Frequently Asked Questions

This document will focus on the technology behind the Nebulas platform. For broader questions, please view the Reddit FAQ.

For a better understanding of the Nebulas platform it‘s highly recommended to read the Nebulas Technical Whitepaper.

Table of Contents

  1. Nebulas Rank (NR)
  2. Nebulas Force (NF)
  3. Developer Incentive Protocol (DIP)
  4. Proof of Devotion (PoD) Consensus Algorithm
  5. Nebulas Search Engine
  6. Fundamentals
    1. Nebulas Name Service (NNS)
    2. Lightning Network
    3. Nebulas Token (NAS)
    4. Smart Contracts
      1. Language Support
      2. Ethereum Compatibility

Nebulas Rank (NR)

Measures value by considering liquidity and propagation of the address. Nebulas Ranking tries to establish a trustful, computable and deterministic measurement approach. With the value ranking system, we will see more and more outstanding applications surfacing on the Nebulas platform.

When will Nebulas Rank (NR) be ready?

The Nebulas Rank was released in December of 2018. At the time of writing this, June 28th of 2019, the NR Query Server is not online since the NR algorithm was updated, as it needs to be refactored. You are welcome to claim this project here.

Will dApps with more transactions naturally be ranked higher?

Not necessarily, as transaction count would only increase the in-and-out degree over a period of time, up to a certain point. The way the Nebulas Rank is calculated uses, among many other variables, one‘s median account stake. The median account stake is the median of the account balance over a period of time.

How does the Nebulas Rank (NR) separate quality dApps from highly transacted dApps?

By utilizing the Median Account Stake in its calculations, the NR ensures fairness and resists manipulation to a reasonable degree, ensuring the likelihood of high quality dApps floating to the top of the hierarchy.

Is the Nebulas Ranking algorithm open-source?

Yes.

Who can contribute to the algorithm?

At this time the Nebulas core team is responsible for the development of the algorithm. However, anyone is free to make suggestions, bug reports, and contribute with code. The SDK‘s repository can be accessed here, and the Nebulas Rank Offline Service can be accessed here.

Can the Nebulas Rank (NR) algorithm be cheated?

Nothing is impervious to manipulation, but our goal is to make manipulation of the algorithm as expensive and difficult as possible.

Nebulas Force (NF)

Supports upgrading core protocols and smart contracts on the chains. It provides self-evolving capabilities to Nebulas system and its applications. With Nebulas Force, developers can build rich applications in fast iterations, and the applications can dynamically adapt to community or market changes.

When will Nebulas Force (NF) be ready?

As per the roadmap, Nebulas Force is poised to be released at the end of 2019.

Can smart contracts be upgraded?

Yes, [short summary explaining how it works]

How is Nebulas Force (NF) smart contract upgrading better than other solutions that are currently or soon-to-be available?

answer here

Can the Nebulas blockchain protocol code be upgraded without forking?

Yes, [short summary explaining how it works]

Can the Nebulas Virtual Machine (NVM) be upgraded?

Yes, [short summary explaining how it works]

Developer Incentive Protocol (DIP)

Designed to build the blockchain ecosystem in a better way. The Nebulas token incentives will help top developers to add more value to the Nebulas blockchain.

When will the Developer Incentive Protocol (DIP) be ready?

The Developer Incentive Protocol was deployed on the Nebulas Testnet in January of 2019. It was formally deployed on the Mainnet in May of 2019.

Will there be a limit as to how many rewards one dApp can receive?

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Will developers still be able to do their own ICOs?

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Will only the top Nebulas Rank (NR) dApps receive rewards?

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How often will rewards be given?

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How will you stop cheaters?

The way the DIP is is designed makes it very hard for cheaters to be successful. Since smart contracts can only be called passively, it would be highly cost ineffective for a user to try to cheat the system. More about this topic can be read in the Technical Whitepaper.

Proof of Devotion (PoD) Consensus Algorithm

To build a healthy ecosystem, Nebulas proposes three key points for consensus algorithm: speediness, irreversibility and fairness. By adopting the advantages of PoS and PoI, and leveraging NR, PoD will take the lead in consensus algorithms.

