Alpha 2 Arrives
Ontropy’s Alpha 1 launch, The Possibility Update, facilitated 175,000 randomness requests from 2,500 unique wallets. The final release within The Possibility Update, Alpha 1.3, proved that off-chain agreement was immutable and secure, and that this approach was vastly cheaper than traditional on-chain verification.
Alpha 2, The Usability Update, makes agreement truly P2P and decentralized, and unveils this power to the public through a verifiably fair casino game.
Source: Taming Gaming
A Review of Proof of Result
The first alpha served as Ontropy’s proof of concept that off-chain agreements were immutable and could be unilaterally proven on-chain (Proof of Result). This is necessary for games and protocols that have high-frequency or recurring interactions. Think server games, group messaging, and HFT.
Essentially, imagine needing to send every message or changed game state to the blockchain multiple times per second. It’s simply not possible, not even with efficient L2s. This is why “decentralized” games and protocols are just web2 games and websites—every interaction is centralized, with the exception of some on-chain NFTs.
To be clear, there have been many previous attempts to reach true decentralization in this way. The Lightning Network and modern EVM rollups also exchange assets off the main chain and subsequently put them on chain.
The crucial distinction is that Ontropy’s Proof of Result ensures the secure, off-chain agreement of data. This allows the transacting parties to trust and utilize the information immediately. There is no dispute period and finality is not achieved on a different L1 or L2, but between the relevant parties themselves.
The result of this is that
servers of dozens of players can be hosted off-chain via P2P communication, without the centralized middlemen or expensive transactions
five-hour long poker games settle seamlessly on-chain, interacting with MetaMask just once
traders agree to asset prices instantly and bundle multiple contracts, choosing to bulk send when gas fees are lowest.
Proof of Result is not a rollup. It is fault tolerant, meaning every participating user agrees to the data interaction. It will not scale as an L2, but is designed so that small collectives like those in the above examples can achieve finality on their own and instantly know the data is correct.
The result is that currently centralized aspects, like hosting, gameplay, and feeless swapping, can occur off-chain. Off-chain not in the sense of web2-style centralization, but through users achieving finality and agreement on their own. And this agreement is self-custodied by every user, so they can commit it to chain at any point. Third party oracles and data custodians are eliminated.
Alpha 1 Successes and Drawbacks
Alpha 1 was a phenomenal MVP for verifiable data, specifically randomness. At large, it proved that P2P, off-chain agreement was immutable and secure. The final of these releases, Alpha 1.3, even demonstrated how this approach was vastly cheaper than traditional on-chain verification with sub-$0.01 prices, compared to Chainlink’s $0.03 on MATIC and $3.21 on Ethereum.
Ontropy vs. Chainlink VRF Comparisons. Source: Ontropy, Chainlink
But while Alpha 1 was secure and cheap, it did not represent Proof of Result very well. For example, the Ontropy servers were the only adversarial party with which the user could communicate. Because the user was still contributing and agreeing to the data, they could prove the RNG was fair, but no one else could. In essence, it wasn’t truly p2p.
The lack of 3+ player p2p interactions had real ramifications too. Because the data couldn’t be trusted outside the server and transacting user, the randomness could not be used in a lottery or encryption, so it lacked any real utility.
Finally, only developers could appreciate the user-validated off-chain consensus, as the simple UX merely displayed a number after a user requested it. There was no way for the average person to tell there was anything special about the protocol.
Alpha 2
Alpha 2, The Usability Update, solves all of these issues.
Now, any two users, who have been admitted to the alpha, can immutably agree on data off chain and later prove it on chain. Even more, this scales to 50 simultaneous players, all instantly communicating with each other without the mediation of a centralized third party.
The speed and cost of the protocol is even further improved by the fact that only one user, the winner, needs to transact per round. Because the winner is incentivized to collect their winnings, they will always want to commit the proof of this on chain. And these proofs necessarily prove the result of all other users, meaning a lobby of 50 players can forgo 49 unnecessary transactions per round.
This slashes costs by a further 98% as only one user must pay one cent every 50 turns. This effect is even further accelerated in smaller, constant lobbies. If the same nine users played a five-hour game of poker, for example, then only ten total transactions would be needed: one of each player to post collateral, “buy in,” and only one winner to post the game state and begin the distribution of funds, “cash out.”
This is the system that will make games and web interactions truly decentralized, as fully on-chain verification would be prohibitively expensive. And Proof of Result not only decreases cost, but also slashes latency by ensuring the real-time generation and retrieval of data from the dealing of cards to the agreement of the end state.
We can reduce cost, increase speed, and eliminate centralized exploitation by moving compute and agreement off chain.
Source: Ontropy
As a final feature, Ontropy’s Alpha 2 will be playable as a roulette wheel, with the underlying cryptography more easily viewable and admirable. You’ll soon be able to play a verifiably fair casino game, for the first time ever!
Stay on the lookout for the release this week! The best way to stay in the loop is to follow Ontropy on Twitter and turn on notifications :). Check out our website here.
This post was edited minutes after publication to rearrange the thumbnail and images. Additionally, the roulette wheel is not a real money casino and is for demonstration purposes only.
Sources