DEVELOPMENT
Liet’s cover the MINA blockchain: what kind of network it is, what the results are for 2022, and development plans for 2023.
ABOUT MINA
What is MINA
MINA is an L1 blockchain that aims to solve the scalability problem inherent in some Proof-of-Work (PoW) blockchain networks. MINA uses small block sizes and a zero-disclosure (“ZK”) proof-of-concept system that allows more people to run nodes.
MINA is designed to provide the ability to store data securely and decentralize it on a compressed and scalable blockchain.
Metrics for 2022
The number of unique accounts for 2022 grew 50% to about 138,000.
Of which, 20% of accounts stake their tokens on the MINA network.
TVL
There are no projects for the Defi. TVL is 0.
Grants
The total number of MINA token grants that the Foundation has awarded and/or disbursed for 2022 is approximately MINA 16 million.
The Grant Fund has a total of 101 million MINA tokens and $22 million.
The total number of tokens the MINA Treasury spent for 2022 is 3.5 million MINA. Spent on promotion, support, administration and business operations.
MINA Treasury has a total of 44 million MINA tokens and $39 million.
Marketing Channels
Mina continued to actively participate in its online communities and marketing channels. While the bear market led to some slight declines in Discord and Telegram, there was a significant community participation on Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, and reading project newsletters increased.
zkApps
More than 60 applications using zk technology were created in 2022.
Examples of some applications:
Vaultmi
Vaultmi is a zk application that combines IPFS/Filecoin decentralized storage and the MINA protocol, allowing the secure exchange of files or secrets with multiple wallets and the generation of a proof of existence in the MINA protocol. With its user-friendly interface and integration with the Auro wallet, everyone can take advantage of this technology.
HARPO
HARPO allows everyone to generate a stealth address (a one-time untraceable address generated for each transaction) for the MINA protocol. In the blockchain ecosystem, there are still many privacy concerns for both users and companies.
The solution focuses primarily on enterprises as they face these traceability issues when paying vendors, managing cash flow, investments and contracts, processing payroll and dealing with partnerships, but it can be used by anyone in MINA.
Keyppi
The Keyppi platform offers a simple and secure user interface for obtaining your private keys, never exposing them and before granting you access, ensuring that you are you. Exponentially simplifying self-storage wallet ownership, resulting in more users.
zKredit
The project uses MINA to create a zkApp that checks certain data points about the user, such as their credit score and their average monthly income over the past two years, to facilitate mortgage renewals without having to disclose other data points, thereby increasing personal privacy throughout the process. .
NFT zkApp
The zkApp supports the creation and transfer of NFTs and verifies the owner of the NFT with a ZK proof without disclosing the owner’s address.
Multisignature zkApp
This is a simple implementation of a multi-signature wallet, basically an onchain. The idea is that the protocol should work with as little storage outside the blockchain as possible.
How much invested
According to known information, about $137 million has been invested in MINA. See table for details.
Current capitalization is $0.9 billion.
Total capitalization is $1.07 billion.
There are 84% of tokens in circulation.
MINA’s current price is $1.08. The price has fallen 88% from the highs.
In its latest round of investments, MINA raised $92 million to attract developers through grants. The lead investors were Three Arrows Capital and FTX Ventures. And you know where all those funds are now.
What is a MINA token?
MINA is Mina’s own blockchain currency. MINA tokens are required for the stacking and production of blocks in Mina’s Proof-of-Stake blockchain.
Thus, the right to become a block maker in the network is earned by stacking MINA tokens. MINA token holders can also delegate their tokens to another block maker so that they can bid.
MINA development activity
Among the largest ecosystems (Polkadot, Ethereum, Cosmos, Aptos, Chia, NEAR, FLOW), MINA ranks last.
Development activity – shows the project’s development activity over time based on a number of purely development-related “events” in the project’s publicly accessible Github repository. (does not take into account: release comments, forks, stars, etc.).
The MINA protocol has over 140 active developers, representing 50%+ year-over-year growth (2022 to 2021), according to the recently published Electric Capital 2022 Crypto.
MINA repositories on Github have 4,661 commits in the last 12 months with 76 unique contributors.
ZK varieties
To better understand MINA’s place among the various zero-disclosure technologies (ZKs), let’s define the varieties of ZKs.
Several companies use ZKs for needs such as authentication of identity with privacy or proof of ownership, which leads to many different types of ZKs – here are four key ones to be aware of.
- zk-SNARK
zk-SNARK stands for zero knowledge. It translates as “Brief non-interactive knowledge argument.”
It stands out for its brevity, which means that the proofs are small and can be verified very quickly, making it easier for everyone to participate in blockchain, not just those with complex computer setups that are required in many blockchains.
