Bitpanda Asset Management GmbH, Bitpanda GmbH

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XCAD Network

XCAD Network is present on the following networks: Base, Binance Smart Chain, Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, Zilliqa. Base is a Layer-2 (L2) solution on Ethereum that was introduced by Coinbase and developed using Optimism's OP Stack. L2 transactions do not have their own consensus mechanism and are only validated by the execution clients. The so-called sequencer regularly bundles stacks of L2 transactions and publishes them on the L1 network, i.e. Ethereum. Ethereum's consensus mechanism (Proof-of-stake) thus indirectly secures all L2 transactions as soon as they are written to L1. Binance Smart Chain (BSC) uses a hybrid consensus mechanism called Proof of Staked Authority (PoSA), which combines elements of Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) and Proof of Authority (PoA). This method ensures fast block times and low fees while maintaining a level of decentralization and security. Core Components 1. Validators (so-called “Cabinet Members”): Validators on BSC are responsible for producing new blocks, validating transactions, and maintaining the network’s security. To become a validator, an entity must stake a significant amount of BNB (Binance Coin). Validators are selected through staking and voting by token holders. There are 21 active validators at any given time, rotating to ensure decentralization and security. 2. Delegators: Token holders who do not wish to run validator nodes can delegate their BNB tokens to validators. This delegation helps validators increase their stake and improves their chances of being selected to produce blocks. Delegators earn a share of the rewards that validators receive, incentivizing broad participation in network security. 3. Candidates: Candidates are nodes that have staked the required amount of BNB and are in the pool waiting to become validators. They are essentially potential validators who are not currently active but can be elected to the validator set through community voting. Candidates play a crucial role in ensuring there is always a sufficient pool of nodes ready to take on validation tasks, thus maintaining network resilience and decentralization. Consensus Process 4. Validator Selection: Validators are chosen based on the amount of BNB staked and votes received from delegators. The more BNB staked and votes received, the higher the chance of being selected to validate transactions and produce new blocks. The selection process involves both the current validators and the pool of candidates, ensuring a dynamic and secure rotation of nodes. 5. Block Production: The selected validators take turns producing blocks in a PoA-like manner, ensuring that blocks are generated quickly and efficiently. Validators validate transactions, add them to new blocks, and broadcast these blocks to the network. 6. Transaction Finality: BSC achieves fast block times of around 3 seconds and quick transaction finality. This is achieved through the efficient PoSA mechanism that allows validators to rapidly reach consensus. Security and Economic Incentives 7. Staking: Validators are required to stake a substantial amount of BNB, which acts as collateral to ensure their honest behavior. This staked amount can be slashed if validators act maliciously. Staking incentivizes validators to act in the network's best interest to avoid losing their staked BNB. 8. Delegation and Rewards: Delegators earn rewards proportional to their stake in validators. This incentivizes them to choose reliable validators and participate in the network’s security. Validators and delegators share transaction fees as rewards, which provides continuous economic incentives to maintain network security and performance. 9. Transaction Fees: BSC employs low transaction fees, paid in BNB, making it cost-effective for users. These fees are collected by validators as part of their rewards, further incentivizing them to validate transactions accurately and efficiently. The crypto-asset's Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, introduced with The Merge in 2022, replaces mining with validator staking. Validators must stake at least 32 ETH every block a validator is randomly chosen to propose the next block. Once proposed the other validators verify the blocks integrity. The network operates on a slot and epoch system, where a new block is proposed every 12 seconds, and finalization occurs after two epochs (~12.8 minutes) using Casper-FFG. The Beacon Chain coordinates validators, while the fork-choice rule (LMD-GHOST) ensures the chain follows the heaviest accumulated validator votes. Validators earn rewards for proposing and verifying blocks, but face slashing for malicious behavior or inactivity. PoS aims to improve energy efficiency, security, and scalability, with future upgrades like Proto-Danksharding enhancing transaction efficiency. Polygon, formerly known as Matic Network, is a Layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum that employs a hybrid consensus mechanism. Here’s a detailed explanation of how Polygon achieves consensus: Core Concepts 1. Proof of Stake (PoS): Validator Selection: Validators on the Polygon network are selected based on the number of MATIC tokens they have staked. The more tokens staked, the higher the chance of being selected to validate transactions and produce new blocks. Delegation: Token holders who do not wish to run a validator node can delegate their MATIC tokens to validators. Delegators share in the rewards earned by validators. 