When will the Proof of Devotion (PoD) Consensus Algorithm be ready?

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What consensus algorithm will be used until PoD is ready?

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How are bookkeepers chosen?

The PoD consensus algorithm uses the Nebulas Rank (NR) to qualify nodes to be eligible. One node from the set is randomly chosen to propose the new block and the rest will become the validators.

Do bookkeepers still have to stake?

Yes, once chosen to be a validator for a new block, the validator will need to place a deposit to continue.

How many validators will there be in each set?

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What anti-cheating mechanisms are there?

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Nebulas Search Engine

Nebulas constructs a search engine for decentralized applications based on Nebulas value ranking. Using this engine, users can easily find desired decentralized applications from the massive market.

When will the Nebulas Search Engine be ready?

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Will you be able to search dApps not on the Nebulas platform?

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Will the Nebulas Search Engine also be decentralized?

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Will the Nebulas Rank (NR) control the search results ranking?

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Fundamentals

Nebulas Name Service (NNS)

By using smart contracts, the Nebulas development team will implement a DNS-like domain system named Nebulas Name Service (NNS) on the chain while ensuring that it is unrestricted, free and open. Any third-party developers can implement their own domain name resolution services independently or based on NNS.

When will the Nebulas Name Service be ready?

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When a name is bid on, how long do others have to place their bid?

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How do others get notified that a name is being bid on?

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When a name is reserved who gets the bid amount?

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If I want to renew my name after one year will I need to deposit more NAS?

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Will we be able to reserve names prior to the launch of NNS?

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Lightning Network

Nebulas implements the lightning network as the infrastructure of blockchains and offers flexible design. Any third-party developers can use the basic service of lightning network to develop applications for frequent transaction scenarios on Nebulas. In addition, Nebulas will launch the world’s first wallet app that supports the lightning network.

When will lightning network be supported?

answer here

The Nebulas Token (NAS)

The Nebulas network has its own built-in token, NAS. NAS plays two roles in the network. First, as the original money in the network, NAS provides asset liquidity among users, and functions as the incentive token for PoD bookkeepers and DIP. Second, NAS will be charged as the calculation fee for running smart contracts. The minimum unit of NAS is 10−18 NAS.

What will happen to the Nebulas ERC20 tokens when NAS is launched?

The ERC20 tokens were swapped by its owners and exchanges that held them at a 1 to 1 rate.

Will dApps on the Nebulas platform be able to issue their owns ICOs and tokens?

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Smart Contracts

What languages will be supported when Main-net launches?

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Will Ethereum Smart Contracts (Solidity) be fully supported?

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What other language support will follow (and when)?

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binary storage

What is recommended way to store binary data in Nebulas blockchain? Is it possible at all? Do you encourage such use of blockchain? Also, i couldn‘t find information regarding GlobalContractStorage mentioned in docs, what is it?

Currently binary data can be stored on chain by binary transaction. The limit size of binary is 128k. But we don’t encourage storing data on the chain because the user might store some illegal data.

GlobalContractStoragenot currently implemented. It provides support for multiple contract sharing data for the same developer.

ChainID & connect

Can you tell us what the chainID of Mainnet and Testnet is? I have compiled the source code of our nebulas, but not even our test network?

chainID of Nebulas:
  • Mainnet: 1
  • Testnet: 1001
  • private: default 100, users can customize the values.
The network connection:

Smart Contract Deployment

Our smart contract deployment, I think is to submit all contract code directly, is the deployment method like this?

Yeah, We can deploy the contract code directly, just as it is to release code to the NPM repository, which is very simple and convenient.

smart contract IDE

We don‘t have any other smart contract ides, like solidity‘s “Remix“? Or is there documentation detailing which contract parameters can be obtained? (because I need to implement the random number and realize the logic, I calculate the final random number according to the parameters of the network, so I may need some additional network parameters that will not be manipulated.)

You can use web-wallet to deploy the contract, it has test function to check the parameters and contract execution result.