The release strategy of Constellation's Hypergraph network and DApps

Author: Constellation

Compiled by: ChainCatcher

2023 is the year we have been waiting for at Constellation. This year, we will finally see working state channel DApps on Constellation's infinitely scalable decentralized network Hypergraph, along with its DAG-based technology and microservices framework.

So, what can you expect along the way? In a recent Twitter Spaces interview, Constellation CEO Ben Jorgensen discussed our release strategy and how we prioritize use cases. This article covers some key points.

We also introduced a new protocol release framework so that our community can keep up with our progress.

"We're not a 'this versus that' technology," Ben said. "We don't compare ourselves to Ethereum. The technology is an evolution of Ethereum, but so is the business model."

"Not only is our architecture different, but the use cases are different as well. We're not just saying, 'move from Ethereum to Constellation.' We're saying, 'shift to Constellation, and by the way, you will have to rethink your entire business model because the way you use $DAG cryptocurrency as a utility is very different from how you use Ethereum,' he continued.

Business Mindset: Prioritizing Use Cases

With the launch of Hypergraph technology and developer documentation, we need enterprises to start building on our network. This requires making them aware of our unique business model and what they can do with Hypergraph to add value to their businesses.

"At Constellation, we are a very business-minded team, which actually works to our advantage. We are not just a group of developers releasing technology and hoping someone builds something really cool with it. We go out with a business mindset, showcasing a framework for building businesses on Hypergraph and using it as a subtitle or prototype that people can use and run," Ben said.

The best way to achieve network adoption is to provide a complete package to educate enterprises about our technology and our business model. This means Constellation will provide robust technical releases and developer documentation, along with real-world use cases of the technology with working state channel DApps.

The Role of Dor Technologies in the Ecosystem When Constellation acquired Dor Technologies in 2021, our goal was to acquire a company that would become a perfect use case for Hypergraph technology—a company that was already collecting valuable data in existing data markets and one that we could incubate internally, like an internal layer 1.

According to Ben, "We chose Dor because we knew that acquiring a strong data collection source would allow us to flexibly test our hypotheses and incubate internally, which is better than just opening tools and hoping people understand how to use Hypergraph and grasp the business model…"

Thus, this became our first intent to collaborate with Dor Traffic Miner (DTM), as it is now a viable business—it has its own profit and loss statement, its own user base, its own customers, and it collects a unique subset of data that we can ultimately mediate—so we have all the elements to create a business, and now we can start attaching Hypergraph to this by creating state channels.

HGTP Web2 and Web3 Composability and Alkimi Exchange Hypergraph has many business use cases, but we are most interested in use cases that combine Web2 and Web3 infrastructure. Alkimi Exchange is a great example.

The Web2 concept of advertising trading clearly benefits from Web3 decentralized technology, combating ad fraud and allowing advertisers to accurately verify campaign results by moving millions of ad impressions onto the blockchain. Adding this massive dataset to Hypergraph is a huge win for us and a great use case for Hypergraph around big data verification.

Incentivizing Utility through Data Reward Pools and DApp Grants Constellation aims to incentivize enterprises to create use cases, and we decided to shift the reward mechanism to on-chain utility. Our new data reward pool will be a limited reward pool for creating initial use cases so that other enterprises can follow suit and see the power of using cryptocurrency incentives alongside real-world data and utilities.

"Going out the door and saying, 'oh, verifiable data or data verification or validation is very valuable' is one thing. We can say that, but when you put pen to paper, you actually need to show the end use case—a complete end-to-end deployment—so that people can understand it in their minds and see how their business would be greatly impacted," Ben said.

When we launch the state channel DApp funding program—we will explore whether enterprises will rapidly create L0 tokens on Hypergraph or whether they will design a system to put data on-chain, which will have high speed. Such things will help us decide how to allocate rewards for certain use cases that create scripts for anyone entering the Constellation ecosystem and understand the necessity of purchasing $DAG to incentivize node operators and use it to create verifiable threads of data.

Projects like Alkimi will receive $DAG from the data pool to bring data onto our network, allowing us to see on-chain utilization and increase various data verification use cases.

Network Utility and Evolving Tokenomics Constellation will evolve our tokenomics as we release protocol updates and begin to see on-chain utility and different business use cases emerge. We need to align our tokenomics with these use cases to maintain our ability to scale alongside layer 1 applications on-chain.

According to Ben, "What we did last week (creating the data pool) is the beginning of us redoing the entire tokenomics this year. We are actually looking at the types of data on-chain and how we will use L-1 applications and conduct business around that data. Data collection, verification, and processing have a huge impact on our tokenomics, so our tokenomics plan will launch a streamlined version of the tokenomics paper that relates to the technical readiness of the protocol at the time of our release."

Additionally, Constellation is working with application layers and underlying protocols to understand the costs associated with enterprises using Hypergraph, which will greatly impact our tokenomics over time.

"We need a tokenomics model to help enterprises understand how much it costs to create a state channel DApp so they can determine which data is truly valuable to verify, so they have an affordable and viable business with $DAG and push it to Hypergraph to incentivize nodes," Ben continued.

Adding Nodes and Opening the Network

Constellation is currently working to open the network to accommodate an unlimited number of node operators.

According to Ben, "Our goal is to open the network by early next year or even the end of this year. We want to have an open network and a tokenomics model suitable for an open network—a model that invites more nodes—so we are considering many different aspects to understand how we can onboard nodes and permanently open the network…

We are also working to migrate soft nodes to testnet nodes. We plan to sunset the soft node program after the network is fully open. We will focus on providing true technical scalability and see technical experts from the community come in to help us."

Protocol Deployment Sneak Peek: Introducing "Eras"

As Hypergraph's technology is so different from other Web3 protocols, Constellation's development is continuously breaking new ground as we realize the vision from 2017 and 2018.

"We are category creators in this space, which is very valuable. But watching updates can also be painful, right? In reality, Constellation should still be in stealth mode, but because it has a live token, we are not in stealth mode, right? So, as a community, you are really lucky to see a stealth company building technology behind the scenes, otherwise people wouldn't have access to such information… We are building these things to scale quickly when we release. So, I think that's very exciting," Ben said.

Constellation will focus on showcasing our protocol and the development progress of all related products and services we are launching to the community.

To this end, we have designed a framework based on the concept of "Eras" to showcase protocol upgrades and versions, as well as related tokenomics improvements, developer documentation, and any other updates in the ecosystem of products and services we are building to adapt to these versions.

Each Era will be named after a constellation (in the sky) and will unlock various use cases and opportunities across the ecosystem. The tokenomics of the protocol will also slightly change with each Era, with each Era's release driving Hypergraph to become a more decentralized and secure network.

The first Era is the "Hercules Era," which will be released at the end of next month along with our SDK for our L0 currency framework, Rosetta support, and our next tokenomics streamlined paper. A more detailed description of each feature launched in the Hercules Era and upcoming Eras will be provided at the time of the Era release.