A SNARKy Examination of Mina Protocol — the World’s “Lightest” Blockchain
Mina Protocol aims to solve a list of problems that have plagued the cryptocurrency industry since the beginning. Their end game is to create a “privacy-preserving gateway between the real world and crypto.”
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Data security, network congestion, transaction costs, ease of use, and ease of integration into traditional services have all played a role in limiting progress in cryptocurrencies and fintech in general. But is Mina Protocol up to the task of solving them all?
First, let’s take a 20,000-foot overview of how the protocol works.
Disclaimer: This article is not a promotional piece or an attack on Mina Protocol or the technology behind it. I’m merely a non-math-savvy nerd poking around the fringes to understand better what makes this ship seaworthy. The writer of this article has no stake in Mina Protocol at this time.
👉 Revision Notes (Friday, June 25, 2021) — Published via Notion 👈
Table of Contents
- A Tl;Dr Of Mina Protocol’s Value Proposition
- Summary
- The Magic Sauce: Zero-Knowledge Proofs
- A Key Benefit — More Access For Builders
- About that constant blockchain size
- Decentralization, Chain State Validation, and the Mysterious “Archive Node.”
- Slow Transaction Speeds
- The Incentives
- MINA tokenomics
- Mina Protocol Economics
- Mina Transaction Lifecycle
- Supply Schedule
- The Mainnet Launch and Community Building
- Conclusion
A Tl;Dr Of Mina Protocol’s Value Proposition
Mina Protocol’s lightweight Proof-of-Stake (PoS) protocol commands a blockchain the size of “a few tweets” without sacrificing network security. The project aims to improve upon security when compared to protocols with more cumbersome blockchains.
Summary
Sector: Smart Contract Platforms
