Please describe your proposed solution.
Key Points
- Create a significant list of “active” and “historical” UTXO blockchains.
- Acquire white papers of active and historical UTXO blockchains.
- Assemble a list of researchers and developers working on exploring UTXO chains (non-public, shared with UTXO Alliance members).
- Build larger education information on UTXO chains.
- Build and Strengthen connections with UTXO chains.
Understanding the historical and present environment is critical for blockchain ecosystems to grow. Many account-based blockchains have added EVM compatibility and now provide a de facto common research infrastructure. UTXO chains need to gather up historical and present information to create a rich archive of materials. This will ensure recognition of meaningful trends of R&D that UTXO chains have in common and help foster a vibrant UTXO research, development and user community.
This UTXO project is one aspect of our new education center, for which we will engage in the creation of deep research, computational data and interviews.
Wolfram Blockchain Labs (WBL) joined the UTXO Alliance in April. One of the initial things we noticed is that there is a significant number of UTXO chains; however, there isn’t a large list of these UTXO blockchain chains. So, we set to work starting to research both active and historical UTXO blockchains.
However, as we began to assemble this list, we thought of what might be next.
Then it came to us, we’ll figure out how to expose this content in different ways that are useful to UTXO Alliance, the Cardano community and the public.
Among these areas for education and information:
- Educational module, including a ledger list noting UTXO chains, white papers (along with glossary terms) and interviews of UTXO ledger leaders
- Other public resources, such as a display of blockchains and a glossary
This project will also provide information to help expand UTXO cross-chain activity of all types.
I. Research and Discovery Phase
We plan on executing a discovery phase from April until the decision (September). During that time, we will continue to gather our list of active and historical UTXO chains, acquire white papers of those chains and assemble a list of resources.
- Assemble resources
- Collaborate with Cardano and UTXO Alliance communities
Please view our supplemental materials (to be added soon) to get a better idea of what we’ve done so far, especially if you have information and research that you could provide.
II. Working Phase
During this phase, we will work on assembling data into formatting where we can discover common details through different blockchains. We will go further by making the various datasets computable as well. We will also finalize how we will conduct interviews of UTXO chain community members.
We’d like to get the Catalyst (and UTXO) community involved to help us write initial versions of some of the glossary terms—and we want to have bounties on these terms so that people are rewarded for their participation.
- Assembly of data
- White paper analysis framework
- Design of a web application for the presentation for users
- Blockchain interview structure
- Glossary terms
III. Presentation Phase
We plan to create a simple web application to provide data for users to explore.
- Create an engaging interface for people to review the information
Supplemental Information
<https://wolfr.am/UTxO-History-Collaboration>
Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.
The Catalyst Fund9 Cross-Chain Collaboration challenge mentions that it is an “open-ended challenge that welcomes any proposal geared for cross-chain collaboration, co-innovation, and interoperability. These can be any community-led projects, initiatives, solutions, tools, or services. It could mean for instance:”
- Common research, education, outreach and innovation projects with other chains and communities (e.g., podcasts, hackathons, webinars, communication hubs, educational resources)
We feel this idea is explicitly mentioned in the Fund9 Cross-Chain Collaboration challenge. In addition, we plan to include current UTXO Alliance blockchains and potentially help recruit more UTXO blockchains to UTXO Alliance.
“The UTXO Alliance is an initiative created to kickstart collaboration with individuals and organizations working to make the UTXO model more scalable, secure, and interoperable.” You can learn more about the UTXO Alliance here: https://iohk.io/en/blog/posts/2021/10/15/utxo-alliance-fostering-innovation-and-collaboration-across-the-blockchain-space
Thus, the entire proposed project will help increase cross-chain possibilities for collaboration. The more UTXO cross-chain possibilities there are, the more UTXO chains will grow—including Cardano.
We have already created a list of more than 150 active and historical UTXO blockchains and are busy filling in the details on those blockchains. Those details we want to fill out include ticker symbols, websites (or their historical websites using archive.org), social media, contact information (developers and community managers/members) and white papers. At present a majority of the chains are Bitcoin forks, but we continue to find other UTxO chains out there.
Another key interest area is the increasingly large collection of UTXO blockchain white papers (and research papers), which are used to update technical information for the community and innovate new features for UTXO chains. Comprehension and careful analysis of these white papers is crucial to maintaining the health not just of Cardano, but other UTXO blockchains. New research papers help provide new ideas and give a sense of the relative importance of problems. Unfortunately, the size of this collection is making it difficult (if not impossible) for most community members to digest the information that is important.
The Wolfram Language provides sophisticated tools for analyzing and visualizing text, both structurally and semantically. These tools and methods would include over two hundred types of entity extraction and advanced deep learning techniques. By providing the option of an automated computation layer between the raw feed of white papers and the community, WBL can remove a significant barrier for active participation.
We are also quite interested in the people involved in different UTXO chains; we’d like to interview as many people as possible to help document the initial reasons behind why they started the different ledgers.
What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?
There are few technical issues to execute on this project, and because we have already started the core research gathering, the risks are low. However, low risk does not mean no risk. We have tried to outline the risks here along with how we might mitigate them
Possible risks:
- No UTXO Alliance support (talk to UTXO Alliance members individually to gain support)
- No Cardano community support (discuss project in Catalyst town hall to attract interest)
- Community members of UTXO chains not wanting to do interviews (ask politely with enough and time with a clear interview format)
- No community interest in glossary term writing (make glossary term writing easy and provide bounties)
- Minimal white paper and research paper content available