We are approaching one of the most momentous events in the early history of the blockchain: What has come to be known simply as The DAO Hack.
On a Saturday in mid-June 2016, a hacker attacked the world’s first decentralized autonomous organization, a DAO, connected to Ethereum. The attacker drained 3.6 million Ether (ETH) (then valued at about $50 million; now valued at nearly $12 billion) before voluntarily stopping the hack.
The upshot of that historical event was the creation of Ethereum Classic and, ultimately, what is now known as the Callisto Network. Behind those two is one of the biggest names in blockchain security: Dexaran, the mononymous Russian programmer who was there when Ethereum and Ethereum Classic formally forked into two organizations.
As Dexaran tells it, the most interesting aspect of The DAO Hack wasn’t necessarily the stolen ETH; it was the philosophical disagreement that emerged within the Ethereum community afterward.
While the Ethereum Foundation insisted that “code is law” in promoting the immutability of the Ethereum smart-contract technology, Dexaran noted that when the Foundation performed the “DAO hardfork bailout,” it violated the core principles of blockchain, decentralization and the Foundation’s declaration of immutability.
ETC Community art, source.
So many members of the DAO were in such disagreement with the Foundation’s decision that they split away from the original Ethereum chain to start their own – Ethereum Classic.
Alas, Ethereum Classic didn’t have the financial or media resources or the already-existing development team. Nevertheless, Dexaran sided with the underdogs to help build and establish a crypto network from the ground up. He, therefore, founded the Ethereum Commonwealth, one of the foundations behind Ethereum Classic, and even designed by hand the logo of Ethereum Classic!
It was that experience that directly led to the birth of the Callisto Network in April 2018.
Callisto Network was designed, funded and launched to research experimental improvements to the Ethereum protocol, and which might be proposed to the Ethereum Classic network. Dexaran spent more than $500,000 of his own money to cover the cost of exchange-listing fees and paid for the promotion of the Callisto Network coin (CLO), which at that point had no value and was not traded.
Callisto tried to make a name for itself early when Ethereum Classic suffered several “51% attacks'' in 2020. Under Dexaran, Callisto Network submitted an Ethereum classic improvement proposal—ECIP-1092: 51% attack solution, which proposed copy-pasting the Callisto Network code onto the network to effectively stop the attacks. The solution had been live-tested and proved viable.
Alas, the Callisto Network team’s proposal was rejected.
As a result of that, Callisto Network in 2021 chose to go its own way instead of pursuing development improvements to Ethereum Classic.
The result: Callisto Network reorganized Callisto Enterprises, a new ecosystem bringing new opportunities to the Callisto Network blockchain. Those include:
Introduced ERC223: A token standard that, among other improvements, eliminates the problems of lost tokens due to a crypto-user misdirecting a transfer.
SOY Finance: A new generation of decentralized financial exchange with its own insurance fund in case of a hack and supporting the ERC223 token standard.
Cross-chain bridge: Already live in the mainnet, allowing users to easily move crypto assets between different blockchains.
CallistoNFT: An improved nonfungible token (NFT) standard operating as a superset of ERC721 features. Among other improvements, it allows for buyers and sellers to announce their interest in buying or selling a particular NFT directly within the underlying smart contract, creating a peer-to-peer sales channel that negates the need for a centralized marketplace.
Several token offerings, including the CHOAM token, are tied to a state-of-the-art blockchain data center that taps into the growing, global demand for compute power, whether for crypto mining, cloud storage or cloud-based video rendering services.
As 2022 unfolds, Callisto Network sees this as the Year of Token Standards.
It’s a year of opportunity to strengthen token standards and exchanges. In particular, Callisto Network will be striving for the adoption of the CallistoNFT standard. Today’s NFTs are built on the ERC-721 token standard, which has certain weaknesses, including the possibility that NFTs are lost when sent to the wrong address.
The Callisto NFT standard seeks to address the weaknesses to strengthen one of the fastest-growing segments in the crypto space.
As Dexaran says, “This is not an easy task—to change the ecosystem that has already formed. However, this needs to be done to make significant improvements. Now, Callisto Network has the team, the experience and desire to achieve this goal.”