Decentralized social media platform, Synereo, disclosed a 4-layer tech stack that would power its system, with RChain to replace Blockchain.
It’s yet to see how efficient the proposed model will be by comparison with Facebook and Twitter.
Aside the general knowledge of decentralized platforms as seen in Diaspora*, Steemit and others, not much is known about Synereo which aims to be the first fully decentralized social network based on principles of the attention economy.
Existing Blockchains can’t support the network
According to Synereo’s own paper, Bitcoin, Ethereum and other decentralized systems don’t use “the best engineering and mathematical models for scaling and correctness in order to support mission-critical solutions.”
It noted that known Blockchains are still slow, wasteful and impossible to scale, and by no means can support a social network that would disrupt incumbent players like Facebook or Twitter. Hence, the need to come up with a customized structure.
However, we’ll have to see how the tech stack will pan out for the platform that claims that it will change the concept of how the control over content, personal information and monetization would be placed in the hands of users.
The language that could have prevented the DAO hack
In a statement to Cointelegraph, Synereo stated:
“Facing this reality, we understood that we had to develop our own infrastructure, capable of fulfilling the needs of Synereo’s social layer, and so we set out on that mission. The result will be the first prototype of the long anticipated world-computer.... A virtual machine, capable of running decentralized applications for massive use (dApps) at blazing speed, and store data without the need for server farms or centralized points of control. All resources are provided by the users using the network, and they’re the only ones calling the shots.”
The core of the stack upon which other layers, including its programming language Rholang, are to be built is RChain or Blockchain 2.0. Its Casper Proof of Stake design was developed by Ethereum and Synereo’s CTO, Greg Meredith.
In July, the hosts of the Bitcoin podcast said that Synereo’s formally-verified smart contracting language, Rholang, would have prevented the attack on The DAO.
RChain, which is not expected to be fully operational until Q4 2017, is presented as the first infinitely scalable and Turing complete Blockchain.
Rchain’s consensus protocol is based on Ethereum’s Proof of Stake Casper design - a model where consensus is as cheap as possible for everyone, except for adversaries while they are conducting an attack. However, in contrast to Ethereum’s Casper, Rchain nodes do not validate entire blocks but logical propositions - a proposition is a set of statements about the Blockchain.
Though Anari Sengbe, Founder of ProducTank, agrees that decentralized social networks are going to become the norm, based on the reward incentives they will offer - as well as their privacy features, predicting what would become of Synereo’s developed infrastructure is dicey.