What is IRISnet? Quick Guide & Overview

IRISnet Quick Guide & Overview

March 1st, 2020 marks the IRIS Network (IRISnet) first anniversary, and so we thought it would be a good idea to give you some updates.

So, what is IRISnet? IRISnet is a service infrastructure and protocol built using Cosmos SDK/Tendermint that aids the construction of distributed business applications.

Fun fact: the IRIS network named itself after the Greek goddess Iris, the personification of the rainbow and messenger between the heavens and humanity.

Key Characteristics

IRISnet aims to establish a technology foundation to facilitate the construction of next-generation distributed applications. Current blockchains face performance, operability and governance issues, and the team behind IRIS came with intelligent solutions to these problems, which are detailed below:

Interoperability: By incorporating a comprehensive service infrastructure and an enhanced IBC protocol into Tendermint & Cosmos stack, IRISnet enables service interoperability as well as token transfers across an internet of blockchains: private, consortium chains, public chains. IRIS Hub will be the first regional hub connecting to the main Cosmos Hub.
Governance: Future amendments of the protocol will be managed through on-chain governance. IRIS token holders benefit from voting power to participate in the IRIS network’s governance.
Bonded Proof-of-Stake (BPoS): BPoS is a variant of Proof-of-Stake, where token holders can earn additional tokens based on the size of their stake. In return for securing the network, validators and delegators will be able to earn an interest rate. If you do not want or know how to run a validator, you can delegate. IRISnet will be limited to 100 validators at the beginning, which will be selected based on the size of their stake, i.e., their balance plus the amount of IRIS delegated to them. It is important to note that in case of safety or liveness fault, a portion — ranging from 0.5% to 2.0% — of the validators and delegators’ stake will be slashed: carefully choose your validator.At Stakin, we would be more than happy to help you earn interests on your IRIS tokens, and to shed a light on some of your questions. We’ve been running a secure node on Tezos, and we cannot wait to have you on board on our next IRISnet adventure.

IRIS Token

Total Supply: the total amount of tokens is 2,014,516,249, according to Staking Rewards, the number of staked tokens by the time of writing are 685,720,180 IRIS, which equals a staking ratio of 34%.
Inflation: The current annual inflation rate is around 10% as per Staking Rewards. The annual inflation rate can be modified as per governance. It will be adjusted to account for the fact that a substantial portion of IRIS tokens may be voluntarily staked by participants to participate in the consensus engine.
How to acquire tokens? You can obtain tokens by buying them from any of the Market Pairs listed here. Exchanges include Huobi, Bithumb, MXC, Bibox, and soon Binance 🤞.
How to store IRIS token? Rainbow Wallet is a secure BPoS Blockchain Wallet where you can store your IRIS

Team

Bianjie AI: Shanghai-based startup established in 2016, founded by Harriet Cao, it focuses on developing innovative products and solutions for healthcare and financial industries. Bianjie AI is the core development team for the IRIS network and has built several blockchains and AI technologies in the past, including BEAN (Blockchain Edge Analytics Network). BEAN is a permission chain on which the team is leveraging its experience to build the IRIS network.
Tendermint: the team that developed the Tendermint consensus engine and is behind the development of the Cosmos ecosystem.
Wancloud: a subsidiary of Wanxiang Blockchain and Bianjie AI.

What can we build on IRISnet?

The possibilities are endless; there are many use cases that could be supported by the IRISnet service infrastructure. Some exciting application areas include distributed data, AI, e-commerce but also combining consortium chains with public chains. The proposed service infrastructure has been prototyped by Bianjie AI, a Shanghai-based startup, into its permission product BEAN (Blockchain Edge Analytics Network) to solve the longstanding challenge of getting data for running analytics models.

Updates for 2020

The IRISnet team has the following goals for 2020:

Open source a version of enterprise permissioned blockchain to the Cosmos ecosystem. The enterprise blockchain product is called IRITA, which can be read all about here.
Upgrade iServices, which are currently under improvement. In the new version, the goal is to have more complicated service management functionalities supported. Furthermore, the team plans to deploy the iService based oracle service implementation and open oracle services to the Cosmos ecosystem.
The Nyancat Testnet is successfully developed. Nyancat Testnet’s focus is to enable validators to test new versions of IRIS Hub before they go in production. One of the main achievements of the Testnet was the testing of the multi-asset module; this module allows multiple on-chain assets to be issued, managed, and used on IRIS Hub.
Next, the IBC connection of the IRIS Hub, Cosmos Hub, and other application-specific blockchains such as DeFi will be further developed.

Supporters

Supporters of IRISnet include Bianjie AI, Tendermint, as well as strategic partners such as Interchain and Hashkey.

Approximately 30 institutions, including Huobi Capital, Amino Capital, 8 Decimal, BK Fund, Bibox, or even Coefficient Ventures, are also supporting the project.

A full list of institutional, strategic, and ecosystem partners can be found here.

Our Delegation Address

In case you would like to support, you can delegate at the below address:

iva1aj6frfd5g0a5d88j6mjpvy0ql5afd5crt90uqx

Links & Materials

Disclaimer: The IRIS network, as described in this article, is under development and is being regularly updated, including but not limited to key governance and technical features. This is not investment advice. This article is for information purposes only. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile investment assets. We suggest that you conduct your own research before deciding to purchase cryptocurrencies, and we will not be responsible for any loss of capital related to the reading of this article.