Baseledger: Testnet Operation Update. Development Success and Next Steps

In September, we announced the launch of Baseledger, our Blockchain for Baselining. The Baseledger Testnet “Lakewood” is up and running with 100% uptime for 3 months now, and we are happy to present our first findings and some decisions on the path to a Mainnet launch in Q1 2022 in this blog post.

What happened at EthAtlanta?

To sum it up: Baseledger Testnet operation is going great!

EthAtlanta 2021, which took place on the first weekend of October, was all about Baselining and Baseledger. Our Keynote was titled
“Baseledger at Work — Enterprise scale Baselining, powered by UBT”.

We presented the idea behind the Baseline Pattern and two concepts used in our Baseledger Implementation:

• TrustMesh. A multi-dimensional graph representing a workflow of exchanged business objects, their workstep and version history and the multi-party-approvals and -rejections of the participants.
• SyncTree. A very efficient and resource friendly alternative to classical Zero-Knowledge-Proofs: a “Limited-Knowledge-Proof” enabling constraint checks for third parties (like regulators or controlling institutions) by using masked merkle trees.

Using the recently SAP certified conUBC package, Stefan Rauch of concircle showcased a SAP to SAP synchronization using TrustMesh and SyncTree and storing Proofs on Baseledger:

These demos were presented on the Baseledger Lakewood Testnet, which has already created more than 640.000 blocks (including transactions) without any errors and with 100% uptime of all validators during the first three months in operation!

Current State of Development

The Baseledger Lakewood Testnet is the place where…

• …concepts like TrustMesh and SyncTree are tested,
• …the L2 > L1 anchoring into Ethereum is tested,
• …different setups of validation power and the behavior of the network are evaluated,
• … demos like the SAP to SAP synchronization or the PoC for the feasibility study for the European Investment Fund are built.

Baseledger Lakewood will also serve as a potential target platform for official Baseline examples, which are currently developed by members of the Baseline CoreDev team and described in the official Baseline Improvement Proposals (“BLIPS”).

This is our contribution to the Baseline community that builds the standard. We are convinced that for the success of our commercial solutions it is vital, that the community is able to easily check out the new concepts behind Baseline without having to face a “vendor-lock-in”.

Baseledger Governance

Currently, the decentralized Baseledger governance structure is established. The decision for this structure (e.g. a foundation or association) happens in communication between Unibright and German Regulators to ensure that the UBT token model is properly applied, future proof and compliant. Baseledger governance will also ensure that all needed features from the Baseledger Github Repository are merged/combined into the “best” version that will become the Mainnet candidate (currently planned for Q1 2022).

Until the Baseledger governance is in place, the provisional advisory board is agreeing to the following requirements around Baseledger Operation, which we previewed in parts at EthAtlanta.

Disclaimer: The presented numbers reflect the state of the Testnet findings until October 2021 and may be subject to change.

• We are expecting around 100 Validator Nodes in total in the final production setup, providing a best possible balance between decentralization and performance.
• We are expecting a minimum stake of 50,000 UBT to become a validator. Validator’s stakes will be expected to be capped at 1,000,000 UBT staking power per validator.
• We are expecting up to 100 allowed proxy-stakers per validator, proxy staking should be possible with a minimum stake of 500 UBT
• Proxy-staking may be offered by validators, not by Baseledger directly. By that, all UBT holders can be included, and there is also the chance for some competition for the “best” proxy staking offerings in terms of revenue share and reward participation.
• Validators will have to sign contracts with Baseledger governance. This is addressing professional companies/institutions, NOT anonymous individuals. Individuals can participate via proxy staking.
• Translation of stakes of UBT in Ethereum to validation power in Baseledger/Tendermint have to be in control of Baseledger governance.
• Internal staking power tokens must not be transferable, only delegated by Baseledger governance.
• To place a transaction in Baseledger, UBT is mandatory and is converted to “Baseledger gas” .

In the coming weeks and months we will continue buidling(!) Baseledger, the governance structure, and — most important — the proper inclusion of the UBT token model to serve token holders and enterprise users in the best possible way.

Unibright is a team of blockchain specialists, architects, developers and consultants with 20+ years of experience in business processes and integration. Unibright offers Consulting with Unibright Solutions, Low-Code-Integration Tools as part of the Provide Framework and with Partner Concircle, programmable DeFi with Unibright Freequity, and the Universal Business Token UBT. Unibright is engaged in the Baseline Protocol and offers Baseledger as a solution to orchestrate and trust-enhance B2B processes.