Please answer 2022: A review of CESS annual milestones

The year 2023 has quietly arrived, and the recently passed 2022 can be described as the "darkest hour" in the Web3 field in recent years: first, the Terra with a market value of tens of billions vanished, followed by the consecutive bankruptcies of Celsius, Voyager, and FTX. The total market value of cryptocurrencies plummeted from a peak of $3 trillion to less than $1 trillion. Although the market dealt another devastating blow to Web3 like in 2019, the industry did not give up; instead, it continued to push forward, and CESS has also been working hard for the development of decentralized cloud storage during this winter.

Over the past year, CESS has gradually turned its initial concept into reality in terms of technological development, from the gradual improvement of consensus mechanisms and storage mechanisms to the recent launch of DeOSS, and from the storage testnet from v0.1 to v0.5, transitioning from BNB Chain as the main chain to its own developed blockchain. Throughout this long bear market this year, CESS's development has not stopped for a moment.

In addition to continuous progress in technological research and development, CESS has also invested considerable effort in global community and brand operations after mid-year, including launching the "Pioneer Program," participating in several major Web3 events worldwide, and launching a volunteer program. Next, let us review the memorable milestones that CESS achieved in 2022.

*1. *Champion of the Polkadot Hackathon

On January 1, 2022, CESS Lab won the championship in the Asia-Pacific region of the global Polkadot Hackathon for blockchain development (building blockchain projects based on Substrate). CESS Lab's entry, FMD-CESS, is a data trading platform based on the decentralized cloud storage network CESS. The participating developers fully utilized CESS's advantages in data interaction efficiency and security to develop a data element market that enables peer-to-peer trusted transactions under the premise of data ownership and privacy protection, aiming to become a data element trading market in the Web3 ecosystem and promote the value interconnection of data assets.

*2. *Completion of the First Web3 Foundation Grant

On January 25, CESS completed the Web3 Foundation Grant that was officially applied for in September 2021 and successfully delivered the final stage of development goals. CESS achieved its first milestone in October 2021 and completed the second milestone on January 5 this year while participating in the Polkadot Hackathon, finally delivering all development tasks on the 25th.

The Web3 Foundation Grant is a funding program initiated by the Web3 Foundation established by Polkadot founder Gavin Wood, aimed at supporting high-quality projects in the Web3 ecosystem to promote its development. Since its launch in 2019, the program has funded over 300 projects, including well-known Polkadot parachain projects such as Phala, Bifrost, and Acala.

*3. *Selected for the Substrate Builders Program

In February 2022, CESS successfully passed the review and officially joined the Substrate Builders Program. The Substrate Builders Program (SBP, details: https://substrate.io/ecosystem/substrate-builders-program/) is a program initiated by the Substrate development team to support the development of projects related to Substrate. It provides support in various aspects such as technology (expert assistance, mainnet launch support, etc.), community (participation in Meetup events, milestone announcements, community building guidance), funding, ecosystem (introduction of related ecosystem projects), and development strategy (regular communication with project teams to improve roadmaps) to help project development.

By the end of 2022, CESS had completed two milestones in the Substrate Builders Program and will successfully "graduate" from SBP after completing the final milestone.

*4. *Completion of Testnet v0.2 Development

In February 2022, CESS officially released the testnet v0.2.0 version, which included updates such as optimizing the scheduling and storage endpoint interfaces; adding storage space leasing functionality; adding a real-time pricing module; adding a data segment routing module; and the first addition of a client.

*5. *CESS Begins Development of Storage Pallet

On March 7, 2022, the Web3 Foundation approved CESS Lab's proposal to apply for a Grant for the development of a storage pallet for Substrate. The proposal allows projects developed based on Substrate to integrate CESS's storage services directly through this pallet without major code modifications, whether they are newly built chains or existing chains. Additionally, by customizing storage REST components, users can conveniently upload and download data without installing extra client programs.

*6. *Release of Testnet v0.3 Version

In late March 2022, CESS completed the joint debugging and optimization of the v0.3.0_alpha version, which focused on further optimizing the previous version, including completing the deployment of smart contract nodes, enabling testing of smart contract calls to the substrate pallet, updating contract nodes on the CESS chain; completing the pallet-cess-staking configuration scheduling; synchronizing and improving the calculation logic for client file uploads; optimizing the scheduling service, optimizing the file processing process, and reducing memory read and write times.

