Scott Chamberlain, Evernode co-founder, told about the interaction between XRPL, Hooks and Evernode.
Scott Chamberlain, Evernode co-founder, on twitter told about the interaction between XRPL, Hooks and Evernode. He noted:
1/ How XRPL, Hooks, & Evernode work in concert. The XRPL doesn’t have programmable contracts. Instead, it has native smart contract-esque functions like the DEX, Escrows, Checks and (soon hopefully) AMMs. You can add IOUs, but only XRP can be escrowed & be counter-partyless
2/ So, the XRPL is fast and cheap, but dumb. It supports only centralised solutions, like Ripple’s RippleNet, and there’s limited business models available, as NFT promoters are finding.
3/ The most you can do to automate and decentralise an XRPL Account is take a 32 multi-sig Account and assign the 32 private keys, to 32 servers controlled by up to 32 people, each server running private code that automates the XRPL transactions initiated from the Account.
4/ The Account is “owned” by the servers owners, who are readily identifiable and almost certainly (ie unless expensive and sophisticated lawyers are used) a partnership or joint venture capable of being regulated and sued jointly and severally. indistinguishable from one server
5/ Hooks are small bits of code installed on an XRPL Account that apply logic to receiving and emitted transactions. So, most of the logic being applied by the multi-sig owners in the example above can instead be installed on the XRPL Account itself.
6/ Now, the Account is genuinely decentralised & controlled by the whole XRPL, not just 32 people. Further, the Hook applies the logic before the Ledger accepts the transaction. So malformed or malicious transactions can be rejected. This is a massive, but hidden, benefit.
7/ So with Hooks you have a programmable smart contracts that are superior to the currently required multi-sig solution by allowing an XRPL Account to control itself. It doesn’t add new txn types. It just allow conditional logic to be applied to emitted/received txns. Genius.
8/ Evernode uses three Hooks to automate the XRPL Account that controls 1) the canonical register of Hosts, 2) the emission of Evers, and 3) governance game rules for updating all three Hooks.
9/ If we instead used a 32 multi-sig Account, Evernode would be inherently private and centralised in the hands of these (legally vulnerable) 32 multi-sig owners. Worse, we would have no way to identify and prevent malformed registration txns, a potential attack vector.
10/ With Hooks all the rules are open-source and public. The rules are enforced by the whole XRPL and no one can change those rules other than in accordance with the rules enforced by the Governance Game Hook. So Evernode becomes a genuinely decentralised Layer 2.
11/ Importantly, IOUs can now become counter-party free assets/currencies because they can be emitted by a Hook according to public rules that no identifiable group of people meaningfully controls. New business models become possible.
12/ Layer 2 means theres an almost infinite range of new things smart contract can do without imposing any meaningful additional strain on the XRPL. Evernode Hosts are Linux machines with an out-of-the-box consensus mechanism for its hosted contracts.
13/ Evernode contracts can be programmed in almost any language and can do anything a Linux machine can do on its own – read /write data, perform complex computations, connect to other services. Almost anything.
14/ These contracts can be private or public. They can run on any number of Hosts the devs desire (and pay for) They can also hold keys to accounts on the XRPL or addresses on any other chain and use those keys to automate transactions on those chains/assets.
End/ In concert, the XRPL, Hooks, and Evernode there’s an almost infinite range of decentralised solutions/services/business models that can be delivered or explored. And its all still very fast and cheap.