2. Plasma Chains: Off-Chain Scaling: Plasma is a framework for creating child chains that operate alongside the main Ethereum chain. These child chains can process transactions off-chain and submit only the final state to the Ethereum main chain, significantly increasing throughput and reducing congestion. Fraud Proofs: Plasma uses a fraud-proof mechanism to ensure the security of off-chain transactions. If a fraudulent transaction is detected, it can be challenged and reverted. Consensus Process 3. Transaction Validation: Transactions are first validated by validators who have staked MATIC tokens. These validators confirm the validity of transactions and include them in blocks. 4. Block Production: Proposing and Voting: Validators propose new blocks based on their staked tokens and participate in a voting process to reach consensus on the next block. The block with the majority of votes is added to the blockchain. Checkpointing: Polygon uses periodic checkpointing, where snapshots of the Polygon sidechain are submitted to the Ethereum main chain. This process ensures the security and finality of transactions on the Polygon network. 5. Plasma Framework: Child Chains: Transactions can be processed on child chains created using the Plasma framework. These transactions are validated off-chain and only the final state is submitted to the Ethereum main chain. Fraud Proofs: If a fraudulent transaction occurs, it can be challenged within a certain period using fraud proofs. This mechanism ensures the integrity of off-chain transactions. Security and Economic Incentives 6. Incentives for Validators: Staking Rewards: Validators earn rewards for staking MATIC tokens and participating in the consensus process. These rewards are distributed in MATIC tokens and are proportional to the amount staked and the performance of the validator. Transaction Fees: Validators also earn a portion of the transaction fees paid by users. This provides an additional financial incentive to maintain the network’s integrity and efficiency. 7. Delegation: Shared Rewards: Delegators earn a share of the rewards earned by the validators they delegate to. This encourages more token holders to participate in securing the network by choosing reliable validators. 8. Economic Security: Slashing: Validators can be penalized for malicious behavior or failure to perform their duties. This penalty, known as slashing, involves the loss of a portion of their staked tokens, ensuring that validators act in the best interest of the network. Solana uses a unique combination of Proof of History (PoH) and Proof of Stake (PoS) to achieve high throughput, low latency, and robust security. Here’s a detailed explanation of how these mechanisms work: Core Concepts 1. Proof of History (PoH): Time-Stamped Transactions: PoH is a cryptographic technique that timestamps transactions, creating a historical record that proves that an event has occurred at a specific moment in time. Verifiable Delay Function: PoH uses a Verifiable Delay Function (VDF) to generate a unique hash that includes the transaction and the time it was processed. This sequence of hashes provides a verifiable order of events, enabling the network to efficiently agree on the sequence of transactions. 2. Proof of Stake (PoS): Validator Selection: Validators are chosen to produce new blocks based on the number of SOL tokens they have staked. The more tokens staked, the higher the chance of being selected to validate transactions and produce new blocks. Delegation: Token holders can delegate their SOL tokens to validators, earning rewards proportional to their stake while enhancing the network's security. Consensus Process 1. Transaction Validation: Transactions are broadcast to the network and collected by validators. Each transaction is validated to ensure it meets the network’s criteria, such as having correct signatures and sufficient funds. 2. PoH Sequence Generation: A validator generates a sequence of hashes using PoH, each containing a timestamp and the previous hash. This process creates a historical record of transactions, establishing a cryptographic clock for the network. 3. Block Production: The network uses PoS to select a leader validator based on their stake. The leader is responsible for bundling the validated transactions into a block. The leader validator uses the PoH sequence to order transactions within the block, ensuring that all transactions are processed in the correct order. 4. Consensus and Finalization: Other validators verify the block produced by the leader validator. They check the correctness of the PoH sequence and validate the transactions within the block. Once the block is verified, it is added to the blockchain. Validators sign off on the block, and it is considered finalized. Security and Economic Incentives 1. Incentives for Validators: Block Rewards: Validators earn rewards for producing and validating blocks. These rewards are distributed in SOL tokens and are proportional to the validator’s stake and performance. Transaction Fees: Validators also earn transaction fees from the transactions included in the blocks they produce. These fees provide an additional incentive for validators to process transactions efficiently. 2. Security: Staking: Validators must stake SOL tokens to participate in the consensus process. This staking acts as collateral, incentivizing validators to act honestly. If a validator behaves maliciously or fails to perform, they risk losing their staked tokens. Delegated Staking: Token holders can delegate their SOL tokens to validators, enhancing network security and decentralization. Delegators share in the rewards and are incentivized to choose reliable validators. 