- zk-STARK
zk-STARK stands for Scalable Transparent Zero-Knowledge Argument.
They use a different type of cryptography that may be less susceptible to quantum computer attacks. There are limitations: there are some restrictions on the kinds of computations they can perform.
The main disadvantage of existing zk-STARKs is their large proof size, which is 10-100 times larger than zk-SNARKs. This makes them more expensive to send over a network, where bandwidth is often a constraint.
- zkRollups
zkRollups are an L2 solution originally designed to address Ethereum’s scalability issues of high transaction costs and low bandwidth, especially as the network grows. They do this by processing computations outside the blockchain, “collapsing” this transaction packet (conventionally speaking, 1,000 transactions are “collapsed” into one block), and then sending the compressed proof (block) to the main blockchain (such as Ethereum) to verify its validity.
The combination of out-of-blockchain and in-blockchain activity increases scalability by reducing the load on the underlying L1 blockchain (e.g., Ethereum).
By combining multiple transactions into a packet to be sent to the blockchain, transaction costs can also be shared among many users, reducing individual gas charges.
Currently, zkRollups are good for simple transactions, such as an exchange application that processes many payments, but not for performing more complex smart contracts.
This is due to the fact that Ethereum zero-disclosure virtual machines (zkEVMs) are still under development, although there is rapid progress.
Once these zkEVMs are enabled, zkRollups will be better able to handle complex smart contract calculations in Ethereum.
- zkApps
zkApps, or ZK-based smart contracts, perform calculations outside the blockchain for verification in the blockchain, which means your information never leaves your local device, ensuring your privacy.
MINA is one of the first projects to provide the public with ZK smart contracts that can be written in a Typescript library called SnarkyJS. This opens the door for the average developer, making ZK easily programmable. The zkApps are built on top of the zk-SNARK technology.
While all previous types of ZKs can be used for privacy, zkApps MINA is currently the most direct and easy way to prove anything online while keeping your data private.
How MINA works
In blockchain networks built using the Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism, each network node must validate the entire blockchain data history before new transactions can be processed. The more transactions on the blockchain, the longer it takes to validate. As networks grow, the load on their data increases, and more processing power is required to process transactions efficiently. More processing power usually requires more specialized hardware, which in turn can be a barrier to entry for many people who want to run nodes.
As a result, those with the resources to actually manage file sizes are only a few, taking the project from decentralized to centralized.
The MINA protocol solves this problem through more efficient use of data and a new technological innovation known as zkApps (based on zk-SNARK technology).
With MINA, the blockchain size always remains constant at around 22KB. You can check the current consensus state of the protocol using this one recursive* proof with zero disclosure of size 22 KB.
This means that participants can quickly synchronize and check the current state of consensus in the network.
* Recursive proof with zero disclosure
How does it work? When the next block in the network is created, it takes a snapshot of itself – with a snapshot of the previous state of the blockchain as the background. This new snapshot will, in turn, be used as the background for the next block, and so on and so forth. Surprisingly, although it can contain evidence of an infinite amount of information, the snapshot always remains the same size. In essence, it captures the state of the entire blockchain as a lightweight snapshot of metadata.
In addition to operating as a PoS blockchain network, the MINA protocol uses so-called “proof-of-confidence” to reduce file size and minimize the processing power required for nodes to participate in network consensus.
Zk-SNARKs are essentially snapshots of blockchain metadata, rather than the entire dataset for each individual transaction. As the blockchain gets larger, these zk-SNARKs or blockchain summary snapshots contain proof of its validity based on metadata rather than the full history of the blockchain.
These snapshots can serve as proof of data validity without requiring access to the full blockchain history. This structure means that MINA nodes process smaller amounts of data.
To better understand, use the example of credit score verification: a snapshot of your credit score can be created and used as proof that you are eligible for credit. You don’t specifically share your credit data, but you do confirm it, which allows you to safely conduct the transaction.
This design for securely transferring real data to the blockchain gives MINA a potential advantage in DeFi.
Roles in the MINA blockchain network
Because the MINA blockchain data set is relatively small – kilobytes rather than gigabytes like other blockchains – most people can view and check the entire blockchain.
MINA requires two dedicated nodes on the network to work effectively:
- Block producers choose which transactions to include in the next block, and are rewarded for that block. In this sense, they are similar to the “miners” or “validators” of other blockchains.
- Snark workers allocate processing power to compress network data and create proofs of transactions. Blockchain makers can then bid on these proofs, for which snark workers are paid by MINA.
