The Mina Protocol

 Introduction 

This article is going to focus on Mina. Mina besides a sexy female name is also a cryptocurrency protocol using a technology named succinct blockchain technology (developed by Mina). Current cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum store hundreds of gigabytes of data, and as time goes on, their blockchains will only increase in size. With Mina Protocol however, no matter how much the usage grows, the blockchain always stays the same size - about 22kb. This means participants can quickly sync and verify the network [1].

Traditional blockchains require verification time linear in the number of transitions. Mina shows how to construct a succinct blockchain using recursively composed succinct non-interactive arguments of knowledge (SNARKs). SNARKS are used to verify that nobody is cheating or stealing. SNARKs are based on a complicated cryptographic principle called “Zero Knowledge Proofs”. These proofs are essentially used in order to verify that someone has a secret without revealing said secret. We won’t go into too much detail here.

Mina uses a Proof-of-Stake permissioning mechanism known as Ouroboros Praos to reach consensus, which builds off prior work done by IOHK, the company working on Cardano. It was designed to be simple and allow anyone to participate proportionally to the amount of stake in the protocol. Bandwidth requirements are low to facilitate a high level of inclusivity.

    Note: Above we can see Mina a famous singer from 1940's.

For those who’d like to learn a little more about Mina Protocol prior to reading this report, here are some primary links:

• minaprotocol.com [Mina Protocol Docs]
• twitter.com [Mina Protocol Twitter]
• minaprotocol.com [Mina Protocol Forum]
• minawiki.com [Mina Protocol Wiki]

This article might get updated, so stay tuned, and is meant to provide a holistic overview of Mina Protocol for readers, both old and new.

Mina Protocol Company 

The Mina protocol was created by O(1) Labs with the goal of optimising both scalability and decentralisation. O(1) Labs project Mina, formerly known as Coda Protocol, has raised $10.9 million in a funding round co-led by Hong Kong-based Bixin Ventures and Singapore-based Three Arrows Capital. The board members include behind Mina include former Executive Director at ZCash Foundation Josh Cincinnati, Principal of Slow Ventures Jill Carlson, VP of Engineering at Interchain GmbH and Tendermint developer Tess Rinearson, Fund Director and Joint Legal Counsel of International Management Services Sean Inggs, and CEO of O(1) Labs, the team that incubated Mina, Evan Shapiro.

Mina was set for mainnet launch in Q4 2020 but O(1) Labs CEO Evan Shapiro postponed that for Q 2021. Before launching on mainnet, Mina aims to finish its adversarial testnet with over 1,000 unique participants by the end of the year.

Below we can see some company info:

• Company creation year: 2017
• Company 11-15 people
• Company HQ: San Francisco, California

Mina white papers:

• minaprotocol.com [Economics] 
• minaprotocol.com [Technical]

Mina Protocol Monetary Policy

Because Mina uses a variant of Ouroboros Proof of Stake, block rewards and fees are distributed approximately pro-rata to current holdings as long as everyone in the network is staking. Therefore, assuming high staking participation, any nominal inflation in the protocol is cancelled out by a nominal return denominated in the protocol, ensuring that accounts’ proportional holdings of the currency remain constant.

However, those who do not choose to stake or delegate will experience dilution relative to those who do. In order to motivate participants to begin staking, Mina’s nominal inflation will begin at 12%. Then, over the course of the first five years, the inflation rate will fall to 7%, and remain at 7% thereafter by default, subject to changes via the chain’s governance

The protocol will target these inflation rates regardless of the staking participation rate. That means that block rewards will change dynamically to target this inflation rate. For example, if only 50% of the network stakes, then block rewards will double. This is because per Ouroboros, number of blocks produced per epoch is expected to be proportional to the staking ratio. This naturally encourages more individuals to stake at low participation rates.

The primary consideration when lowering inflation rates would be determining whether rewards are higher than is necessary to ensure block producers have sufficient incentive to validate without requiring a large increase in fees. Inflation, in the form of block rewards, is used to secure the chain against attacks by incentivizing validation by block producers.

Mina Protocol Social Media Presence 

Below we can see the social media stats:

• Twitter followers: 35.8K Followers
• Telegram: 56573 total members (9211 online)
• Discord Members: 13 990 total members (2309 online)

Note: The Telegram community is very active and healthy (e.g. members do not exchange cooking recipes etc.). Same applies for Twitter. 

Mina Protocol Partnerships

Below we can see the partnerships based on dates:

• [Feb 9 2021] Finoa (a regulated custodian for Digital Assets) partnered with Mina Protocol as the preferred institutional custodian.

Mina Protocol Investors 

Below you can see the investors:

Mina Bug Bounty Program

Mina Protocol launched a bug bounty program for the test network, in partnership with HackerOne. 1% of the total supply in token rewards as well as cash have been dedicated to help secure the network, across both the Testworld Adversarial Testnet and bug bounty programs. Bug submissions that have been accepted will be rewarded based on a vulnerability tier system, ranging from Low to Critical. For instance, submissions deemed to be a Critical vulnerability are eligible for a $5000 USD cash reward. There is a pre-identified list of known vulnerabilities that are currently being addressed which are not eligible for bug bounty submissions [3].

References:

• minaprotocol.com [1]
• coinlist.co [2]
• medium.com [3]