3. Economic Penalties: Slashing: Validators can be penalized for malicious behavior, such as double-signing or producing invalid blocks. This penalty, known as slashing, results in the loss of a portion of the staked tokens, discouraging dishonest actions. The Zilliqa blockchain uses a hybrid consensus mechanism that combines Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (pBFT) and Proof of Work (PoW) to ensure high throughput, scalability, and security. The main components of Zilliqa's consensus mechanism include the following: Key Features of Zilliqa's Consensus Mechanism: 1. Sharding: Zilliqa achieves scalability through sharding, where the network is divided into smaller units called shards. Each shard processes its own set of transactions and smart contracts in parallel, allowing the network to handle a higher volume of transactions. 2. Proof of Work (PoW): The PoW mechanism is used for consensus initiation. It is primarily used to secure the network and assign nodes to shards. PoW miners solve computational puzzles to participate in block generation. However, PoW is only used for a short time at the beginning of the consensus process, and the workload is much lower than in traditional PoW systems like Bitcoin. The PoW mechanism ensures that only nodes with sufficient computational power are selected to participate in the network, reducing the likelihood of Sybil attacks. 3. Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (pBFT): Once the PoW phase is complete and nodes are assigned to shards, pBFT is used to reach consensus within each shard. This is a more energy-efficient consensus algorithm than traditional PoW because it doesn't require miners to perform extensive computations after the initial selection. pBFT ensures finality of blocks and ensures that even if some nodes behave maliciously or fail, the network can still reach an agreement and process transactions correctly. pBFT works by having validators from the shard participate in a consensus process to agree on the state of the blockchain. Validators propose blocks, vote on block validity, and ensure that a consensus is reached before blocks are finalized. 4. High Throughput and Low Latency: Combining sharding with the use of PoW and pBFT allows Zilliqa to achieve high throughput and low latency. By processing transactions in parallel across multiple shards, the network can handle thousands of transactions per second, significantly improving scalability compared to traditional blockchain systems.

XCAD Network is present on the following networks: Base, Binance Smart Chain, Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, Zilliqa. Base is a Layer-2 (L2) solution on Ethereum that uses optimistic rollups provided by the OP Stack on which it was developed. Transaction on base are bundled by a, so called, sequencer and the result is regularly submitted as an Layer-1 (L1) transactions. This way many L2 transactions get combined into a single L1 transaction. This lowers the average transaction cost per transaction, because many L2 transactions together fund the transaction cost for the single L1 transaction. This creates incentives to use base rather than the L1, i.e. Ethereum, itself. To get crypto-assets in and out of base, a special smart contract on Ethereum is used. Since there is no consensus mechanism on L2 an additional mechanism ensures that only existing funds can be withdrawn from L2. When a user wants to withdraw funds, that user needs to submit a withdrawal request on L1. If this request remains unchallenged for a period of time the funds can be withdrawn. During this time period any other user can submit a fault proof, which will start a dispute resolution process. This process is designed with economic incentives for correct behaviour. Binance Smart Chain (BSC) uses the Proof of Staked Authority (PoSA) consensus mechanism to ensure network security and incentivize participation from validators and delegators. Incentive Mechanisms 1. Validators: Staking Rewards: Validators must stake a significant amount of BNB to participate in the consensus process. They earn rewards in the form of transaction fees and block rewards. Selection Process: Validators are selected based on the amount of BNB staked and the votes received from delegators. The more BNB staked and votes received, the higher the chances of being selected to validate transactions and produce new blocks. 2. Delegators: Delegated Staking: Token holders can delegate their BNB to validators. This delegation increases the validator's total stake and improves their chances of being selected to produce blocks. Shared Rewards: Delegators earn a portion of the rewards that validators receive. This incentivizes token holders to participate in the network’s security and decentralization by choosing reliable validators. 3. Candidates: Pool of Potential Validators: Candidates are nodes that have staked the required amount of BNB and are waiting to become active validators. They ensure that there is always a sufficient pool of nodes ready to take on validation tasks, maintaining network resilience. 4. Economic Security: Slashing: Validators can be penalized for malicious behavior or failure to perform their duties. Penalties include slashing a portion of their staked tokens, ensuring that validators act in the best interest of the network. Opportunity Cost: Staking requires validators and delegators to lock up their BNB tokens, providing an economic incentive to act honestly to avoid losing their staked assets. Fees on the Binance Smart Chain 5. Transaction Fees: Low Fees: BSC is known for its low transaction fees compared to other blockchain networks. These fees are paid in BNB and are essential for maintaining network operations and compensating validators. Dynamic Fee Structure: Transaction fees can vary based on network congestion and the complexity of the transactions. However, BSC ensures that fees remain significantly lower than those on the Ethereum mainnet. 