What is Matrix AI Network (MAN)?
MAN uses artificial intelligence to create an easier, safer, and faster blockchain.
What problem are they trying to solve?
MAN highlights four issues with the status quo of cryptocurrencies:
- They process too slowly.
- Programming smart contracts is difficult.
- Bugs in code and smart contracts have significant financial implications.
- Managing and updating blockchains results in forks, which devalue the cryptocurrency.
What is their solution?
Matrix primarily uses artificial intelligence to address the major issues with cryptocurrencies:
- Speed – MAN will use a random clustering-based Proof of Stake and Proof of Work consensus mechanism that will quickly process transactions. Block time intervals are not disclosed in the whitepaper. To summarize the whitepaper, a random Proof of Stake lottery occurs that finds a delegate node from a cluster of stakers. That delegate node then performs a proof of work and that delegate shares the proof of work reward with the other nodes in its cluster.
Programming – No programming expertise will be needed to create smart contracts on the Matrix AI Network. MAN is creating an algorithm so that artificial intelligence can convert human language descriptions into smart contracts.
Bugs/Security – Matrix uses artificial intelligence to build a robust blockchain. The whitepaper lists four security components “1) a rule-based semantic and syntactic analysis engine for smart contracts, 2) a formal verification toolkit to prove the security properties of smart contracts, 3) an AI-based detection engine for transaction model identification and security checking, and 4) a deep learning-based platform for dynamic security verification and enhancement.”
- Flexibility – MAN’s whitepaper states that it will have evolutionary parameter optimization without triggering hard forks. The optimization engine is embedded in the bottom layer of MATRIX so that its characteristics are updated automatically without forking.
Who is their team?
The team consists of award winning architects and scientists in machine learning, deep learning, and integrated circuits. Their history coincides well with the what their whitepaper is trying to pitch.
Miscellaneous
The Senior Vice President of Matrix leads blockchain initiatives for the One Belt One Road project that aims to facilitate trade between Eurasian countries
Matrix’s mining system uses Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) computation as proof of work, which has applications outside of cryptocurrencies, such as personalized medicine, finance modeling, human cognition modeling, and social network analysis. It is idealized that the Matrix’s proof of work can be used as crowdsourcing for other real-world applications. The downside is that the required computing pattern for MCMC is not friendly to CPUs and GPUs, and it requires a specific type of machine.
Point of the token?
All transaction fees on the Matrix blockchain are paid in MAN. If people end up using MAN for smart contracts, they will need MAN to process those contracts.
Concerns?
Matrix’s AI solution for programming, security, and flexibility sound like a pipe dream, and they do not have a testable product yet. A testnet is scheduled to come in September 2018. The supporting details in the whitepaper leave out specific details.
BlockWolf Summary: Matrix AI Network addresses all the major issues that plague the current state of cryptocurrencies. We commonly see scalability as crypto’s biggest issue but if only a select group of programmers know how to write secure smart contracts, crypto adoption will be limited. To BlockWolf, Matrix’s most critical goal will be creating an easier way for users to write smart contracts, but that mission sounds like a fantasy. It seems like Matrix is skipping a step in the evolution of coding smart contracts, which makes the likelihood of their success less convincing. This project could take years to complete and seems even more speculative than some other projects in the space. Matrix’s eventual testnet and mainnet launch should provide more clarity into the team’s potential for progress.