Insight modular consensus R & D framework, Project Theseus

Abstract:

Decentralized consensus networks contain several disjoint processes and methods. These elements are mostly unrelated:

• Consensus mechanism (e.g. PoW or PoS or PoST)
• Cryptoeconomic scheme (e.g. finite or infinite supply)
• Data storage framework (e.g. blockchain or DAG)
• Network content (e.g. transactions or programs)
• etc

While these facets are typically intertwined for individual assets, they could be cleanly implemented in modular plug-and-play manner to facilitate research and development. Fellows can devote more time to developing and testing their particular feature (e.g. novel consensus mechanisms) once we remove the need to untangle interdependencies in extant projects not designed for easy improvement.

Project Motivation:

This R & D framework will advance the pace of research into new technologies, set up future Fellows for success, and hopefully see adoption outside of our Lab.

Fellow Motivation:

This project will demonstrate a Fellow’s consensus architecture skills, their ability to deconvolute protocols into their separate components, and showcase the ability to build new decentralized systems from the ground up