6. Block Rewards: Incentivizing Validators: Validators earn block rewards in addition to transaction fees. These rewards are distributed to validators for their role in maintaining the network and processing transactions. 7. Cross-Chain Fees: Interoperability Costs: BSC supports cross-chain compatibility, allowing assets to be transferred between Binance Chain and Binance Smart Chain. These cross-chain operations incur minimal fees, facilitating seamless asset transfers and improving user experience. 8. Smart Contract Fees: Deployment and Execution Costs: Deploying and interacting with smart contracts on BSC involves paying fees based on the computational resources required. These fees are also paid in BNB and are designed to be cost-effective, encouraging developers to build on the BSC platform. The crypto-asset's PoS system secures transactions through validator incentives and economic penalties. Validators stake at least 32 ETH and earn rewards for proposing blocks, attesting to valid ones, and participating in sync committees. Rewards are paid in newly issued ETH and transaction fees. Under EIP-1559, transaction fees consist of a base fee, which is burned to reduce supply, and an optional priority fee (tip) paid to validators. Validators face slashing if they act maliciously and incur penalties for inactivity. This system aims to increase security by aligning incentives while making the crypto-asset's fee structure more predictable and deflationary during high network activity. Polygon uses a combination of Proof of Stake (PoS) and the Plasma framework to ensure network security, incentivize participation, and maintain transaction integrity. Incentive Mechanisms 1. Validators: Staking Rewards: Validators on Polygon secure the network by staking MATIC tokens. They are selected to validate transactions and produce new blocks based on the number of tokens they have staked. Validators earn rewards in the form of newly minted MATIC tokens and transaction fees for their services. Block Production: Validators are responsible for proposing and voting on new blocks. The selected validator proposes a block, and other validators verify and validate it. Validators are incentivized to act honestly and efficiently to earn rewards and avoid penalties. Checkpointing: Validators periodically submit checkpoints to the Ethereum main chain, ensuring the security and finality of transactions processed on Polygon. This provides an additional layer of security by leveraging Ethereum's robustness. 2. Delegators: Delegation: Token holders who do not wish to run a validator node can delegate their MATIC tokens to trusted validators. Delegators earn a portion of the rewards earned by the validators, incentivizing them to choose reliable and performant validators. Shared Rewards: Rewards earned by validators are shared with delegators, based on the proportion of tokens delegated. This system encourages widespread participation and enhances the network's decentralization. 3. Economic Security: Slashing: Validators can be penalized through a process called slashing if they engage in malicious behavior or fail to perform their duties correctly. This includes double-signing or going offline for extended periods. Slashing results in the loss of a portion of the staked tokens, acting as a strong deterrent against dishonest actions. Bond Requirements: Validators are required to bond a significant amount of MATIC tokens to participate in the consensus process, ensuring they have a vested interest in maintaining network security and integrity. Fees on the Polygon Blockchain 4. Transaction Fees: Low Fees: One of Polygon's main advantages is its low transaction fees compared to the Ethereum main chain. The fees are paid in MATIC tokens and are designed to be affordable to encourage high transaction throughput and user adoption. Dynamic Fees: Fees on Polygon can vary depending on network congestion and transaction complexity. However, they remain significantly lower than those on Ethereum, making Polygon an attractive option for users and developers. 5. Smart Contract Fees: Deployment and Execution Costs: Deploying and interacting with smart contracts on Polygon incurs fees based on the computational resources required. These fees are also paid in MATIC tokens and are much lower than on Ethereum, making it cost-effective for developers to build and maintain decentralized applications (dApps) on Polygon. 6. Plasma Framework: State Transfers and Withdrawals: The Plasma framework allows for off-chain processing of transactions, which are periodically batched and committed to the Ethereum main chain. Fees associated with these processes are also paid in MATIC tokens, and they help reduce the overall cost of using the network. Solana uses a combination of Proof of History (PoH) and Proof of Stake (PoS) to secure its network and validate transactions. Here’s a detailed explanation of the incentive mechanisms and applicable fees: Incentive Mechanisms 4. Validators: Staking Rewards: Validators are chosen based on the number of SOL tokens they have staked. They earn rewards for producing and validating blocks, which are distributed in SOL. The more tokens staked, the higher the chances of being selected to validate transactions and produce new blocks. Transaction Fees: Validators earn a portion of the transaction fees paid by users for the transactions they include in the blocks. This provides an additional financial incentive for validators to process transactions efficiently and maintain the network's integrity. 