*7. *CESS Launches Block Explorer

In mid-March, CESS completed the development of the block explorer (https://substats.cess.cloud/), which has undergone several iterations and includes block information, transaction information, the number of storage miners, effective storage capacity, and reported hard disk space capacity information. Additionally, the browser developed based on Polkadot JS also displays the status of consensus miners.

It is worth mentioning that CESS applied for a Web3 Foundation Grant for the browser it developed and has completed all development content required by the Grant.

*8. *Submission of Storage Pallet Development Milestone

In April 2022, CESS submitted the first milestone for the development of the storage pallet for the Web3 Foundation Grant, in which CESS built a basic API and implemented a storage interface with basic functionality.

*9. *Selected for Wanxiang Web3.0 Bootcamp

On May 24, 2022, the Wanxiang Web3.0 Bootcamp officially opened (see “CESS Successfully Selected for Wanxiang Web3.0 Bootcamp!”). CESS, along with projects including beoble, Gear, Hamster, Meta Defender, Polkadot Name System, Relation, SaaS3, Universaldot.me, Web3Games, and Web3Go, was selected. The Web 3.0 Bootcamp is an entrepreneurial training camp and incubator focused on blockchain innovation, aiming to integrate effective resources within the Wanxiang blockchain ecosystem and the global Polkadot ecosystem, providing comprehensive support including technology, products, capital, and ecological cooperation for entrepreneurial teams related to Web 3.0 technology, helping teams build clear and sustainable business models and facilitating project maturity and implementation. In September, CESS officially "graduated" from the Wanxiang Web3.0 Bootcamp, with CESS's China region head Andy Zou reporting on the development achievements since joining the program (see “CESS's 'Report Performance' at the 'Graduation Ceremony'”).

*10. *Participated in Polkadot Decoded and Gave a Speech

At the end of June and early July 2022, the Polkadot Decoded event, a grand gathering of the Polkadot ecosystem, was successfully held, with the CESS team participating as an exhibitor and speaker. During this event, CESS engaged in in-depth discussions with many domestic Web3 users, project teams, and developers through its booth. CESS China Community Manager Andy Zou, CESS Global Marketing Operations Manager John Humphreys-Ramos, and Global Business Development Director Louis Albuerne shared insights at venues in Hangzhou, Buenos Aires, and New York, respectively. For detailed coverage, see “Witness CESS's Wonderful Performance at Polkadot Decoded”.

*11. *Release of Testnet v0.4 Version

In early July, CESS officially launched the testnet v0.4.0 version and switched to the test chain independently developed by CESS. Due to the switch to the CESS chain's testnet, CESS was able to implement the multi-replica recoverable storage proof mechanism (PoDR²) and the scheduling function of consensus nodes. This CESS testnet opened three testing parts: storage nodes (CESS-Bucket), consensus nodes (CESS-Consensus Node), and storage user clients (CESS-Portal). Participants establishing storage nodes can earn rewards by providing storage space; participants establishing consensus nodes can earn rewards by providing computing resources and bandwidth; users can experience the entire process of decentralized storage in Web3 through the storage user client.

In version v0.4.0, the number of storage nodes exceeded 980, the number of consensus nodes reached 25, and the verified storage space reached 6TiB;

In version v0.4.4, the number of storage nodes exceeded 2030, the number of consensus nodes reached 83, and the verified storage space reached 13TiB.

*12. *New EVM-Compatible Smart Contract Module

In July 2022, the aforementioned CESS test version v0.4 officially launched the EVM-compatible module, meaning that Ethereum ecosystem projects can now easily migrate. This functionality is still being continuously improved, and in the future, CESS will introduce more tools to support the migration of Ethereum ecosystem projects with the efforts of the team and developers, jointly promoting the development of CESS ecosystem projects.

