Welcome, Crypto Dummies!
If you’re stumbling here for the first time, this substack is focused on educating those that know nothing about crypto and blockchain technology.
If that’s you, you’re in the right place!
For all newcomers, feel free to check out some of the older posts covering promising projects in the blockchain space!
Today we’ll go over a brief introduction to a project that has been steadily growing over the past couple of months and has not been talked about nearly as much.
Metis Dao.
So what is Metis?
Originally, Metis was a hard fork of the Optimism chain. It has gone through a series of changes that gave birth to its very own computational engine, the Metis Virtual Machine(MVM).
What started as an EVM compatible computation engine evolved to be an EVM equivalent with the introduction of the Andromeda update in November 2021.
But what exactly is Metis?
Metis is an optimistic rollup Layer 2 solution for Ethereum.
Before we can continue with our introduction, we first need to understand what an Optimistic rollup Layer 2 solution is.
When we mention Layer 2, we’re talking about technology that allows an application to scale by processing transactions outside of the Ethereum mainnet, while maintaining the same security and decentralization as the mainnet.
In this particular case, the Ethereum Mainnet is our Layer 1, and Metis DAO is our Layer 2.
Layer 2 solutions can boost transaction speed, throughput, and lower gas costs.
We’ve seen some success with Layer 2 solutions in the blockchain space with Polygon and Avalanche.
Rollups are layer 2 scaling solutions that process transactions outside of the main Ethereum network while still posting transaction data to layer 1.
Side note: If you’re still feeling a little lost don’t worry, Rollups will be covered exclusively in a separate post, stay tuned!
Now we know a little about Optimistic Rollups, let’s jump back into Metis.
Since rollups are designed to retain the security of the Ethereum Network, smart contracts will bundle transaction data and process it on Metis, parties that process these transactions will submit the highly compressed data back to Ethereum.
(These parties are known as sequencers on Metis)
The compressed data is verified on Ethereum, containing less information to process transactions faster.
Optimistic rollups do not perform computation and assume that all transactions are valid when they are submitted, this is what leads to significant improvements in scalability.
What separates Metis from the rest?
As we are well aware decentralized data storage is a problem that many protocols are out to address (ex IPFS)
side note: check out our IPFS post for more info IPFS Pt 1
The vast majority of our online data is stored on centralized servers and vulnerable to censorship, decentralized data storage solutions built on top of a blockchain aim to address these issues, and Metis DAO is here to build its own.
By integrating IPFS codebase, IPFS principles allow Decentralized Autonomous Companies (DACs) to store their confidential data on the blockchain without the worry of being compromised through encryption.
Implementation of an IPFS-like storage solution will many different types of API frameworks and easily integrate dApps that prefer native storage offered by Metis.
Oh, and one more thing.
Most Ethereum Layer 2 solutions don’t have a native token, Metis is one of the few that do.
The $METIS token is required to be staked by sequencers to confirm transactions and participate as a miner.
To minimize risks of fraudulent transactions, a challenge period is included where other sequencers will verify transaction data, if fraud is detected a sequencer will execute a ‘fraud proof’ which will replace the fraudulent data with an accurate version that has been backed up.
Offending sequencers are penalized and the responsible sequencers are rewarded in the $METIS native token.
For the sake of an introduction, we’ll keep it short and sweet and dive into the fun stuff with more detail in our next post.
Like most layer 2 solutions, Metis aims to provide scalability and lower transaction costs while maintaining the network security of Ethereum.
Introducing a native decentralized storage system separates Metis from all other competitors and they boast a variety of features that truly make optimistic rollup shine a step above the rest.
Next week we’ll be diving into some more details on Metis.
We’ll discuss how to participate as a sequencer, reward opportunities, and dive into more detail on DACs and their significance.
Hope to see all you crypto dummies next week!