5. Delegators: Delegated Staking: Token holders who do not wish to run a validator node can delegate their SOL tokens to a validator. In return, delegators share in the rewards earned by the validators. This encourages widespread participation in securing the network and ensures decentralization. 6. Economic Security: Slashing: Validators can be penalized for malicious behavior, such as producing invalid blocks or being frequently offline. This penalty, known as slashing, involves the loss of a portion of their staked tokens. Slashing deters dishonest actions and ensures that validators act in the best interest of the network. Opportunity Cost: By staking SOL tokens, validators and delegators lock up their tokens, which could otherwise be used or sold. This opportunity cost incentivizes participants to act honestly to earn rewards and avoid penalties. Fees Applicable on the Solana Blockchain 7. Transaction Fees: Low and Predictable Fees: Solana is designed to handle a high throughput of transactions, which helps keep fees low and predictable. The average transaction fee on Solana is significantly lower compared to other blockchains like Ethereum. Fee Structure: Fees are paid in SOL and are used to compensate validators for the resources they expend to process transactions. This includes computational power and network bandwidth. 8. Rent Fees: State Storage: Solana charges rent fees for storing data on the blockchain. These fees are designed to discourage inefficient use of state storage and encourage developers to clean up unused state. Rent fees help maintain the efficiency and performance of the network. 9. Smart Contract Fees: Execution Costs: Similar to transaction fees, fees for deploying and interacting with smart contracts on Solana are based on the computational resources required. This ensures that users are charged proportionally for the resources they consume. The Zilliqa blockchain incentivizes network participants, including miners, validators, and developers, through block rewards, transaction fees, and staking rewards, while its fee model ensures the smooth operation of the network and the maintenance of its scalability and security. Incentive Mechanism: 1. Mining Rewards (PoW Phase): Block Rewards: Miners who perform the Proof of Work (PoW) for the initial consensus phase are rewarded with ZIL tokens for successfully mining a block. This PoW phase is used to assign nodes to different shards. Transaction Fees: In addition to block rewards, miners also receive transaction fees for including transactions in the blocks they mine. These fees incentivize miners to prioritize transactions during high demand. 2. Staking Rewards: Validators in Shards: After the PoW phase, validators in each shard participate in the consensus process using Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (pBFT). Validators who propose or confirm blocks in the pBFT phase earn ZIL tokens as rewards for their participation in securing the network and validating transactions. Sharding Rewards: Zilliqa rewards validators in each shard based on their contributions to block finalization and their participation in the consensus mechanism. 3. Transaction Fees (Validators and Miners): Transaction Fee Distribution: Transaction fees are paid by users to have their transactions processed on the Zilliqa network. These fees are collected by the validators who propose the blocks or the miners who participate in the PoW phase. Prioritization of Fees: During periods of high network activity, users may need to increase their transaction fees to ensure quicker transaction inclusion. Validators prioritize higher fees to ensure transaction processing. 4. Incentives for Developers: Smart Contract Deployment: Developers who deploy and maintain smart contracts on the Zilliqa network can also be incentivized through transaction fees generated by the usage of their smart contracts. The more transactions a smart contract processes, the more rewards the contract owner can earn. Applicable Fees: 1. Transaction Fees: Fee Calculation: Transaction fees on Zilliqa are determined based on the size and complexity of the transaction. The fee is typically paid in ZIL tokens, which can fluctuate depending on network demand and transaction complexity. Fee Rate: The fee rate adjusts based on network congestion, meaning that higher transaction fees are necessary for quicker processing during periods of high demand. Zilliqa offers tools for users to estimate the proper transaction fee based on current network conditions. 2. Smart Contract Execution Fees: Execution Costs: For transactions involving smart contracts, fees are calculated based on the computational resources required to execute the contract. These fees are also paid in ZIL tokens and vary depending on the complexity of the contract's execution. 3. Sharding Fees: Fee to Participate in Shards: Since Zilliqa uses sharding, users may incur additional fees for interacting with specific shards. These fees help maintain the infrastructure for the parallel processing of transactions across the shards. 4. Storage Fees: Storage of Data: Developers and users who store data on the blockchain, such as smart contracts or tokens, are required to pay storage fees. This helps prevent spam attacks and ensures efficient use of network resources. These fees are typically paid in ZIL tokens.

2024-09-14

2025-09-14

333.55483 (kWh/a)