff99013f6007b72e299aee87da ae4dfb1466b254b7c89b8e1bd NEO: 0b58e3e1980eb79c293ee1d047997c5a7092da8d49813c2407e90f85e0ba1f9e To find the new block in the root blockchain let s say the miner must find one below the threshold of 0.29 for all chains involved. The miner would iterate through a random charset or number, hashing strings until it finds a hash that is below 0.29 for all of the blocks. With a single web worker on an i7 computer the miner found a solution in 32.6 seconds. Solution: c53a147e80b2ae87c50d62dfdc82501d0405c9734d0daf f182ca6c7f5 Edit Distance: Why not use traditional Proof of Work? When combining multiple blockchains of different data types, mining algorithms and block speeds, two critical reasons necessitate Proof of Edit Distance over Proof of Work algorithms. 1. Proof of Edit Distance is mining algorithm agnostic. Any hash or string structure can be provided as an input which means that as long as the blockchain has unique hashes it can be easily added to the Proof of Edit challenge. Conversely, Proof of Work restricts the inputs to the structure of a given blockchain s mining algorithm. In Bitcoin s case this would have to be a nonce, and in Ethereum s case this would have to be a random integer, a nonce, and a seed hash of the block. 2. Proof of Work s Linear Load With PoW any new blockchain added to an intermediary blockchain will incur an additional work linearly proportional to the size of the network. Assuming we accept the compounding difficulty, each new

9 blockchain brings its own difficulty and block time as well. This means that in addition to dynamically resizing the difficulty based on the intermediary blockchain block time, PoW algorithms will have to adjust difficulty based on varying block difficulty, with blocks issued at unknown intervals. Inevitably this leads to poor difficulty adjustments resulting in inefficient hash power allocation and a lag in the block issuance times. Edit Distance: Combinatorial Challenge Since the Block Collider is designed to add new blockchains easily, each new blockchain is an insignificant increase to the load placed on miners or rovers. There will be six planned hard forks in the Block Collider chain, each designed to merge the blocks from other blockchains into the collider formation. The Block Collider at launch will support six blockchains. The sixth chain is to remain a secret and will run parallel to the other blockchains on private nodes to avoid market effects influencing pricing of the chain. Once the initial chains are deployed,the Block Collider has six planned forks over a three year period to incorporate batches of new blockchains. After two years the Block Collider will activate a voting process weighted by the amount of Emblems owned by the voter (0.01 Emblems == 1 vote) and the block discovery frequency of the miner over a 156 day and 32 day rolling window. The voting will be conducted over a 156 day cycle, starting with a 30 day voting period followed by a 120 day pooling period before the combination joins the collider. The protocol itself will remain the same for consumers blocks being issued faster or slow depending on the results of the voting periods. Mining algorithms for generating hashes could also remain the same, the only difference being that accepted blocks would hash below similarity distances, for instance with 3 other hashes instead of 2. T > RO(HBS, BTC Block Hash) && T > RO(HBS, Eth Block Hash) && T > RO(HBS, Komodo Block Hash) == true Note that with the addition of new blockchains the mining process increases linearly in difficulty without breaking miner s hashing process. Edit Distance: Maintaining Header State Since the Block Collider could feasibly have no fixed block times, there is a target delay period of 5.5, 3.5, 1.5 and 0.5 each released during the planned forked chains. This delay is based on the period of time between the latest header hash and the Block Collider sequence. The edit distance threshold is adjusted in the same way difficulty is adjusted dynamically on traditional mining, change to fit these target windows. This does not mean that the Block Collider block time will be 5.5 seconds but instead simply 5.5 seconds behind the fastest block of any of the consumed blockchains. In addition to block delay, if a solution has not been found when a block of the same legacy is added to the mining challenge, there is a distance decrease in the threshold making it easier for the Block Collider miners to quickly catch up to blockchains issuing blocks at a faster than expected rate. VI. TRANSACTIONS Transactions: Executing a transaction from Bitcoin to Ethereum. Transactions for the collider are stored on a distributed hash table (DHT) which miners use to synchronize with other nodes and validate work. Nodes are only expected to synchronize with this table to avoid the usage of bloom

