Happy New Year and welcome to 2023! The past year has been a challenging time for Web3, from the collapse of Terra to FXT, the total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies has fallen from a peak of $3 trillion to less than $1 trillion. Although market conditions have led to a difficult period for Web3, the industry remains undeterred, instead moving forward and making continued progress.
CESS has incrementally realized technological developments that were proposed in the initial concept. Developments include the gradual improvement of the consensus and storage mechanisms, the recently launched DeOSS, the testing of the network from v0.1 to v0.5, and the transition from the BNB Chain to CESS’s own blockchain. The development of CESS has not stopped for a moment, even in the past year’s prolonged bear market.
In addition to the continuous advancement of technology, research, and development, CESS is also dedicated to growing its brand awareness and global community. CESS launched the Pathfinder campaign and the ambassador program, as well as participating in multiple major Web3 events worldwide. Let us review the memorable milestones of CESS in 2022.
1. Polkadot Hackathon Champion
The data trading market project FMD-CESS, designed by CESS Lab, won first place in Polkadot Hackathon APAC Edition. FMD-CESS is a data trading platform developed on the CESS network, using CESS’s self-developed storage system to protect data security.
CESS constructs a stable and reliable underlying infrastructure built using Substrate, is dedicated to building a trustworthy, secure, transparent, and scalable data-sharing ecosystem, and aims to become a key part of the data infrastructure for Web3.
2. Received the First Web3 Foundation Grant
CESS completed all development goals and received the Web3 Foundation grant on Jan 15. CESS achieved the first milestone in Oct and the second milestone on Jan 5 this year while participating in the Polkadot Hackathon, and finally delivered all development tasks on the 25th.
The Web3 Foundation Grant was initiated by the Web3 Foundation, established by Polkadot founder Gavin Wood. It is dedicated to funding quality Web3 projects and aims to promote the development of the Web3 ecosystem. Since its launch in 2019, the program has funded more than 300 projects, including Polkadot parachain projects such as Phala, Bifrost, and Acala.
3. Released Testnet v0.2
CESS officially released the testnet v0.2.0 in February. V0.2.0 updates included optimizing the interface that connects scheduling and storage, adding storage space leasing, a real-time pricing module, and a data segment routing module and the client.
4. Officially Joined the Substrate Builders Program (SBP)
CESS officially joined the SBP on Feb 14th, 2022. SBP is organized by Parity to set up Substrate-based projects for success with support in technology, business development, marketing, and funding (SBP official website). CESS is selected as one of the qualified teams to join the program.
With the support of Parity Technologies, CESS is excited to leverage all the resources provided to further consolidate its project development and bolster its overall competitiveness. It is dedicated to achieving its ultimate goal of constructing a secure and efficient decentralized storage network for Web3 and large commercial applications.
CESS has completed two milestones in the SBP program by the end of 2022 and will successfully “graduate” from SBP after finishing the last milestone.
5. W3F Approved CESS’s Storage Pallet Building for Substrate Proposal
On March 7, W3F approved CESS Lab’s grant proposal for providing a CESS storage pallet for the Substrate community. The proposal aims to help developers integrate CESS’s storage services directly into their Substrate-based projects without major code modifications. Users can easily upload and download data by customizing the storage REST component without installing additional client programs.
6. CESS Launched Its Blockchain Explorer
CESS launched its blockchain explorer in mid-March. The development of the current blockchain explorer has gone through several iterations to provide information about blocks and transactions, the number of storage miners, effective storage capacity, and verified hard disk space capacity etc. In addition, the explorer developed based on Polkadot js also shows the situation of consensus miners.
It is worth mentioning that the explorer developed by CESS has also applied for the Web3 Foundation Grant, and has completed all the development content required by the Grant.
8. Released Alpha v0.3
CESS completed the overall testing and optimization of the v0.3.0_alpha version in late March. V0.3 deployed the smart contract nodes, started the test of calling the Substrate pallet using smart contract, updated the contract nodes on the CESS chain, completed the pallet-cess-staking scheduling configuration, completed the test of the storage miner incentive mechanism, optimized the storage miner reward pool, and completed the writing of the script files for the miner related installation.
9. Selected to Join the Teams Building Bootcamp for Web 3.0 Hosted By Wanxiang Blockchain.
CESS was selected to join and finish the first round of the “Six-Month Bootcamp for Teams Building for Web 3.0” 2022. W3F and Parity teamed up with Wanxiang Blockchain Labs and New Chainbase in China to launch a six-month Shanghai-based Web 3.0 Bootcamp.
This bootcamp will support 12 teams building for Web3.0 with Substrate and Polkadot Network. Details.
Graduated From The Bootcamp
CESS officially passed the Wanxiang Web3.0 Bootcamp in September. Andy Zou, head of CESS China branch, reported the development results since participating in the project (Click here to see CESS’s performance.)
10. CESS Takes Center Stage at Polkadot Decoded
CESS presented at the biggest Polkadot event of the year–Polkadot Decoded, in Hangzhou, New York, Berlin and Buenos Aires. CESS was one of the few teams voted by communities to speak at the conference, with keynote presentations given by the team leads in three venues. Joining the biggest event of the Polkadot ecosystem allowed CESS to build meaningful, in-person relationships with other leading projects.
11. CESS Testnet Was Officially Live– CESS v0.4
This is a milestone within our development after the BNB chain test network began running. The testnet v0.4 consisted of three parts: CESS-Bucket, CESS-Consensus Node, and CESS-Portal. Contributors who become consensus nodes get rewarded by providing computing resources and bandwidth. Users can experience the process of Web3 decentralized storage through the User Storage Portal. After purchasing storage, users can perform a series of operations, such as uploading, downloading, trading, and sharing files.
