How the Invention of Supernodes Upgrades Blockchain’s PoS Consensus

In certain circles, blockchain developer Sunny King is downright legendary. His 2012 invention — Proof of Stake consensus — became a popular governance model and currently enjoys widespread adoption within the crypto community.

And Sunny’s new project — V SYSTEMS — is creating a decentralized, cloud-based blockchain database while at the same time improving upon the original concept of PoS.

In stark contrast to bitcoin’s resource-intensive Proof of Work consensus mechanism, PoS stakeholders need only to store their crypto in the right wallet.

Proof of Stake means no expensive or complicated equipment is necessary, and the environmental footprint is minimal.

Original examples of Sunny’s PoS projects include Peercoin and Primecoin, both of which prompted other altcoins to follow suit.

To find an example of a startup that took Sunny’s PoS invention to heart, look no further than 2014’s CloakCoin. The privacy-focused project awards token holders 6% annually, in the form of the network’s native coin.

How are token holders rewarded without the need for power-hungry mining rigs? Pre-mining, that’s how.

You see, unlike bitcoin’s army of miners constantly looking for rewards as they fight to win the right to forge blocks, all of CloakCoin’s supply is already in circulation.

There are no coins to be mined because they’ve all been ‘found.’ So, HODLers keeping their coins in the proper wallet — essentially becoming network block validators — enjoy passive rewards.

And therein lies the beauty of Sunny’s invention. With the right PoS model in place, hands-off crypto rewards are as easy as running a program on your PC or Mac.

However, SPoS — Supernode Proof of Stake — changes all that. And if you’re comfortable operating specialized mining hardware, SPoS upgrades all that.

Now, before we dive too deep, you should know this…

Disclaimer: This is not investment or financial advice. I’m not a financial expert by any stretch of the imagination. Information within this article is primarily speculative opinion. Always conduct your own research before involving yourself with any project, in or out of the cryptosphere.

I may or may not receive an allocation of tokens for creating this content. That said, I do my best to remain unbiased and fair. I try to avoid all FOMO and FUD and don’t wish to elicit those emotions in my fellow cryptonauts. Did you make it this far? Congrats! You’re in the top 1% and deserve nothing short of a medal.

Now that we’ve cleared that up let’s get into it.

Parabolic Launch

Even during this prolonged bear market, some projects do fabulously well for themselves.

Several recent launches on crypto exchange Binance’s Launchpad — including Tron’s BitTorrent — saw tremendous success as highly anticipated token sales went live. In some instances, billions of tokens were sold, and millions of dollars were raised, all within the span of a few minutes.

Similarly, China’s ZB.com LaunchPad program brought near-instantaneous success to the VSYS project. Collectively, it took a little longer than 60 seconds for three separate exchanges — BW, ZB, & ZBG — to sell 45M $VSYS tokens.

So what’s the underlying reasoning behind the VSYS token’s massively successful launch?

Well, for starters, the project is already running on MainNet. Since November of last year, the V SYSTEMS blockchain has been stably producing blocks every four seconds.

But a stable ecosystem alone won’t propel a project’s tokens sale into sold-out status. Although VSYS is beyond the proof-of-concept phase, the project has ambitious technical plans for the future.

You see, the ZB platform predicts that VSYS will emerge as a successor to ethereum. The launch was a coordinated marketing effort from the project as well as the IEO — Initial Exchange Offering — exchanges offering tokens.

And coincidentally, back in 2016, ZB was the first Chinese exchange to offer ETH trading pairs. It’s up to you to decipher that correlation.

To earn VSYS coin block rewards, just get in line

Equality for All

So, how does V SYSTEMS put the Super in SPoS? The answer is brilliant: equal minting rights.

Unlike bitcoin’s PoW mechanism — as well as the original PoS — SPoS isn’t randomized.

SPoS block rewards don’t come from playing and hoping to win a game of crypto lotto.

Instead, block minting is awarded by merely being next in line. As of writing — you can see for yourself right here — only 15 VSYS Supernodes (coin minters) carry an ‘efficiency’ rating.

Each of these mining entities occupies a coin-minting ‘slot’ defined as an equal share of the right to mint a new block on the network. In short, every Supernode carries equal weight.

And if one should fail, another is only four seconds behind, ready and waiting to validate transactions.

Sixty total slots are available to Supernodes, and each corresponds to a specific second within a minute. Dividing seconds by current Supernodes gives us the number 4. So, every four seconds, one of the 15 miners puts a new block on the chain.

It then returns to the end of the line and waits for all other Supernodes to have their turn. Once another 60 seconds tick by, our original node is back at the front of the line, minting again.

Rather than waiting days, weeks, or sometimes months, current VSYS Supernodes are rewarded every minute of every day.