Gas in MINA’s network
MINA can perform arbitrarily complex calculations outside the blockchain, charging only a fixed fee to send the resulting proof with zero disclosure to the blockchain to verify that calculation, unlike other blockchains that perform calculations in the blockchain and use a variable gas fee.
Given that MINA is only 22 KB in size, where are past transactions stored?
The MINA node can operate as an archive node. This means that it will store historical transactions, which is useful for anyone running a service such as the block browser, but this data is not needed to check the current state of the protocol consensus.
The bottom line for 2022
Let’s take a look at the key outcomes for 2022.
The zkApps Software Development Kit (SDK)
A Typescript-based software development kit (SDK) was created.
Support for custom tokens
Included support for custom tokens on MINA (similar to ERC20).
AURO Wallet
Created the AURO Wallet, which is available as a browser extension and as a mobile app for sending, receiving and depositing MINAs as well as viewing transactions. AURO Wallet has included support for the Ledger X hardware wallet.
zkApps
The zkApps applications, formerly known as SNAPPS, are Mina’s zero-disclosure smart contracts.
zkApps will allow developers to build on top of MINA, but now the name correctly reflects a shift in the Mina ecosystem to offer various zero-disclosure technologies such as zkOracles and zkBridges.
These will have a huge impact on Web3, providing data privacy and end-to-end security for users and developers.
Plans for 2023
MINA browser-based web node introduced
The browser-based MINA node
introduced in January 2023. The node can be launched from any device via a browser
It can be installed in seconds and set up through a standard Internet browser such as Chrome or Firefox. The Web Node can be run on devices with slow processors and little memory. In fact, it has such low hardware requirements that you can even run it on your cell phone.
The MINA web node represents an important step towards further decentralizing the Mina blockchain, as it does not rely on the validity of data from any particular node or group of nodes, as it can check the state of the blockchain itself.
Launch of zkBridge. MINA-ETH Bridge
Since the entire Mina Protocol state (except archived nodes) can be packaged in a single proof (remember the 22KB), this means that you can put the entire Mina Protocol state directly into Ethereum. What’s more, it means that the entire MINA can be verified in EVM at a reasonable cost of gas.
Full verification of MINA state in EVM means that it will be possible to move everything that happens inside the MINA blockchain to Ethereum, including financial applications, proven computation, and more.
Oracle zkORACLES
MINA smart contracts work outside the blockchain and allow you to prove that the expected computations were performed on private data without revealing the data itself. But if a smart contract uses data from a third-party source, you need a way to verify the authenticity of that data, that is, that it was provided by the expected source.
In the future, zkOracles MINA will allow zkApp to consume data from any HTTPS data source. But for now, oracle design will be managed by the zkApp developer, it will extract and sign the desired data, and then zkApp can use that data and verify the signature to make sure the data was provided by the expected source.
zkRollup on MINA
zkRollup will increase transaction throughput on MINA. zkRollup was proposed to help scale MINA and provide a framework for developers to support their work on accumulation packages for specific applications.
The first step of zkRollup is to design and deliver a platform that gives developers the ability to leverage high performance while maintaining the amazing privacy and brevity properties of MINA.
Developers will be able to use the accumulation package as easily as any other developer framework or toolkit, so the developer can focus on the important part – building the actual application – and not worry about bandwidth (tps), performance, and any related issues and hurdles.
End users will be able to use any application created on top of the accumulation package without any additional hurdles, with improved performance that greatly improves the user experience.
Features of MINA
MINA offers a completely new approach and its own decentralized applications called zkApps. They are based on SNARK technology and have several significant differences from the dApps that everyone is used to.
zkApps do not limit scalability because they perform all their computations outside the main blockchain. This ensures that the network is not overloaded and network bandwidth is not an issue.
This type of application is able to verify the integrity of all data without exposing it, thereby preserving data privacy.
MINA also makes it easy to integrate Stablecoin payments into any application. The process is trivial and does not require any special or expensive software.
The zkApps on MINA have unique features. Let’s take a look at them.
Privacy preservation
Users of zkApps can interact using evidence of their personal data instead of sharing the data itself. More private and secure for the user, and no need to host and protect their data.
Accessible from other networks and devices
zkBridge
MINA short proof means that it can be accessed from other end-user networks and devices. For example, if you are already building on Ethereum, zkBridge MINA will allow Ethereum dapps to use MINA properties.
Data compatibility
zkOracles
With zkApps, you can use verified, real data from any website to build decentralized apps. This is enabled by zkOracles MINA, which allows you to instantly access and transmit data online in blockchain over HTTPS. No need for trusted oracles or custom website integration.