10 filters which delay blockchains due to their inability to reference partial ranges. The storage method proposed is very similar to IPFS in that a client can store all or some of the chain locally. Since the Block Collider is essentially synchronizing with many blockchains, it retains or has access to the state of each chain temporarily. This allows the collider to setup transactions which execute when a particular event occurs on one of the chains it is absorbing into the collider chain. The Block Collider chain has a marked token currency for each blockchain it absorbs which is the unit of value for each given blockchain. These marked tokens are only available on chains that support tokenized assets or side chains and could be compared to colored coins. An instance of this is Marked Ethereum or M ETH which is an Ethereum ERC20 token. Each transaction this token is a part of is automatically a valid part of the Block Collider blockchain. The marked tokens are observed by rovers as they consume blocks and are used to speed up the process of synchronization. The following would be a transaction that even though executed on Ethereum could be retrieved from the Block Collider blockchain. 0xd12Cd8A37F074e7eAFae618C986Ff bd Transferred:TXID 23 M ETH 0xBB9bc244D798123fDe783fCc1C72d3Bb8C M ETH Using bytes to identify the token is not especially unique and is the same way the Ethereum blockchain identifies that a particular token has been transferred. Any transaction or byte stream or block can be passed to the Block Collider. This process in theory could be used if a token of a blockchain became more valuable than the chain itself and subsequently the miners of the Block Collider could merge it in as its own chain using the byte flag as differentiator from its host chain. Transactions: Callback transactions for events that occur on other blockchains. Callbacks allow users to execute trans blockchain transactions. They are the natural evolution of atomic swaps in that it is not only trading coins but actually executing transactions based on conditions or outputs in other blockchains. Callbacks are created by compiling a ready to execute transaction and encrypting it with a serialized Hex of a TX hash that has been preprocessed into a 2 of 2 Bore Lock for the blockchain from which the dependent transaction(s) must occur. The encrypted data is then broadcast to the network where rovers through the Bore Lock discover the TX hash capable of decrypting the transaction. The primary component of a callback is a reward which can only be claimed by the network once miners validate the output transaction or state root of the decrypted transaction. The miner claims the reward by signing the decrypted transaction for which a resulting state root can be watched for a verification. In pseudo json below is an example callback transaction which contains an Ethereum transaction to trigger an ICO purchase based on a transfer of BTC to the ICO funding address. { distance: 0.5 type: TX2, k: "BTC" origin: d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26f, expire: // Bitcoin block to expire at. compiler: "ETH", fpk: 0.3, // in SRS

11 header: fb d246b0b064f85836a52a7b33e299eac60ac4262ccd5ea7d, data: "003093j " snr: } TABLE I. TRANSACTION PARAMETERS type k origin expire compiler fpk snr data Transaction type used for versioning. Blockchain in which to the transaction key to decrypt the callback data Unserialized raw header hash of the blockchain block to start from. The block at which to expire this transaction. The blockchain to submit the decrypted transaction to. Fee per kilobyte of the data in the transaction. A 2 of 2 Bore Lock hash. Encrypted with the transaction hash that has not occurred yet from the chain specified in parameter k. As Bitcoin blocks are relayed by rovers the TXID hash ideas are checked against the Bore Lock using the snr key to decrypt the callback transaction data and claim the fee. The TXID is precompiled by the requesting node for the event they want to use to trigger the transaction. The transaction is invalid if the expiration block is reached. Contained within the encrypted "callback" are the following values: Eth TXID : The serialized Hex of the Ethereum Transaction to be submitted to the network Timestamp : When the the transaction was submitted to be executed. Data : Data necessary to create transaction. Rebase : Optional address where a reward is provided if the transaction fails. For the above example, the TX ID is the transfer of a specific amount of Bitcoin from one hash to the ICO address on the Bitcoin blockchain. If the decryption is successful the miner is awarded with half the amount specified in the fpk (feeperkilobyte) parameter. The other half is awarded when the "Eth TXID" is confirmed by the collider chain at a later date. Rovers while seeding blocks maintain the ideal tool to for broadcasting transactions intended to execute on the member blockchain. Miners operating these block rovers will sign the submission of the transaction which validates

