Chainflip Mainnet Preparation

Dear Flippers,

The time has finally come to announce more mainnet release plans. For those working on the Perseverance Testnet, this may be useful information to assess the major differences and launch parameters you can expect for the mainnet. For everyone else looking for the TGE, read on.

Upfront: TGE & Mainnet Date Not Set.

As of now, no confirmed date has been set. We are aware of the October 24th target date that was mentioned on the Coinlist sale, but that was only a target. Similarly, we have said November 8th is an alternative date, but that is also not confirmed.

We are actively working to complete the TGE as soon as possible, but without all of the commercial and operational arrangements finalised, it makes no sense. We are working as hard as we can to secure those arrangements. As soon as they are complete, the TGE time and date will be announced. We appreciate your patience, but please also understand that getting it right is important and we don’t get to decide everything by ourselves.

Back to the Mainnet Plans…

In keeping with our rave-themed naming schema, this mainnet-deployed network will be dubbed Berghain, or Berghain Mainnet. This is to differentiate it from other secret mainnet deployments we have conducted for testing. It is very unlikely anyone will actually use this name in practice, but sometimes, it’s all about the vibes. For all intents and purposes, this is the Chainflip Mainnet.

While everything we do on the mainnet is to be done in concert with the stakeholders, node operators, and the Chainflip community, we at Chainflip Labs take our role as protocol designers very seriously. We will be actively proposing tweaks and changes regularly as we fine-tune the network to be suited to the new mainnet environment, and get everything up and running for swapping. All that is to say, expect some of these launch parameters to be adjusted over time.

In this article, we’ll cover:

• The mainnet parameters
• How bootstrapping the network will work
• How the token distribution (TGE) will work
• What comes next

Mainnet Parameters

First and foremost, let’s get clear on what you can expect in the mainnet environment. Many of these differ from the testnet.

Ethereum Mainnet Contract Addresses:

StateChainGateway: 0x6995Ab7c4D7F4B03f467Cf4c8E920427d9621DBd
FLIP: 0x826180541412D574cf1336d22c0C0a287822678A
KeyManager: 0xcd351d3626Dc244730796A3168D315168eBf08Be
Vault: 0xF5e10380213880111522dd0efD3dbb45b9f62Bcc
AddressChecker: 0x79001a5e762f3bEFC8e5871b42F6734e00498920

• Emissions will be at a 7% annual emission rate for Authorities, and 1% for Backup Validators, as per the design set out in the docs. Emissions will be turned off until the TGE.
• Auction/Epoch Duration will be set to a 24-hour frequency. This will slow to a 72-hour frequency at or before the swapping launch.
• Slashing will be set such that Validators who have a negative reputation for a whole day will be slashed 0.1% of their bond. As it is currently implemented, this will mean that operators are almost never penalised for going offline. This will require some tuning later on, but as the auction cycle is 24 hours to start with, it is unlikely anyone will actually go negative before they are removed at the conclusion of the following auction.
• Keygen failure penalties will be reduced to a fixed value of 1 FLIP. This is to ensure that operators won’t be materially penalised for early issues, but may be increased in the future.
• The hilariously named “Redemption tax” will remain at 5 FLIP. This will eventually be used to fund Validator gas operations.
• Operators will need to fund their own Validators’ Ethereum gas operations at launch. The network is tracking how much each Validator spends on broadcasts, but the launch version does not currently have an automatic refund mechanism. Validators will be retroactively compensated for the gas fees paid, but will need to keep each of their Validators’ local ethereum wallets topped up in the meantime. We recommend no less than 0.2 ETH per Validator. Validators that run dry will fail to broadcast when their turn comes around, and reputation penalties will apply.
• Minimum state chain account funding will remain at 1 FLIP, but for a Validator to be qualified for an Auction, it must be bidding no less than 10% of the MAB. This is to prevent ultra-low-stake nodes from entering the authority set.
• Safety margins (required block confirmations) for witnessing will be set at 6 blocks for BTC, 7 blocks for Ethereum, and use the built-in deterministic finality for Polkadot. Dynamic Safety Margins are coming to Chainflip in future updates, as well as some awesome new features that will cut down the effective wait times for users dramatically. For the launch, these fixed settings will be in place.

How Mainnet Bootstrapping Will Work

The Chainflip Labs team will deploy 3 genesis nodes to bootstrap the network. This is something we have done many, many times before. They’ll be hooked up to our already deployed smart contracts, new aggregate keys will be generated and rotated, and then the genesis network will sit and wait for the right Governance extrinsics to enable rotations, auctions, and emissions. The network will essentially sit idle, not really doing anything, waiting for the TGE to take place.

In the meantime, the bootstrapping keys will hand over control to the Governance Council Key (3/6 held by Chainflip Labs) and the Community Council Key (Held 5/9 by key non-Labs community members). Token-weighted governance elections can be carried out from day one. We’ll cover this in more detail in a future post.

Then, at or before TGE, the Governance Council will enable all necessary functions to open Auctions for the TGE.

How Token Distribution (TGE) Will Work

All end users will get their tokens at the same time. No one will be allowed to send, trade, or distribute tokens until the agreed-upon TGE time as defined by Chainflip Labs.

The exception to this rule is that the following parties will have tokens pre-distributed to them in order to prepare for the TGE:

• Coinlist for community sale participant distribution
• Oxen Foundation for SN operator airdrop distribution
• Some exchanges for listing preparation
• Market making partners to prepare exchange accounts for listings
• Internal Chainflip Labs & affiliated wallets for accounting, testing, and security purposes

These parties must hold these tokens until the TGE unless otherwise agreed by Chainflip Labs. Only test transactions for integration testing are allowed.

The exact hour of the TGE will be announced by Chainflip Labs at least 7 days beforehand. All stakeholders will be directly notified about the exact hour of the event once it can be confirmed between Chainflip Labs and all operational partners in connection with the TGE.

Already, strong support from Custodians and Validator Operator Services has secured most of the technical requirements for the TGE itself. Other partners such as Exchanges and Market Makers will be notified of this time as well.

Then, at the exact hour of the TGE, all parties are free to release their tokens to their recipients. Coinlist users will receive tokens directly into their Coinlist accounts. At the same time, spot trading will open on Coinlist and other markets. Oxen Airdrop holders will receive FLIP directly to their wallet, but this distribution is handled by the Oxen Foundation, not Chainflip Labs. Chainflip Labs will be directly distributing tokens to Investors and their vesting contracts, service providers, and others who are owed FLIP, such as Soundcheck and SmoothOps participants.

Tokens may not be distributed at exactly the same time. We are doing our best to ensure this can happen but due to the sheer number of recipients, parties, and transactions involved, we do not and can not guarantee that tokens will be distributed all at once. We have scripted the distribution as much as possible to make it as fair as possible, but the real world is rarely perfect, and it’s almost inevitable that some recipients get their tokens slightly before others.

Once again, no date has been confirmed yet. Subscribe to our newsletter, join the Discord, or follow us on Twitter to be informed exactly when it is.

What Comes Next?

Shortly after TGE, we will be preparing the Swapping Launch. Once the network has achieved a sufficient level of collateralisation through the Validator Auctions, liquidity deposits, LPing, and swapping will be turned on.

In the meantime, the Validator Auctions are sure to cause a lot of drama and excitement each day as operators duke it out for the top 150 slots on the network. Want to read more about what to expect? Check out this piece: https://blog.chainflip.io/auctions-swapping-tge/

For now, stay tuned for updates.

Simon