Review of news from the world of Chia Network

Plots allocation with Akash Network

A comprehensive explanation of how to allocate plots using Akash Network has been posted on the Chia network blog. Akash Network is a peer-to-peer network for Cloud Compute and an official partner of Chia. Anyone can join the decentralized Web3 platform, including providers with plotting hardware and people who want to download pre-created plots to engage in farming. It's a win-win situation as both parties benefit!

Why use the plot allocation service? It all comes down to costs. Estimating the cost of plotting is not easy. Many variables need to be considered, including plotter cost, plot creation time, energy and disk consumption, and equipment depreciation. For an average home plotter with a gaming computer costing around $600, which plots at 120W in half an hour, the cost of one plot does not drop below 15 cents until the 500TB limit. Meanwhile, Akash sells plots below that amount, making it an excellent opportunity for end-users. It is beneficial not only for individual farmers but also for companies with a large disk space looking to fill it with plots.

How was it done so far? To use the Akash service, a farmer had to obtain AKT tokens. Chia Network wanted to simplify the entire plot purchase process, and with the support of Evergreen, they succeeded. From now on, Chia farmers will be able to buy plots with dollars or XCH. The download link will be sent to the buyer via email. All you need is a fast and reliable internet service - ideally, the farmer should have an unrestricted bandwidth fiber optic connection.

Decentralized Chia DataLayer for Web3

While we think of online transactions as decentralized interactions facilitated by secure and transparent services, the reality is quite different. Most of these transactions are intermediated by powerful, centralized service providers who can manipulate our data, sell it, and generally do as they please.

An alternative to the current Web2 internet infrastructure is the decentralized, sovereign Web3. To enable the development of Web3, Chia Network decided to provide real data - rows and columns, keys, and values - on the blockchain. This led to the creation of the decentralized database, Chia DataLayer. It collects voluntarily shared immutable data, and their proofs are stored on the blockchain along with the URL. In other words, for efficiency, the data itself is stored off-chain, but the blockchain is used to verify its accuracy. This creates a shared, updated data network without a central authority.

A real use case of Chia DataLayer is the Climate Warehouse project of the World Bank, which aims to provide transparency in carbon emission markets. All project participants publish data on DataLayer tables using Chia wallets and keys and can locate other participants' data through the table identifier for the "management" node. However, sensitive data is not published. Chia is the only blockchain that meets the World Bank's high requirements in this regard.

Public audit capabilities have never been so extensive; the blockchain increases the scope of process control and ensures transparency and immutable integrity. The two-way approval function is also useful, allowing two project participants to coordinate all updates. Chia Network announces that there are plans for further extensions of Chia DataLayer functionality.

Whitepaper on the impact of data sanitization on the circular economy

Chia Network has co-authored a new report on the impact of data sanitization on the circular economy. The organized data, as a scientific study, is available for inspection at this link. Crucially, the white paper suggests practical solutions regarding data security and the possibility of reusing memory.

It is no secret that shortly after the Chia mainnet launch, hard drives around the world started selling at a crazy pace. Prices went up, waiting times for order fulfillment dramatically extended, and demand significantly exceeded supply. As a result, representatives of Chia met with ITAD providers. It turned out that huge amounts of disks are destroyed each year, which could theoretically be used for farming XCH, but the potential data leakage from customers eliminates this possibility.

This is how the Circular Drive initiative was born. Its goal was to establish collaborations that would allow for safe and repeated use of mass storage. Chia joined CDI, and the established working group decided to focus on data sanitization and disk reuse as the first step.

Disk shredders are quite primitive solutions, especially in times when cryptographic erasure exists. This innovative technology allows removing all data from the disk solely by changing the media's encryption key. Disks subjected to such "disinfection" can be reused multiple times. Currently, circular practices are being implemented; industry leaders are developing sustainable standard business models, and those responsible for sustainable development in companies conduct pilot programs on the circular economy.

The released white paper has high substantive value, and there is a chance that it will significantly impact various stakeholders in this ecosystem. Moreover, Jonmichael Hands, co-author of the study and representative of Chia Network, is currently participating in the global OCP summit, where he is leading a session on data-carrying device security.

3 new developer tools in beta

The Chia Network team is well aware of how challenging coding can be, especially in a new language like Chialisp. To make it easier for programmers, they provide additional tools in beta. At the end of September, three new tools were introduced, allowing developers and NFT creators to save time and money. The improvements cover various areas: from simulation and complex testing to scaling operations.

1) Blockchain Simulator

If you are programming in Chialisp, you can now use a special blockchain simulator to test your code in an isolated, controlled environment. The new tool runs the code in simulation mode, allowing you to track blockchain progress for testing purposes.

2) Chialisp VSCode Extension

The language server, which highlights syntax and offers autocomplete options, code navigation, and basic programming puzzle diagnostics, has made writing in Chialisp a bit easier. The Visual Studio Code extension provides many new and useful features, such as directly going to function definitions, even if they are in an external library. With the language server, programmers can create extensions for other editors, adding their enhancements and sharing them with the community.

3) Mass NFT Minting Tool

Chia has also introduced the best NFT standard in the industry. Initially, the network had to compromise on usability, but further improvements are now being introduced. For example, while minting more than a handful of NFTs used to be quite troublesome, it's no longer a problem. The newly released Mass NFT Minting Tool automates the entire process, allowing up to 10,000 PFP images to be minted in just a few hours. Moreover, there is an option to drop each NFT to the recipient's target address immediately after minting the token. If the recipients are unknown, another functionality can be used to automatically create offer files while minting NFTs and then conduct individual sales on the preferred marketplace.

Focus on continuous development

As seen, the ecosystem for developers is continually evolving. The above three tools are just the beginning - more improvements are just a matter of time. We look forward to more good news, especially as we can expect to see more of them.

Gene Hoffman, COO of Chia Network, highlighted six areas where blockchain has the most to say in an extensive blog post. According to him, these are:

- global trade - fast, decentralized, and, above all, secure,

- integrated databases - data can be fully transparent but also completely or partially confidential,

- digital identification or authentication - blockchain is probably the best form of privacy and certification protection the world has ever seen; Chia DID eliminates the need for trusted third parties,

- supervision, security, and control,

- payments - blockchain provides democratization of money transfers. Payments are available to everyone, anywhere, 24/7, and are ultimately settled within a few minutes at most,

- random games - the blockchain ensures "predictable unpredictability", makes corruption difficult, and is currently the best way to verify random games. Blockchain-secured poker, collectible, and card games are as fair as can be.

As Gene Hoffman assures, there will certainly be more similar areas, and technological development will bring improvements we couldn't even dream of. We are eagerly awaiting!