Technical Details
Design Principles
Bitcoin Native ₿
Zion Network is entirely built on the existing functionality and infrastructure of the Bitcoin mainnet. It does not rely on or introduce any additional components, including Layer 2 solutions.
Full Decentralization 🌐
Zion Network separates data nodes, computation nodes, and validation nodes into distinct roles, each associated with different user address sets. These user addresses do not overlap or intersect.
Transparency and Verifiability 🧐
All processes, from asset protocol rule setting and transaction data extraction to data legitimacy verification and price aggregation, are conducted off-chain but recorded on-chain. This allows real-time user audits through third-party interfaces, ensuring data integrity and transparency.
Technical Architecture
Zion primarily consists of three functional components: Asset Indexer, Price Feeder, and Consensus.
Asset Indexer
Asset Indexer extracts, validates, and analyzes on-chain assets. It synchronizes Bitcoin's blocks and transaction data, extracts transactions containing asset information based on specific deploy and mint rules, validates asset transactions, and produces information related to assets, including address sets, balances, associated addresses, and related transactions.
Price Feeder
Each Price Feeder retrieves raw price information from on-chain or off-chain sources. It then calculates the current asset price by considering historical data, such as prices from the most recent 4 hours and 100 sample points. This calculated price is timestamped and recorded on-chain. Price Feeders support both PULL and PUSH modes, providing real-time or more delayed but accurate price data.
Consensus
Consensus nodes collectively validate and verify the computation process and results of Asset Indexers and Price Providers. In the first layer of consensus, a random subset of nodes is selected from the consensus node set to validate and reach consensus on Asset Indexer and Price Provider results. The final consensus results are recorded on the Bitcoin mainnet.
Innovation Highlights
Pipeline Indexer
Zion introduces the concept of "Pipeline Indexer," breaking down the typical Indexer process into several distinct steps: extraction of asset-containing transaction sets (Original Asset TXs), validation of transaction sets based on asset Deploy/Mint rules (Verified Asset TXs), and asset computation and statistical analysis (Asset Computation). Each Indexer operates these steps independently and records the results and summaries off-chain and on-chain. This open and transparent approach, along with the availability of intermediate step data, facilitates third-party verification and enhances the ecosystem's integrity.
VRF-Based Consensus
To ensure decentralization and security, the candidate consensus node set can be extensive, preventing single users or entities from exerting control. Utilizing a Verifiable Random Function (VRF), Zion ensures that a random, unbiased subset of nodes is chosen for each validation round. The inherent unpredictability and fairness of the VRF, combined with its resistance to tampering, provide a fine balance that ensures security and decentralization while efficiently managing communication and consensus-related overhead.
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