⚛️ Cosmos SDK Security Patch by Minter Team

While developing Minter Hub, we located a critical bug in Cosmos SDK: a malicious actor could halt the operation of any public node with a 100-percent guarantee. We reported the issue in detail and informed Cosmos developers of our finding. Their team has released an update to eliminate this vulnerability:

https://github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/releases/tag/v0.41.1

"This release includes two security patches, and does not introduce any breaking changes. It is highly recommended that all applications using v0.41.0 upgrade to v0.41.1 as soon as possible."

Our core team has been actively contributing to the Tendermint development since the very beginning: 6 issues, 1 global architecture proposal, 7 pull requests. And now we are excited to have the opportunity to help improve Cosmos SDK, too.

P.S.: Since Minter blockchain does not utilize Cosmos SDK, the identified problem does not affect it.

Binance Smart Chain @ Minter Hub

Transaction costs on the Ethereum network keep breaking new records: up to $100 for exchange operations and up to $20 for coin transfers.

That’s why the Minter Team has decided to additionally connect the Binance Smart Chain network as part of Minter Hub. This will make digital assets transferable not only between Minter and Ethereum, but between Minter and Binance Smart Chain as well. BSC will also provide Minter users with an opportunity to access even more digital assets.

BSC is based on EVM, which means we’ll be able to use what we’ve already developed for integration. At the moment, we’re running tests to see how compatible the current version of Minter Hub is with BSC.

🚀 Before starting public tests, we’d like to offer you a little sneak peek at cross-chain Minter<->Ethereum transfers.

The magic happening in the video is not just simple in its nature, but also fully decentralized.

👨‍💻 Bug Bounty

We are reminding you that Minter has an ongoing program for rewarding those who help us locate vulnerabilities and errors. Until the release of Minter 2, we’ve increased the reward threefold. The total budget of the program is 3,000,000 BIP.

You can find the list of changes to be tested in the first place here.

Discovered bugs can be reported to @danillashin or in @MinterDevChat.

Many of you have heard that in Minter 2, you’ll be able to store, transfer, and exchange most of the major digital assets (e.g., BTC, ETH, BNB, USDC). But how have we achieved that?

Learn more about how Minter Hub works here:
https://daniillashin.medium.com/minter-hub-bridge-to-ethereum-binance-smart-chain-dd78cde2ad51

🔗 BIPx Launch Stages

In short: to get BIPx (BIP mirrored on Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain) among the first, one will need to deposit BIP onto the multisig addresses of Minter validators. Those addresses will be created soon. BIPx will be accrued using the FIFO method (i.e., on a first-come, first-served basis). Early participants will have a significant head start.

BIPx Opportunities
- It’ll become a gateway to the new money-making opportunities offered by the world’s leading DeFi protocols
- It’ll be possible to lend BIPx, make deposits, add to liquidity pools, and use as collateral to take out loans in BTC, ETH, USDT, etc.
- Token will be submitted for listing on both decentralized and centralized exchanges
- It can all be managed via regular Minter wallets

1. Preparation
- The top four Minter validators will create two multi-signature addresses on Minter: one for depositing BIP and exchanging it for BIPx on Ethereum, and the other one, on Binance Smart Chain.
- Anyone will be able to send BIP to these addresses in order to receive BIPx on a chosen network.
⚠️ Alert: you can transfer BIP only from a wallet you have a seed phrase to. Do not transfer BIP from third-party services and exchanges; otherwise, you’ll lose access to your funds ⚠️

2. Initial issuance
- Trusted parties (top 4 validators) must ensure that Minter Hub and BIPx infrastructures are operationally ready. After that, they’ll either move the accumulated BIP to the multisig address of Minter Hub or return the deposits.
- BIPx will then be issued on the two networks and gradually distributed. Using the FIFO method (i.e., on a first-come, first-served basis), BIPx will be accrued to the addresses of those who deposited their BIP.
- First votes on placements in DeFi services and listings will follow shortly afterwards.

3. Integration
Integration of hand-picked services into Minter wallets.

4. One-way exchangeability
Once the infrastructure has been debugged, the instant swapping of BIPx for BIP will become available.

5. Unlimited exchangeability
Next, we’ll introduce the ability to fully and freely swap BIP for BIPx and vice versa for the rest of the community.

Learn more about BIPx: https://medium.com/@MinterTeam/how-to-make-money-on-defi-with-bipx-17905b034285

🌮 Minter 1 -> Minter 2: Mainnet Data Migration Test

Starting from block 2 544 192, Taconet has been running on data from the main network. Unlike in previous updates, the numeration didn’t start anew.

We have also created the MNT-USDC liquidity pool and made all fees expressed in the U.S. dollar (here you can find costs for each transaction on the network).

