100 SmartNodes in 31 Days

Raptoreum — A PoW ASIC/FGPA Resistant Smart Contract Scalability Solution

5 min readMar 28, 2021

Raptoreum launched its mainnet on Feb 26, 2021 and in 31 days it has seen an extremely impressive 100 SmartNodes deployed on the network. SmartNodes require 600,000 RTM collateral to build and with approximately 100 million RTM emitted to date, around 60% of the first month’s rewards have already been locked up into SmartNodes. These Smartnodes provide security against reorganization for the RTM network and will further prove to be a “smart” solution to the ever-growing problem of Smart Contract Scalability.

What is Raptoreum (RTM)?

Some people probably think of the smartest dinosaurs in the hit movie Jurassic Park when they hear the name “Raptoreum,” but as Dr. Grant points out in the very beginning of the movie “even the word ‘raptor’ means “bird of prey.” Wikipedia explains, “Birds of prey, also known as raptors, include species of bird that primarily hunt and feed on vertebrates that are large relative to the hunter.” Make no mistake — this newly-launched Proof of Work cryptocurrency is ready to swoop in and feed on large competitors.

“A secure and ASIC/FPGA resistant Proof [of]Work cryptocurrency that allows for asset creation, futures, and smart contracts, while remaining immune to 51% double spend attacks.”
— https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/raptoreum

Ghostrider Algorithm

Raptoreum is currently a CPU only POW coin, meaning that no software yet exists that can mine for it using GPUs, FPGAs, or ASICs. In fact, the project outlines in the Litepaper that it specifically seeks to reject expensive hardware that overly centralizes network hash power along with miner rewards and coin supply over time.

Raptoreum is dedicated to keeping ASICs and FPGAs off the network to increase decentralization and keep it mineable by everyone without the use of high dollar specialized hardware. As part of our effort to make this happen we have rolledout our own POW algorithm codenamed “GhostRider” GhostRider uses the x16r randomizer combined with CNv1–8, this results in an algorithm that discourages ASIC and FPGA by making it much too expensive for a minimal gain.
Added to that, we are developing the ability to adjust the algorithm on the fly. This allows Raptoreum to change some algorithmic parameters on the fly that would dump ASICS and FPGA should they be found to be on the network, without requiring the slow, costly and insecure process of forking fully.”
— https://docs.raptoreum.com/_media/Raptoreum_Litepaper.pdf

“Under the hood” of Raptoreum, the Ghostrider algorithm provides a unique opportunity for anyone to utilize idle CPU power in order to earn reasonable RTM rewards without having to purchase specialized, expensive hardware to make it worth the effort. As with any Proof of Work cryptocurrency, the miners verify transactions and add blocks onto the existing chain for RTM rewards.

A detailed explanation can be found here:
https://medium.com/@kawwwoin/raptoreums-ghostrider-algorithm-explained-93f1f8070158

51% Attack Protection

Unlike many other PoW networks, Raptoreum has enacted LLMQ-based ChainLocks, which means that an attacker gaining more than 51% of the active network hash power could never reorganize the chain more than 1 block. This is possible due to the way that SmartNodes provide a special CLSIG message in every block. This message can only be valid and present in a block if more than 60% of the SmartNodes on the network have seen the block first. DASH has also implemented this design. They explain in detail how the CLSIG protects against reorganization of the blockchain:

“If a valid CLSIG message is received by a node, it should reject all blocks (and their descendants) at the same height that do not match the block specified in the CLSIG message. This makes the decision on the active chain quick, easy and unambiguous. It also makes reorganizations below this block impossible.”
— https://blog.dash.org/mitigating-51-attacks-with-llmq-based-chainlocks-7266aa648ec9

Uses

Smart Contract Scalability Solution:
Raptoreum recognizes the smart contract scalability and programming language restrictions that exist in Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies that use block-based asset & contract layer solutions. Raptoreum seeks to solve this problem by instead allowing smart contracts to be developed directly onto the smartnode layer. This removes the block size limit from smart contracts created on the Raptoreum network and provides much greater flexibility in smart contract creation.

Transaction Security & Speed:
Raptoreum also provides the security of a PoW network with instant send transactions backed by LLMQ based chainlocks meaning that any transaction sent on the network shows up as unconfirmed instantly in the receiving wallet and is fully confirmed after 1 block. With a 2 minute average block time, this means transactions of any size can be sent for an extremely low cost instantly with an average total confirmation time of 2 minutes. Any exchange that wishes to list RTM would need at most 3 confirmations to be sure that the transaction was immutable.

DAPP Flexibility

Providing 3–4 programming languages on the SmartNode DAPP and Smart Contract layer means that a much larger pool of developers can actively begin developing on Raptoreum immediately without having to learn Solidity or some other singular/specific programming language. The 3–4 programming languages will be immediately available when Smart Contracts are live in Q4 2021 according to the RTM roadmap.

NFTs /Assets

“Raptoreum is adding an asset layer that will allow anybody to quickly and easily create a non fungible asset/token. Trustless on chain transfers of these assets will be possible once smart contracts have been added. Raptoreum is building a simple to use asset platform that will allow anybody to tokenize anything (non fungible tokens) with a few clicks. That same platform while being simple will also be extremely flexible, powerful, and scalable.”
— https://raptoreum.com/

Where Can I Find RTM?

According to CoinGecko, there are currently only two smaller exchanges where you can currently buy RTM and at the time of this writing it seems to be trading at around 4–6 sats. The only other way to get it is to purchase it OTC in the RTM Discord server or to mine it yourself with CPU power. GPU mining software does not exist, so the only way to use GPUs to earn RTM would be to mine a different cryptocurrency to sell that could be used to buy RTM.

The Raptoreum team also hosts regular trivia events in their Discord and Telegram servers where anyone can win RTM and a member of the RTM has already setup a community funded faucet where anyone can enter an RTM address to be given between 2.5 and 5 RTM once a day. See the links below for the faucet and to join the RTM community.