12 their claim to the fee. As the network expands we expect that it will be economical for rovers and miners to split which is why this process requires only the valid private signature and not a base pair. Transactions: Promise transactions for events that might occur on other blockchains. A promise is a singular transaction or a group of transactions which are expected to be seen on a given blockchain before a specific block number. This can be any serialized transaction as the submission is normalized through a double hash process similar to how the block header hashes are standardized. Each transaction in a promise includes a "rebase" transaction that acts as a return on fail address in the event the promise fails for the facilitation of escrow periods, audits freezes, and high speed trading. From our original example, Bob's promise would include two transactions. Notice that callbacks use the crypto currencies of the chains involved in the callback whereas promises use the Block Collider blockchain store of value (NRG) as either an escrow on non payment or the resulting payment of the transaction. Transactions: First Promise Example Alice wants to buy Bob's Bitcoin Bank using the Ethereum she owns. To overview the objectives of this simple transaction, Alice will send Ether to an address owned by Bob and Bob will send Bitcoin (at the agreed upon rate) to an address owned by Alice. To do this Bob can issue a tiered callback or he can use a "promise" which can contain multiple to be executed in batch based on events that occur in other blockchains. [ { distance: 0.5, expire: Expiration BTC block number, fpk: 0.02, compiler: BTC, origin: The starting block hash used to match the distance, data: An unsigned precompiled transaction that Bob sent Bitcoin amount to Alice's Bitcoin address., header: A double Blake2B of the transaction data }, { distance: 0.5, expire: Expiration ETH block number, fpk: 0.02, compiler: ETH, origin: The starting block hash used to compute distance, data: An unsigned precompiled transaction that Alice sent Ethereum amount to Bob's Ethereum address., header: A double BLAKE2B of the transaction data }... ] Miners receiving this transaction take two things into account the first is the origin hash and the second is the header hash which cannot be added to the block without finding a third hash below the maximum.

13 Since this does not confirm the transaction took place, either party can define a collateral address from which to debit NRG to another address in the event a transaction is not detected in the expiration ETH Block. This would be similar to the way USD is used as collateral for the holdings of some small banks to facilitate international transfers. Transactions: Second Promise Example Another use case is an Ethereum insurance smart contract which pays out based on the balance of a Kraken Bitcoin cold wallet. If the wallet's balance is below 10% policyholders can request a payout through the block collider: [ { distance: 0.5 expire: Expiration Ethereum Block origin: Ethereum Block Number start fpk: 0.02 rebase: The policy holders insurance smart contract fee and output address. data: An Ethereum transaction of a new member sending Ether to the policy }, { distance: 0.5 expire: BTC Block origin: Bitcoin Block fpk: 0.02 rebase: The policy holders signed collider s NRG output address. data: A Bitcoin transaction where the remaining Kraken Cold Wallet Address is of output 0. } ] In the case of the above transaction, if the user does not actually open a policy but submits this promise, they will have to stake the amount of NRG required by the rebase address. It is important to note that the rebase address is a signed public block collider address submitted by the insurance group. Transactions: Inter blockchain Transactions Over the past year there have been several attempts to create a decentralized marketplace such as Token from Coinbase, Swap from ShapeShift, Bitfinex Eth Trade, and 0x. While good intentioned and not without new features for the intent of trading, they are severely limited due to the dependency on each new Ethereum block to up order books. Currently the experience requires that a user wait for the next Ethereum block to pick up his/her submission of the intent to trade and then at least one more block for the opposite party to accept that intent and complete the trade. If each Ethereum block takes 30 seconds (and soon 40 seconds in the next hard fork) this process can take minutes. This also assumes the unlikely event that the transactions of either party are picked up by miners in the immediate block following their transaction. Services that use the Block Collider will be able to serve order books with exponentially faster updates even in between the block generation frequency of a particular blockchain. They will also be able to facilitate cross