‼️ Reminder: Do not enter your primary mainnet wallet’s seed phrase into the test Console. To view balances and stakes, visit Explorer.

We’ll launch several more validators shortly. To maximize loads while testing, we’ll intentionally put the network in the most challenging environment: validator servers located as far away from each other as possible, weak hardware, etc.

The node’s build and genesis can be accessed here.

Our developer Sergey Klimov sheds light on every change and new feature that will come with Minter 2: https://youtu.be/hUx6rZLD_ok.

Article | ​Node PR | Documentation PR

🔗 On-Chain AMM with Order Book

Minter 2 will revolutionize the DeFi protocols with its On-Chain Automated Market Maker with Order Book (AMMOB).

Traders will be able to create fixed-price orders in the AMM liquidity pools without having to give up the benefits of those pools.

AMMOB will do great for exchanging stablecoins, for example, USDT for USDC. One will have an opportunity to create an order to buy $1,000,000 worth of USDT for USDC at 1% below the market and later sell it at 1% above. Compared to the traditional AMM pools, AMMOBs have better liquidity: in some areas, the price curve becomes a horizontal line.

The blockchain fees (spread among validators and delegators): $0.08 for creating an order and $0.01 for canceling it. An additional 0.2% on the volume that has been filled goes to a liquidity pool (or liquidity providers). The fees can be paid in any token issued on the network.

Learn More: https://medium.com/@MinterTeam/minter-2-on-chain-automated-market-maker-with-order-book-e29b19fc365f

Upgrading to Version 2 of Minter: Step-by-Step

Together with validators and community members, the Minter team is about to finish testing the functionality of Minter 2 and Minter Hub.

Minter 2 will allow for trading in leading cryptocurrencies, tokens, and digital assets. It won’t be storing your funds, while all trades will be 100% decentralized and processed for $0.03+0.2% via an automated market maker in five seconds.

To make the launch as secure and smooth as possible, we’ve decided to split it into the following stages:
1. Minter 2 Mainnet launch: the full functionality of the Minter 2 blockchain will be available on April 12, 2021.
2. AMMOB launch: the roll-out of On-Chain Automated Market Maker with Order Book is expected in 1–2 weeks after the main network is up.
3. Hub launch: the Minter Hub network is set to go live on April 19, 2021.
4. Addition of several coins issued on Minter (e.g., LASHIN and CHAIN) to Hub: once the Minter Hub network is operational, validators will vote to determine several coins to test cross-chain transfers. That will trigger the beginning of protocol’s final testing phase.
5. Addition of HUB: once LASHIN and CHAIN have been successfully integrated, HUB will follow.
6. Addition of USDC: once HUB has been successfully integrated, USDC will follow.
7. Fixing of M2 fees in dollars: once USDC is aboard, there’ll be a vote to set USD-expressed fees.
8. Addition of other ERC-20 tokens to Hub: once fees have been fixed in U.S. dollars, a vote will be announced to add more ERC-20 tokens to Minter (wETH, wBTC, USDT, UNI, and others).
9. Connection of Binance Smart Chain.

🗳Vote for Minter Network Commission Price (Commission Proposal 1.1)

Voting for commissions in the Minter blockchain was launched today.

Voting is divided into several stages, in each of which a certain part of the commissions is changed, grouped according to common characteristics or in accordance with the preliminary consent of the majority of validators.

In the first part (Commission Proposal 1.1), it is proposed to update the commissions for sending, exchanging and delegating transactions:

• Send (send, multisend) ~$0.01
• Exchange (buy/sell coins with reserve and through pools) ~$0.03
• Delegate (delegate, unbond) ~$0.1

At the moment, all transaction fees in Minter will be expressed in BIP, but their prices will be quoted according to the price of $0.02 per BIP.

As soon as Minter Hub is launched, and then USDC stablecoin is added to Minter, the validators will again vote on linking commissions to $.

The updated commissions from the first stage (sending, exchanging and delegating) will take effect on April 15 at ~20:45 UTC on the block 3 341 000 with a set of 66.66%+ of the total vote power of the validators.

⚠️We encourage all Minter validators to submit their votes before the selected commission update block.

You can follow the voting process on this page.

Commission Proposal 1.1 with a full list of parameters and voting instructions for validators — https://learn.btcsecure.io/en/minter/commission-proposal/1-1

🚀 The Minter Hub Network Is Live!

Minter 2 + Minter Hub will allow anyone to trade in cryptocurrencies, tokens, and digital assets. Without storing your funds, via completely decentralized orders and transactions processed by an automated market maker in five seconds and for $0.03+0.2%. Transferring USDT, USDC, ETH, BTC, and other coins will take five seconds, too, costing you as little as $0.01! Minter Hub will also make it possible to tie Minter 2’s fees to the U.S. dollar.

