Understand the new gameplay of the Ethereum protocol: Heroglyphs in one article

Author: Mia, ChainCatcher

Editor: Marco, ChainCatcher

From liquid staking to scalability improvements, Ethereum has been at the forefront of technological innovation and ecological development in the crypto space, while simultaneously facing a long-ignored yet widely recognized crisis—the security challenges of the Ethereum network. As the Ethereum network evolves, independent validators encounter numerous obstacles, leading to the popularity of staking and re-staking services. However, these services concentrate validation power in the hands of a few node operators, posing technical, market, and regulatory risks to Ethereum's security.

The new solution for Ethereum independent validators, Heroglyphs, aims to address this issue.

The Heroglyphs white paper was officially released this month. The white paper introduces that the Heroglyphs protocol is an innovative Ethereum protocol initiated by former SushiSwap core contributor and LayerZero Chief Strategy Advisor 0xMaki, designed to incentivize Ethereum independent stakers by mimicking elements of proof-of-work (PoW) systems, thereby enhancing the security and decentralization of the Ethereum network.

The core principle of the Heroglyphs protocol lies in utilizing the Graffiti feature introduced by Ethereum 2.0, transforming it into a new type of information transmission and incentive mechanism. Heroglyphs consists of two main modules: the Encoder and the Translator. The Encoder encodes information into a 32-byte Graffiti field, allowing for the creation of tokens, definition of attributes, and identification of recipient wallet addresses; the Translator converts the encoded information in Graffiti into on-chain operations through a set of smart contracts, which can include (but are not limited to) creating, transferring, and issuing various tokens.

Introduction of the Graffiti Feature

In Ethereum 2.0, Graffiti is a special field embedded in the block header that allows validators to embed additional information when creating new blocks. This information is typically personal messages, identifiers, or random data, used to express the validator's personality or convey specific information.

The white paper shows that the functionality of Graffiti has been expanded and upgraded in the Heroglyphs protocol.

Information Encoding: The Heroglyphs protocol uses an Encoder to densely embed specific information (such as the validator's identity, contributions, etc.) into Graffiti. This process employs data compression and encoding techniques to ensure that information can be fully utilized within the limited Graffiti space.

Information Conversion: Once the information is embedded in Graffiti, another core component of the Heroglyphs protocol—the Translator—converts it into a series of on-chain operations. These operations can include the creation, issuance, and transfer of tokens, depending on the content of the embedded information and the protocol rules.

Incentive Mechanism: The Heroglyphs protocol provides a new type of incentive mechanism for independent full validators through the aforementioned information encoding and conversion processes. Validators can showcase their contributions and identities by embedding specific information in Graffiti and receive corresponding rewards. These rewards can be tokens, reputation points, or other forms of incentives, depending on the design of the protocol and the needs of the community.

Heroglyphs Features

Rewarding Independent Stakers: The main goal of the Heroglyphs protocol is to reward independent stakers on Ethereum by issuing new tokens. The issuance of these tokens mimics the "mining" rewards in proof-of-work systems, providing economic incentives for stakers without actually adopting the high-energy PoW mechanism.

Fair Distribution of Tokens: The protocol design ensures that all complete validators can receive rewards based on their participation, regardless of the size of their stake or whether they are selected as block proposers. This mechanism helps create a fair competitive environment, reducing the dominance of large node operators and supporting smaller validators.

User-Customizable Tokens: Users can create new tokens through the Heroglyphs protocol and specify the total supply, specific issuance plans, and initial distribution. This provides community members with a platform to create and issue tokens with customized parameters according to their needs.

Decentralized Validation: By rewarding independent stakers, the Heroglyphs protocol aims to promote a more decentralized and resilient validation environment. This helps mitigate the potential threats to Ethereum's decentralization characteristics posed by liquid staking protocols (which may lead to power concentration).

Enhancing Ethereum's Security: By encouraging more decentralized validation and rewarding independent stakers, the Heroglyphs protocol aims to improve the security of the Ethereum network and help reverse the trend of validation and related information rights being concentrated among a few validators.

Advantages of Heroglyphs

The Heroglyphs protocol successfully decentralizes validation power by providing positive incentives for independent full validators, thereby enhancing the security of the Ethereum network.

Efficiency

The Heroglyphs protocol employs Encoder technology to densely embed key information into the Graffiti field in Ethereum block headers, enhancing the efficiency of data transmission while improving the security of the information. Validators can utilize this feature to embed more meaningful information within the limited Graffiti space, enabling various on-chain operations.

Flexibility

The Translator function of the Heroglyphs protocol grants validators significant flexibility. Through this function, validators can convert the information embedded in Graffiti into various on-chain operations, such as creating, issuing, and transferring tokens, allowing the Heroglyphs protocol to support multiple application scenarios and meet the needs of different users within the community.

Community-Driven

The Heroglyphs protocol emphasizes the power of the community and is committed to promoting Ethereum's values in visible cultural domains. By providing positive incentives for validators, the Heroglyphs protocol reduces the cost of inaction and coordinates incentives within the ecosystem, stimulating validators' enthusiasm while fostering the prosperity and development of the entire ecosystem.

The Heroglyphs protocol establishes a definitional framework for a new asset class built on Ethereum, with a core emphasis on the important position of independent validators.

Once people begin to value Heroglyphs, a virtuous cycle will form: more and more individuals will become independent validators, generating more Heroglyphs.