14 blockchain trades instead of token swaps which at the moment are entirely on the Ethereum blockchain or conducted on centralized exchanges. VII. NETWORK Network: Emblems Emblems are a new of macro form of digital ownership. Among several technical use cases, the more Emblems stored at an address, the more transactions the holder of that address can place in a discovered block when mining. Outside of its primary functional use, Emblems are a distribution vehicle for marked tokens which are the tokens from blockchains inside the Block Collider whose transactions among other things are automatically made a part of the Block Collider blockchain. Network: Dynamic Block Size The primary use of Emblems is to allow block size to be dynamically adjusted. This is done by allowing additional space for transactions in a block, thereby increasing fees awarded,based on the number of Emblems owned by a miner. For instance, imagine a mining cart the more the miner can load into the cart, the larger his/her payout might potentially be if gold is found. Emblems allow miners to have bigger carts. A more detailed way to look at this is in context of the Bitcoin block size debate. With Bitcoin (and Ethereum) each block can only accept a certain amount of transactions due to a size limit. This is not because of the merits of any one size in particular but because the limit itself is fixed. While some limit is necessary to avoid network congestion from enormous blocks, the limit itself should have a range. In addition, fixed block sizes force miners to rank the transactions that go into the block by the amount of fees provided by the transaction. This results in steadily growing fees especially when large pools of people try to transact on the blockchain at once. With the Block Collider each block is capped by a maximum sum of string distances contained within each transaction. This means that if the max distance is 5, then the miner would be able to accept 10 transactions of distance 0.5 (0.5 * 10 == 5). Continuing this logic, transactions with lower distances have a greater chance of getting into a block with minimal fees. This method has the benefit that if a user wants to squeeze in a transaction they can do so by pre mining the distance and providing the transaction with the work the miner would have had to complete. Otherwise, a transaction might include no work and a significant fee which incentivizes the miner to allocate some of its mining power to adding the transaction. Returning to the use of Emblems, both of the above transaction scenarios are dependent on fitting transactions within the maximum distance per block, which in the example above is 5. Emblems allow miners to increase the max distance or number of transactions that can be stored in a block This means that more fees can be collected per block due to the increased volume. It is important to note that this does not increase the probability of the miner finding the next block. The same distance score must be found regardless of the number of transactions accepted in the block. Network: Emblems help miners avoid decrease exposure to improvements in mining hardware. With the natural evolution of technology, especially as larger companies enter the hardware space with products targeted toward mining crypto currencies, it is logical to assume that miner s will be forced to bear the costs of

15 upgrading mining hardware on a regular basis. While this will result in the decrease of mega mining operations, it can hurt smaller players especially in regions where electrical bills play a significant role in a miner s operation. Emblems are a non depreciating asset in that they are a bonus that applies to any new mining technology added to the stack. This uniquely positions them as a longer term store of value for miners which can be sold to other miners to cover unforeseen costs or technological obsolescence. Network: Block Collider Blocks A Block Collider block like other blockchains includes transactions and references to previous blocks and proofs in the form other other blockchain block headers in order to validate the work done block. Unlike other blockchains however the Block Collider blocks do not have a fixed number of transactions. Instead, each block has a fixed edit distance balance which the total number of transaction distances when summed must stay below. A transactional distance is the total byte size of the transaction divided by the edit distance of the TXID to the hash of the data of the transaction. For example if the edit distance between the hash of the TXID and the hash of the transaction data was 0.5 then if the byte size is 210 the distance of the transaction is 0.5 / 210 or If every transaction distance was that amount and the block edit distance balance is fixed at 0.1 then the block could hold 41 transactions. This process enables two notable options. First, transactions with smaller transaction distances are more likely to enter a block regardless of a fee. This removes the auctioneer price boosting effect of chains like Bitcoin where miners prioritize transactions by their fee. Second, it has the overall network benefit of increasing transaction throughput. Transactions that do not have a TXID generated yet or are unlikely to be added to a block due to a TXID due to a higher edit distance can be picked up by smaller miners in a process nicknamed transaction panning after the process of mining for gold in streams and waterways using a pan. These small miners may not have the hardware for profitably working on blocks can participate in the network by listen for these transactions (likely from lite clients) and find a TXID, mining them, and subsequently broadcast the transaction to all their peers to claim 10% of the fee included in the transaction. To claim the fee the miner must submit a 120 bit string that when hashed is of the edit distance claimed in the transaction. If the transaction does not have a TXID, the miner mining the block itself must find a suitable TXID. The TXID like that used in Bitcoin is an identifier of the transaction in the block and used in the merkle tree. Network: Emblems & Marked Tokens Of the five founding chains (and hidden sixth), a marked token has been issued which operates identically to a traditional token in that it is as tradable/usable/compatible with any other token on said blockchain. However, transactions that use these marked assets are automatically added to the collider chain which is primarily to help users interact with the collider using only the fees necessary to transact on a given chain. For instance, if an insurance contract allowed anyone to sign up to a policy through the collider they would simply specify on each given chain an address. If marked tokens were sent to that address they would be accessible on the collider chain allowing the insurance contract to validate a user s payment or participation.