At 4:00 p.m. UTC yesterday, the mainnet of Minter Hub was launched. At this moment, the smart contract is being deployed on the Ethereum network (which is still pending because of the abnormal congestion).

Once the smart contract has been successfully deployed, all validators will be able to transfer their HUB to Minter Hub at no cost and start validating. For some time, there will be no penalties.

At this stage, cross-chain coin transfers are not available yet. During the first week, validators will be monitoring the stability of the network and whether the contracts update the list of the validators properly. Once they have verified that everything works as intended, we’ll initiate a vote on introducing an option to transfer HUB from Ethereum to Minter and vice versa.

All stages will be rolled out gradually to ensure the user funds’ safety. In case of an unexpected event, the smart contract can perform emergency stoppage and transfer of coins.

Further activation of Minter Hub:
- Addition of HUB
- Addition of USDC: once HUB has been successfully integrated, USDC will follow
- Fixing of M2 fees in dollars: once USDC is aboard, there’ll be a vote to set USD-expressed fees
- Addition of other ERC-20 tokens to Hub: once fees have been fixed in U.S. dollars, a vote will be announced to add more ERC-20 tokens to Minter (wETH, wBTC, USDT, UNI, and others)
- Connection of Binance Smart Chain

Minter Hub network’s source code and instructions on setting up a node: https://github.com/MinterTeam/minter-hub

🔗 HUB on Binance Smart Chain

Due to Ethereum overload (in some cases, fees for token transfers reach $70), we’ve decided to speed up the Minter Hub’s integration with Binance Smart Chain. The first stage will be the issuance of the HUB token, which will be not an entirely new one but a mirrored version of that on the Ethereum network.

Anyone can participate and get HUB on Binance Smart Chain in exchange for HUB on Ethereum. To make a swap, you need to send your ERC-20 HUBs to the multisig wallet of the validators by Friday, April 30, 2021 @ 11:59 p.m. UTC:

0xeE09Bc3Cc3F8F050EB294CDd414869d03e6c4E10

By May 7, 2021, HUB tokens on Binance Smart Chain will be accrued to the same address you used to send them, so make sure you have access to it. After that, you’ll be able to freely transfer HUBs, add them to liquidity pools, and buy/sell them at fees lower than Ethereum’s.

Owners of the multisig wallet that will transfer collected HUBs to the Minter Hub smart contract on May 1:
1. ProBlockchain
2. BTCSecure
3. MonsterNode
4. Rundax
5. Stakeholder
6. MinterOne
7. Minternator
8. ONLY1

🔗 Minter Hub Is Live

After long tests, we’re opening Minter Hub for everyone. On this page, you can deposit or withdraw your HUB from or to Ethereum network.

https://console.minter.network/hub

The next step is adding USDC and USDT stablecoins to Minter 2, which is expected by the end of May if everything works as planned. You’ll be able to buy and sell these tokens right inside your wallet and also move them between Minter and Ethereum networks. A vote on whether to add these tokens will be initiated once all tests involving HUB are successfully completed.

⚠️ Beware! Cross-chain transfers through Minter Hub are currently in the alpha version. You bear sole responsibility for all operations with your assets, meaning you may lose them entirely. Use this functionality at your own risk. Minter Hub is open-source. If needed, you may investigate its code before making use of the features offered on the page above.

Explainer on selecting fee for withdrawal to Ethereum:
- Normal: your transaction will get into waitlist and will be sent once the number of senders is enough to cover the fee on Ethereum. If that doesn’t happen within an hour, the coins will return to your wallet;
- Fast: your transaction will be sent to Ethereum right away. The confirmation time, however, will depend on current load.

A short guide to purchasing BIP with USDT in an entirely decentralized manner, with no exchanges or intermediaries in the middle.

Learn Now »

🚀 The First 1,000 Cross-Chain Transfers

https://etherscan.io/tokentxns?a=0xc735478ef7562ecc37662fc7c5e521eb835f9dab

Volumes by coin:
- 60 343 HUB ($6 637 730)
- 760 745 USDT ($760 745)
- 66.38 ETH ($167 590)
- 156 059 USDC ($156 059)
- 1.26 BTC ($50 459)

The total worth of assets transferred between the chains stands at $7 772 583, while the worth of coins under management of Minter Hub amounts to $3 917 522.

Since the introduction of tokens whose transfers come at a fee, HUB delegators received $11 348 (in 24 days). You can also take part in the distribution of rewards by delegating your HUB to Minter Hub oracles.

