What is Oasis Network (ROSE)?

One of the most promising projects built on Cosmos technology is Oasis Network, known for its native cryptocurrency ROSE. Oasis Network is defined as a project focused on building a highly scalable network, interoperability in the Cosmos ecosystem and the generation of smart contracts focused on offering privacy and confidentiality to its users.

SHowever, the Oasis Network not only offers privacy and confidentiality within its network, but at the same time builds a series of unique innovations that complement its consensus model. Among those innovations is the use of Proof of Stake (PoS) together with a parallel execution system known as ParaTimes that allows Oasis Network to have a high level of speed and scalability without giving up the decentralization of the network. And next to it, the construction of Ekiden, which is the name of the Oasis Network's privacy-focused platform, all of which is powered by the native ROSE token.

History and origin of Oasis Network

The development of the Oasis Network began in April 2018, at which time Oasis Labs, a company founded by Dawn Song, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, and her team decided to make the paper public. «Ekiden: A Platform for Confidentiality-Preserving, Trustworthy, and Performant Smart Contracts». With this first development, Song would begin the search for a series of investments that will help him make his idea a reality: to use Ekiden to create a secure decentralized computing cloud. In this way, the Song project would be able to provide completely private and confidential smart contract services without giving up its decentralization and verifiability. The idea caught the attention of investors such as 16z crypto, Polychain Capital, among others, who decided to support the initial development of the protocol with a total of 45 million dollars.

Choosing Cosmos SDK for the project

Song would then begin to get down to work with his team to develop this idea. His interest immediately turned to Cosmos, a project that was also in development at the time. The choice of Cosmos responded to the possibility of using the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol to create interoperable communication channels between different parts of the network, something in which networks like Ethereum falter enormously. The next point in the decision to use Cosmos for their project was Tendermint, its enormous scalability and the opportunity to adapt to Ekiden's unique needs, such as subnetting, low computing power required to run it, and adaptability to hardware that the network would need.

In this way Oasis Network could have the four essential characteristics that Song wanted for the network:

1. Privacy. By separating the layers of the network and adding privacy protection measures in all of them.
2. Security. Ensuring both on-chain and off-chain security, all through a hybrid architecture. This technology combines the use of TEE (Trusted Execution Environment) hardware and blockchain.
3. Scalability. Greatly improving efficiency through a novel architecture that splits computation and consensus execution.
4. Flexibility. Enabling the creation of decentralized applications with numerous built-in tools and SDKs.

The development of their idea led them to publish their first test network in November 2019. In it, the first parts of the network would be tested and the necessary adjustments would be made to verify its good performance, but it was not until November 18, 2020 when the Oasis Network mainnet launch started. This included the finalized Mainnet genesis file, plus several production-ready features that will be carried into the final stage of the network. Among those functions are the use of the ParaTimes, EVM compatibility and the foundational bases for the growth of the Oasis Network over time.

How does the Oasis Network work?

Ekiden, a fast, private and secure smart contract platform

The easiest way to see Ekiden is to imagine it as a platform designed to take full advantage of the capabilities of current computing hardware, without sacrificing security and privacy at any time.

Normally in blockchain the most used way to secure the network is through protocols such as Proof of Work (PoW). With this model, miners use brute force to solve complex mathematical problems along with the use of cryptography and hashing to protect and verify the data of the operations. Without a doubt, this is a very good solution to protect the network because an attacker needs to match 51% of the entire network so that his attack can have a chance, which is expensive. However, the data is not encrypted in any way, so we can access it directly from a block explorer if we wish. This is a problem, because even though the identity is pseudo-anonymous, our transactions are publicly accessible to any member of the network.