This version also implemented EVM for the first time, supporting easy migration/integration of Ethereum projects to CESS. CESS will launch more tools to support projects in Ethereum.
V0.4.0: over 980 storage nodes, 25 consensus nodes, and verified storage space 6T.
V0.4.4: over 2030 storage nodes, 83 consensus nodes, and verified storage space 13T.
12. CESS Passed the First Milestone of the Substrate Builders Program
Parity officials approved the content submitted by CESS and made suggestions for potential improvements. Joining the SBP successfully demonstrated CESS’s strong technical capabilities and huge potential.
CESS’s development progress in the first milestone includes:
Decentralized storage pricing mechanism
Proof of Data Reduplication and Recovery (PoDR²)
Blockchain explorer:
Storage miner client
User client
13. Released Testnet v0.5
CESS released v0.5.0 on Aug 9th. This new version optimized the issues such as slow space verification, failure to modify IP for storage miners, etc.
V0.5.0’s specific optimizations include:
Adjusted the process of filling idle data segments of the system to improve the space verification rate for storage miners.
Optimizes the storage miner client and adds new functions such as the storage miner’s income address, changing IP address, etc., making the operating process easier for storage miners.
Improves the penalty and withdrawal rules of storage miners, and significantly reduces the probability of storage miners being penalized by mistake.
Updates the Go SDK function to adapt to the latest CESS protocol specification, providing developers with more flexible integration options.
Adjusts the space leasing rules, including pricing, expansion, expiration, and other details.
Adds CESS-Gateway to support downloading files with the same ID from different servers.
In addition, v0.5 added two new modules:
The node deployment and management programs help deploy and manage storage, consensus, and full nodes, lowering the operating threshold for CESS ecosystem contributors (including all miners).
A new CESS Blockchain Explorer, Substats v0.1.0. which is independently designed and developed based on CESS’s characteristics. It can be used as an aid for the native blockchain explorer, allowing miners to query the desired data faster and conveniently. Polkadot’s native browser continues to provide the wallet and translation functions.
Currently, this version of the testnet is still running and has undergone several iterations. The v0.5.1 version launched CESS’s original consensus mechanism (Random Rotational Consensus mechanism (R²S)) for the first time. The v0.5.2 updated the credit score system of the R²S consensus mechanism to reduce the weight of historical contributions and encouraged new consensus nodes to join, and optimized the verification process of the proof-of-storage mechanism, and verifiers can now get all the information needed for audit proofs directly from the chain.
V0.5.0: 1000 storage nodes, 50 consensus nodes, and 20T verified storage space.
V0.5.1: 800 storage nodes, 12 consensus nodes, and 40T verified storage space.
V0.5.2: 1400 storage nodes, 21 consensus nodes, and 4T verified storage space.
V0.5.3 (current version): 3200 storage nodes, 14 consensus nodes, and 34T verified storage space.
14. CESS Launched “Pathfinder Campaign”
CESS launched the “Pioneer Program” in September, which aimed to promote CESS to different communities, users, and developers around the world. Ever since, CESS has participated in multiple important events in Web3, including Blockchain Rio, the largest Web3 event in Latin America, and TOKEN 2049 held in Singapore. CESS had its own booth and a special exhibition at the Polkadot main booth, and received a lot of attention from developers and industry experts. “obCESSed in Vietnam” was hosted by CESS and co-organized by Web3Go, Moonbeam, Phala, and other Polkadot projects in Vietnam.
In addition, CESS also participated in developer events held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and many other online events during. CESS was able to raise brand awareness around the globe through the “Pathfinder Campaign”. Many game and NFT project teams, including cloud giants in Web2 such as Amazon Cloud and Google Cloud, have expressed their strong willingness to cooperate with CESS.
15. Ambassador Program Officially Launched
In Oct 2022, CESS launched the ambassador program. Details. Now it is opening applications for three types of ambassadors: technology, community, and events. Since then, CESS has received a large number of applications from developers, users and industry professionals around the world. Some of the people who have passed have begun to represent CESS to participate in in-person activities in some countries or regions.
16. Implemented the Decentralized Object Storage Services (DeOSS)
In the first stage of the roadmap, CESS DeOSS provides a standard storage method to implement the basic functions of object storage, including purchase of storage space, file upload/download/deletion, etc for users. (Github link)
DeOSS aims to provide low-cost, secure, and scalable decentralized data storage services for Web3. Both individuals and enterprises can use OSS to store, manage and share data, such as NFT images and videos, dApp user data, and DeFi programs.
17. Being an AWS Global Partner
With the entry of AWS, Google Cloud, and Alibaba Cloud into Web3, CESS has also started a strong alliance with the traditional cloud service providers. CESS applied to become a global partner of Amazon Cloud (AWS) in December, and will jointly explore the development of decentralized cloud storage technology and the combination with centralized cloud services with AWS in the future.
About CESS
Cumulus Encrypted Storage System (CESS) is a high-speed, secure, and scalable decentralized cloud storage network for data storing and sharing. CESS is an open-source, public blockchain intended to be the underlying network infrastructure for decentralized storage needs. Its built-in intuitive APIs and SDK effectively facilitate application deployment while being chain-agnostic and compatible with WASM/EVM, making CESS widely available for most commercial and enterprise-level applications.
The proprietary R²S consensus mechanism coordinates the network resources and network load. The network guarantees data security and integrity through proprietary technologies with data ownership protection, technologies such as Proof of Data Reduplication and Recovery (PoDR²), Multi-format Data Rights Confirmation (MDRC), and decentralized proxy re-encryption.
CESS supports use cases such as Metaverse, NFT, DeFi, streaming media, and all Web2 and Web3.0 data storage, helping to build a diverse and robust ecosystem where transactions are secured by encryption and data owners reserve the ownership of their digital assets.