Based on the Typescript language
Many Web3 applications are written in brand new programming languages that you need to learn, but zkApps are written using SnarkyJS, a Typescript-based library. So, if you know Typescript, you’re already ready to create zkApps and use zero-disclosure proofs.
The other features are:
- Unlimited off-blockchain computation
- Predictable, fixed transaction fees for users (not gas-based)
- Equal participation and easy access for all users, even with low-cost devices due to low bandwidth and compact design.
- In addition, because the barrier to entry is low, this allows a wide distribution of nodes, providing greater decentralization without relying on central intermediaries.
- Easy integration of Stablecoin payments into any application
- Autonomous storage for big data (planned)
- Recursive ZK
Pros and Cons of MINA
The developers of MINA describe it as the perfect private gateway between the real world and cryptocurrency. This gives it an advantage over blockchains that do not interact with the open Internet.
MINA solves some common blockchain problems with zkApps. Here’s what zkApps allows you to do:
- Verify the integrity of a dataset without knowing the details
- Easily verify the accuracy of long and/or expensive calculations
- Run a full node on your smartphone
- Access real world data from any website for use on the web
Major drawbacks of the protocol:
- Developers are unwilling to patent ideas, leading to many forks based on the technology and the use of ideas as standalone solutions to existing cryptocurrencies.
- It cannot process many transactions at once. According to MINA founder and CEO Evan Shapiro, MINA’s speed is only 22 TPS.
The best uses for MINA
In fact, there are 3 main areas in which zkApps can be useful:
- Ensuring the privacy of user data when moving from online to blockchain.
- Verifiable web-based oracles that allow decentralized information to be transmitted.
- Providing access to any website or service privately without handing over personal data.
Here’s a short list of some of zkApps’ most popular ideas:
- Proof of Trade: a proven history of crypto trading for wealth advisors and influencers.
- Proof of Asset / Net Worth: Proof of ownership of any crypto asset by demonstrating control of the address without disclosing the address or exact balance. (e.g., to prove solvency, access to certain investment groups, DAOs, over-the-counter telegram channels, etc.)
- Private ID: prove to third parties that you have previously passed KYC on a cryptocurrency exchange without actually sharing your ID documents. (MINA will never retain your data.)
- Anonymous Single Sign-On and Digital Identity: replacing logging in through closed ecosystems like Facebook (and sharing all your data) with open, anonymous login.
- DAO private voting: private voting for DAO.
- Oracles on MINA: authenticated data from any HTTPS website available on the blockchain.
- Passport On-Chain: verified location using GPS for dating apps, social networks, residence confirmation, etc.
- Private Crypto DNS service: permission-free crypto-addressing name service on the network that hides the recipient’s wallet address.
- Proof of Disability: proof of eligibility for disability benefits without disclosing a specific illness.
- Virtual keychain for real spaces: a smartphone app that interacts with the IoT, providing access to personal places, both permanent (home, office, car, etc.) and temporary (your friend’s house, hotel rooms, airline tickets, etc.) .
Real-life use cases
There are also a number of real-world use cases for zkApps where you need to verify data without disclosing it. These include:
- Checking credit histories for banks and non-bank financial institutions.
- Providing medical histories.
- Checking debit-credit and plastic card payment history.
- Secure login.
- Identity verification systems.
- Insurance.
- Auctions.
- Contracting.
- NFT management.
- Communication with government agencies and organizations to verify identity or other important personal data.
- Neural network identification.
- Games and quizzes.
- Exchange.
- Web wallets.
- Booking services.
- Voting.
- Brokerage services.
- Bookkeeping services.
- Testing and examinations.
- Notary services.
Conclusion
For 2022, MINA blockchain has struggled to keep a consistent level of development, but the level of development is below all top blockchains.
MINA relies on zero-disclosure (ZK) technologies, focusing on compact network design, privacy, off-blockchain computation, and the ease of creating zkApps in the conventionally simple Typescript language.
On the one hand, the speed of 22 TPS is very low, but on the other hand, it depends on the tasks to be solved. Examples of possible uses are described above and they refer in general to not speed-intensive activities.
At the same time, the team has an understanding that staying at this level of TPS, is not possible. They are going to add L2 based on zkRollup. It’s the same situation and the same approach to solving the problem as Chia.
MINA has the risk of just falling behind the newcomers, but they have some serious architectural features: Working with the metadata layer (like Polkadot), using ZK technologies and implementing smart contracts on them.
They need bridges (already doing it), their oracle (already doing it), Defi (no info) and L2 (already doing it) for large TPS.
The project is architecturally correct, and what they’ll end up with and whether they’ll keep up with the competition, we’ll see!