And here’s where it gets even more interesting: Supernodes are eligible to receive coins via lease from other stakeholders. And though they can neither spend nor transact leased coins, minters are incentivized to pay competitive lease rates.

And current payouts on leased coins reach double digits.

CloakCoin, running on today’s PoS model, pays 6% annually — which is generally considered a good return for doing nothing. VSYS, on the other hand, operating on SPoS consensus, tops out at 22% — over a 3x bump!

So, if you’re comfortable running high-end mining hardware, still have the opportunity to apply to operate a MainNet Supernode yourself. Supernode operators, by default, earn more than the high lease rates they pay out to lenders.

But if specialized equipment is out of your league, you can still lease VSYS coins to Supernodes for hands-off passive income. And once you create a VSYS wallet, you can intuitively lease from within:

However, beyond a meteoric launch and the invention of a new staking mechanism, perhaps most promising is how V SYSTEMS wants to help accelerate the pace of blockchain development.

Blockchain in The Cloud

Building a blockchain can be a long and arduous process. And if you’re a business owner in need of a decentralized, scalable database, blockchain tech can be downright intimidating.

Now, the method by which V SYSTEMS offer a solution will help drive the blockchain industry forward. Here’s why:

A New World’s First in Dev Languages

The team recently released their own smart contract and token-publishing function. The smart contract aspect comes from the work of VSYS’ own developers.

Dev-friendly systems build upon a data-oriented smart contract language allowing instant blockchain creation — which no other crypto project is using at the moment.

Cloud Dev Platforms

VSYS is creating decentralized, full-featured databases for storing object-oriented data. And their development language aims to simplify the blockchain building process.

Developers gain access to cloud-based, modular, easily scalable tools that make it easy to put chains together. Plus, the modules support multiple consensus algorithms.

In their own words:

“The project will deliver the world’s first object-oriented general purpose decentralized database to carry complex decentralized applications.”

Increasing the rate of DApp proliferation enables devs to experiment. And that’s where greatness is born. Gmail itself — a program that most of the world’s population uses — sprung from a simple creative outlet offered to Google employees.

Point is, when developers can build chains quickly, they’ll get better and faster with their chain-building skills. Innovation inevitably follows from there.

Custom, Decentralized Cloud Platforms

Data breaches are becoming more prevalent, and large corporations are strengthening their interest in decentralization. Data hacks are costly — both monetarily and to company image.

VSYS provides companies with bespoke, turn-key blockchain migration. Cloud databases mitigate the risk of cyber attacks, and protecting companies against intrusion is a rapidly growing niche.

Wrapping Up

The concept of staking rewards is one of the driving forces behind why I enjoy cryptocurrencies in the first place.

Who doesn’t like “money for nothing?” Staking is the equivalent of earning in your sleep which, as defined by Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, is the only valid path to wealth.

I’ll admit not knowing who Sunny King is before researching this article. But now I’m grateful for the innovative inventions he’s given the cryptosphere.

And like bitcoin to ethereum, breakthrough innovations change throughout their lifespan. And the life of blockchain development operates at breakneck speed.

In addition to creating a modular DLT playground in the cloud, VSYS has a new blockchain invention bringing ultra-high rewards to participants.

SPoS consensus offers a best-of-two-worlds upgrade over the PoS mechanism of today. Supernode operators act as mining pools, using collections to earn more VSYS coins.

Technically challenged wallet operators can easily lease coins to Supernodes. Just like we already do with our beloved PoS coins, but at a much higher rate.

The overall theme of VSYS is universal scalable blockchains. Millions of them. They aim to attract developers to their platform by lowering the bar for everyone.

I don’t know about you, but I feel like the no-coiners are missing out on opportunities right now. With Tezos and other staking coins becoming available on Coinbase Pro, institutional investors are beginning to see value in passive staking rewards.

And once the world awakens to the returns offered by PoS and now SPoS cryptocurrencies, it’s only a matter of time before people start flocking to these types of projects.

Although any coin can choose to operate under Masternodes or Supernodes, the difference lies in the underlying technology. And simpler, quicker-to-build blockchains are a welcome addition to the industry.

Remember, I’m merely a blockchain enthusiast. Just an opinionated writer on the Interwebs. That said, given my history of evaluating blockchain startups, VSYS is a project I’m keeping on my crypto radar.

By the way…

If you enjoyed what you just read and would like help getting your crypto message to the masses, I’d love to hear about your project.

Even if you only want to chat about crypto or your favorite blockchain innovations, you can find me here: blockchainauthor at Gmail

And, you can always reach out on Crypto Twitter

How the Invention of Supernodes Upgrades Blockchain’s PoS Consensus was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.