*13. *Release of Testnet v0.5 Version

On August 9, 2022, CESS officially launched v0.5.0. The updates in this version mainly include adjustments to the process of filling idle data segments, improving the storage miners' space certification rate; optimizing the storage miner client, adding new features such as storage miner's earnings address and IP address changes, making the operational experience more user-friendly; improving the punishment and exit rules for storage miners, significantly reducing the probability of wrongful penalties; updating the Go SDK functionality to adapt to the latest CESS protocol specifications, providing developers with more flexible and diverse access methods; adjusting space leasing rules, including pricing, expansion, expiration, and other details; and adding CESS-Gateway to support downloading files with the same ID from different servers.

Additionally, v0.5.0 introduced two new modules:

Launching the CESS node deployment and management program, which allows for simpler deployment and management of storage nodes, consensus nodes, and full nodes, lowering the operational threshold for CESS ecosystem builders (including various miners);

Launching the new CESS blockchain explorer (substats.cess.cloud) --- Substats v0.1.0, which is more lightweight compared to the native Polkadot explorer. It is designed and developed based on CESS's unique features and can serve as an auxiliary tool for the native blockchain explorer, allowing various roles in the CESS network to query the data they want more quickly and conveniently.

Currently, the testnet for this version is still running and has undergone several iterations. Version v0.5.1 introduced CESS's unique consensus mechanism for the first time: the randomly selected rotating consensus node mechanism (R²S). Version v0.5.2 updated the credibility scoring model of the R²S consensus mechanism, reducing the weight of historical contributions to encourage the inclusion of new consensus nodes; optimized the verification process of the storage proof mechanism, allowing verifiers to directly obtain all information required for audit proof from the chain.

In version v0.5.0, the number of storage nodes exceeded 1000, the number of consensus nodes reached 50, and the verified storage space reached 20TiB;

In version v0.5.1, the number of storage nodes exceeded 800, the number of consensus nodes reached 12, and the verified storage space reached 40TiB;

In version v0.5.2, the number of storage nodes exceeded 1400, the number of consensus nodes reached 21, and the verified storage space reached 4TiB;

In version v0.5.3, which is the current version, the number of storage nodes exceeded 3200, the number of consensus nodes reached 14, and the verified storage space reached 34TiB.

*14. *Launch of the "Pioneer Program"

In September, CESS launched the "Pioneer Program," aimed at promoting CESS to communities, users, and developers worldwide (see “Launch of the 'Pioneer Program' and Overview of CESS Global Activities”). In the following months, CESS participated in several significant events in the Web3 industry, including BlockchainRio, the largest Web3 event in Latin America, TOKEN 2049 held in Singapore (where CESS not only participated in the Polkadot special exhibition but also had its own booth, attracting considerable attention from developers and users), and the "obCESSed in Vietnam" event organized by CESS itself, inviting numerous Polkadot ecosystem projects to participate. In addition to these three major global events, CESS also participated in developer events held in places like Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and many online events during this process. The Pioneer Program provided the global Web3 community with an in-depth understanding of CESS, with many gaming and NFT project teams, including cloud giants like Amazon Cloud and Google Cloud, expressing a strong willingness to collaborate with CESS.

*15. *Official Launch of the Ambassador Program

In October 2022, CESS announced the official launch of the Ambassador Program (https://twitter.com/CESS_Storage/status/1582757677712621568), opening applications for three types of ambassadors: technology, community, and events. Subsequently, CESS received numerous applications from developers and users worldwide. Some of the approved individuals have already begun representing CESS at offline events in various countries or regions.

Next year, CESS will refine the ambassador recruitment and responsibilities and provide a complete plan, including ambassador tasks and assessments.

*16. *Application to Become an AWS Partner

As AWS, Google Cloud, and Alibaba Cloud have all entered the Web3 space, CESS has also begun strong collaborations with traditional cloud service providers. In December, CESS applied to become a global partner of Amazon Web Services (AWS), and in the future, will explore the development of decentralized cloud storage technology and its integration with centralized cloud services together with AWS.

Although many events occurred in 2022 that led the industry downhill, we still believe that Web3 will be the core technology of the future world. CESS will continue to contribute to the infrastructure field we excel in and will continue to collaborate with partners and developers inside and outside the industry to build and create a new era of decentralized cloud storage!