Quantum Pools and Liquidity Superposition

1. Liquidity pools

You have all used currency exchange at least once in a lifetime—for example, when you needed to buy EUR for your trip to Europe. Earlier, this was done with paper money, but with advances in technology, everyone got used to banking apps. Yet few have been wondering where the money we get in return comes from. It’s pretty simple, really—the bank buys it on the market and then resells to you at a slight premium. That’s why there’s a 1–2% difference from the central bank’s rate in either direction. This delta is the bank’s income, and often, that income is significant.

Blockchains have gone even further and allowed everyone to lock liquidity—or tokens representing currencies—into smart contracts. Roughly, it works like this:
– Bob has 10,000 USDT and 10,000 MUSD. He puts it all into a swap pool and becomes a liquidity provider
– He can withdraw all his funds or put in more whenever he wants
– Apart from him, there are other providers in this pool. And their share of income depends on how much they’ve supplied
– From each swap—say, 1,000 MUSD for 1,000 USDT—the pool gets its 0.2%, or $2 in our case. Any volume can be swapped, starting from .01 and going up to millions of dollars at once!
– These rewards are automatically summed up with the provided liquidity, thus generating a compound interest. Because at the time of next swap, Bob—provided his share is 100%—will have 10,001 MUSD and 10,001 USDT. Convenient, right?
– Since blockchains are open, accessible to everyone, and users can make swaps of any amounts, there are thousands of trades daily—even in projects like Minter, those just getting started—and thousands of dollars in fees, distributed once every 5 seconds among all participants.

2. Quantum pools and liquidity superposition

Now imagine you’re running an exchange working with BTC, ETH, and USD. You won’t be maintaining the "pool" with ETH or BTC only. You will be exchanging what you have for what your customers have and extract maximum profit by supplying more liquidity and collecting more fees. The money needs to work where it’s most needed at the moment, while the "one coin, one pool" approach limits liquidity and potential fees. Real-life example: on Minter, 250k USDT is now placed in the pool with HUB. And while it’s sitting in there, it could be also providing liquidity for USDC, and ETH, and BTC.

How does it work?
Assume the user has 1M BIP, 100 HUB, and 10,000 USDT. They’re ready to lock both BIP and HUB into liquidity but don’t have the necessary amount of USDT to cover it all. It’s only logical they start monitoring the deals. As soon as they see there’s going to be a huge deal in the HUB-USDT pool, they add liquidity there. Then back to BIP-USDT. And that’s how they’re making money out of all deals.

Here comes the magic: imagine the same thing happening on-chain. Liquidity is placed across several pools at the same time and is used where needed. Meaning it’s in superposition.

The number of pools is unlimited. Let’s take three—given 1M BIP, 100 HUB, and 10,000 USDT:
1. 1m BIP vs. 10k USDT
2. 100 HUB vs. 10k USDT
3. 1m BIP vs. 100 HUB

Some of you may think that it seems the user has provided twice as much liquidity as the money they’ve had—$60k supplied versus $30k initial. You would be right, but only partially, because the amount of funds is the same, but those funds are put to use more efficiently.

What would quantum pools bring us?
1. More fees for liquidity providers due to superpositions
2. Higher liquidity across all pools, resulting into more trades and more fees as well

Specific implementation and details are yet to be developed, but for now, what disadvantages of the scheme above do you see? Have you seen anything like this in other projects?

🔗 Minter 2.6 Tests

The long-awaited Minter v2.6 with on-chain orders (On-Chain Automated Market Maker with Order Book) is ready for public testing!

Traders can now place orders at fixed rates in the AMM liquidity pools. Compared to the traditional pools, AMMOBs have better liquidity, while LPs get an extra fee on filled orders boosting their overall earnings. Learn more about AMMOB.

Specifics:
• To open a limit order, go to the corresponding section and fill out the form
• To cancel your order, use another form on the same page
• The order may be filled partially
• Orders that have not been filled are automatically removed after ≈30 days since being placed (on the testnet, this period is reduced to 3 days)

Node Binary: https://github.com/klim0v/minter-go-node/releases/tag/v2.6.0-beta8
Explorer: https://explorer.taconet.minter.network/
Console: https://console.taconet.minter.network/
Go SDK: https://github.com/MinterTeam/minter-go-sdk/releases/tag/v2.4.0-beta1
API: https://node-api.taconet.minter.network/v2/
Docs: https://github.com/klim0v/minter-network-web/blob/patch-4/content/docs/index.md
Test coins faucet: @MinterTacoNetTapBot

Launching node on testnet:
node --testnet --genesis "https://node-api.taconet.minter.network/v2/genesis" --persistent-peers "a80806d20b3bda7eb3997560a1c24e23fbbc483a@157.90.16.80:26656"

Alert: do not sign in with your mainnet wallet’s seed phrase as you might lose all of your funds.

We’d like to also remind you that Minter has an ongoing 🪲 Bug Bounty program. Please report any issues you come across in the @MinterDevChat using the #bugbounty hashtag.