16 Network: Forks Over the last two years, the frequency and adoption of hard forks, both as a fail switch (DAO) or as a planned feature upgrade (Counter Party), has greatly increased. This poses an interesting situation when we consider that the collider might absorb the wrong chain in each upgrade. We also group into this situation the possibility of a cataclysmic event that destroys the chain. In these situations, the collider is designed so that as long as it is assimilating 2 or more blockchains, it can safely secure transactions. The evolution of the block is based solely on the presentation of an unseen combination. A given blockchain might go offline which would mean that until the assimilation council (discussed below) the collider would only slow down slightly due to the decrease in variations. A potential use case of this might be if the if one blockchain became congested a distributed application could redirect transactions to blockchains which are experiencing lighter loads or relatively cheaper fees. Network: Evolution Mode & Feature Development Once the initial 6 blockchains have been deployed to the blockchain, and the core protocol passes the incubation window of one year the protocol switches to a Evolution Mode. This is a stage which includes a three month voting period during which new blockchains can be voted into the collider and unwanted blockchains can be voted out. In addition it allows architect voting. An architect is a public address that is associated with a project or proposal. This could be a request for funding to develop a new feature or change a previous feature. To submit a project the owner must stake 0.001% of the total amount of Emblems transferred over the last month (in terms of blocks) or 11 Emblems whichever is smaller. Evolution Mode serves three purposes, first it gives Emblem owner s stake in the evolution of the chain. Second, it allows the collider to adopt new features from other chains through a democratic process. This also allows the chain to move with large scale changes in the political environment or access to new fiat markets. Third and finally it allows the Block Collider to create features and organically grow involvement from the community. A similar program can be found in the Dash Development Fund which we think is an ideal example of this behavior. Network: Voting Flags In the event of an emergency there is a version flag which can be triggered by miners to migrate to an alternative chain or group of chains. The version flag like the one used in Bitcoin only supports a single digit numeral adding to the gravity of the change. It is a not a break the glass event but does give miners the ability to move away from chains that have put in a state of disrepair such that it is negatively impacting the Block Collider.

17 Network: The FIX Protocol In developing new technologies, the pursuit of low latency orderbook data and the execution/settlement of trades has created rapid innovation for bare metal high performance computer and networking infrastructure. One of the most reusable elements of this is the Financial Information exchange (FIX) protocol which was created for international real time exchange of information related to the securities transactions and markets. The Block Collider uses this protocol to achieve two purposes first, to establish the distance score of a transaction and second, to provide a data feed of cross/pair rates for the marked tokens within the Block Collider. In the first case, miners use the FIX protocol to read in from other nodes the current transactions and distance scores required to add the transaction to the block. Since the process of filling a block with transactions can be compared to the settlement of an order book, up to date transaction distances are necessary to insure efficient placement of transactions in blocks. An additional use case for the FIX protocol is to act as an ecosystem wide data feed for all of the blockchains connected to the Block Collider. The data feed serves as a simple entry point for institutional investors to more easily price market events, volume, and tick level data in a timely fashion with a protocol already integrated into their on premise systems. Network: Optimising Block Routing With these two points in mind, a node can synchronize the entire collider chain in the same method used by Bitcoin. In effect, the moment a node starts receiving blocks it can start submitting transactions to the collider without any synchronization process. To put simply, the Block Collider is a Zero Sync chain. The challenge of separating mining nodes from nodes simple synchronizing state has drawn more attention as research like DECOR+ or the Ethereum s Uncles has been applied to decrease block issuance and increase miner participation. The Block Collider approaches this issue by creating a distributed hash table which stores the block difficulty thresholds obtained by miners who did not win the block. The table is sorted and acts as a list of either the luckiest or the strongest miners. When a miner creates a block, this list also represents the most likely candidates to continue work on the chain, thereby validating the block faster. The miner forwards this block to these peers in order to ensure the network maintains maximum speed and distribution of blocks. For more information, to review the source code, and test the mining applications visit REFERENCES [1] [2] [3] extended ess...victory is truth, dignity is holiness, peace is happiness, life is eternity. ~ St. Augustine of Hippo, The City of God.