Dawn Song and her team designed Ekiden in order to avoid this. To achieve this, Song decided that Ekiden will use a distributed operating system similar to the one we see in Hyperledger Sawtooth, where network validators can use the TEE (Trusted Execution Environment) capabilities of their CPUs to generate cryptographic environments. insurance. However, you should keep in mind that this system is not 100% foolproof. The TEEs included in the CPUs (be they Intel, AMD or any ARM vendor) have flaws. For example, Intel SGX has several known vulnerabilities to its credit. Many of these flaws are uncorrectable unless the CPU design is changed, so mitigating them is complex.

MPC, the key to Ekiden's safety

To mitigate these types of failures, Ekiden uses a distributed TEE system using a MPC or Multi-Party Computation scheme based on blockchain. In this way, the TEE environments are created in the Ekiden validators, shielding the cryptographic processes within them. This includes transaction processing, smart contracts and everything related to them, generating cryptographic proofs that can then be verified by the rest of the network. In this way, Ekiden enables the Oasis Network to process transactions and advanced smart contracts without revealing any of the information processed, while maintaining the transparency and auditability of the network.

As an additional point, Ekiden helps speed up the validation and cryptography process applied to operations due to its high level of abstraction and parallelism. Thanks to this, the use of Proof of Stake and the Tendermint protocol, Oasis Network has a very high scalability.

ParaTimes, modularity and functionality for Oasis Network

The ParaTimes are the layers within the Oasis Network in which the execution of the smart contracts is carried out. Each ParaTime can be developed in isolation to meet the needs of a specific application, such as confidential computing and open or closed commissions. That said, you can see ParaTimes as the Oasis Network equivalent of Ethereum 2.0 shard chains or Polkadot/Kusama ParaChains. This means that ParaTimes can be created tailored to the needs of each smart contract and dApp deployed, having their own TEE configuration and MPC security.

The main utility of the ParaTimes is to divide the computational work of the Oassis Network. In this way, the network obtains greater modularity and the ability to adapt to different uses. Additionally, ParaTimes help maintain network security by enabling faster and more efficient data replication.

Another functional point of the ParaTimes is the possibility of implementing different development environments for their smart contracts. For example, the ParaTime Emerald has been designed to support the Ethereum Virtual Machine. Thus, any smart contracts designed in Solidity that are in Ethereum can be ported to this network without any changes. The possibilities of this are gigantic, especially due to the scalability and low commissions that Oasis Network offers.

Other recognized ParaTimes within Oasis are:

• Cipher ParaTime, focused on smart contract execution privacy (using Solidity and Rust).
• Parcel ParaTime, focused on decentralized storage of sensitive data.

ROSE token, distribution and functions

To access the Oasis Network functions you need to have the ROSE token in your possession. This token has a total supply of 10 billion tokens. Its initial issue was 1.500 billion tokens aimed at backers in the development of the network. That initial distribution is divided as follows:

• Founders: 23,0%.
• Community and ecosystem: 22,5%.
• Major taxpayers: 20.0%
• Foundation Endowment: 10.0%
• Strategic partners and reserve: 5.0%

Additionally, 2,3 billion tokens will be distributed that will be paid automatically as staking rewards within ten years. ROSE is used for transaction fees, staking, and delegation at the consensus layer. By staking or staking ROSE, users can secure the Oasis blockchain and earn rewards.

The choice of a rose as the symbol of the token is based on its historical meaning: the "secret". Since ancient Greece the rose was considered a symbol of secrets or intimacy. It was especially used by Aphrodite as a gift in exchange for keeping the secrets of the gods. Hence, this token has chosen this element to characterize its token and remember at all times that its objective is the total privacy of its users.

Conclusions

Oasis Network and ROSE are two of the great elements within the Cosmos ecosystem, experiencing rapid growth and expansion. Its views on privacy and scalability have made it a favorite for deploying inexpensive, high-concurrency dApps. Along with all this, its staking policy and its wide acceptance have earned it a good place in the community that is committed to the growth and development of the network.

All that being said, we can only look forward to the continued development and evolution of Oasis Network and ROSE, especially in an area where competitors like Phala Network are beginning to gain ground and presence throughout the ecosystem.