Introduction to Witness

Functions of Witness

YOYOW uses a consensus mechanism for flexible selection of DPoS + PoS, and witnesses act as “miners” in traditional blockchain projects.

Its core responsibility is packaging transactions (commonly known as “producing blocks”) to maintain a stable network operation; witnesses enjoy the rewards given by the system.

Witness Qualification (Collateral)

Any account with collateral over a certain amount of YOYO can become a witness. Current minimum value for collateral: 10,000 YOYO. Witnesses are free to adjust the amount of collateral at any time.

The operation of witness registration costs 1000 YOYO, and the minimum value for collateral is 10000 YOYO, so at least 11,000 YOYO are required to become witnesses.

Ways to Become Witnessess

There are two ways to become witnesses of YOYOW:

  1. voting election
  2. YOYOW collateral

There are three types of witnesses in the above two ways:

  1. Top witnesses: directly voted in by token holders, ranked according to the number of “effective votes”, being top 11.
  2. Standby witnesses: directly voted in by token holders, ranked according to the number of “valid votes” and all other candidates apart from the top 11 are weighted according to the number of votes, taking turns to work alongside the top witnesses. Currently, three candidates ranked 12th to 14th are selected in each round.
  3. Miner witnesses: generated by collateral ranking, weighted according to “valid collateral amount”, taking turns to work. For example, if A, B and C all deposit collateral, and A has six tokens of valid collateral, B has three tokens of valid collateral, and C has one token of valid collateral, then, for the following 100 blocks, it should be arranged that A produces 60 blocks, B produces 30 blocks and C produces 10 blocks. Seven miner witnesses are selected in each round.

To sum up: YOYOW’s witness generation mechanism is based on the “number of votes” and “collateral number”, pre-selecting 21 witnesses (11 + 3 + 7). The selected witnesses take turns to producing blocks, and the round of time is about 63 seconds. When 21 witnesses finish producing blocks, the next round of elections will be automatically carried out.

Rewards of Witnesses

Witnesses will get corresponding rewards every time a block is produced.

According to the resolution of the current committee:

  • Top witnesses: 0.3 YOYO for each block
  • Standby witnesses: 0.3 YOYO for each block
  • Miner witnesses: 0.5 YOYO for each block

Witnesses can withdraw “available” rewards into their balance at any time.

Witness Election

  • Top witnesses and standby witnesses are elected according to the ranking of votes. For detailed voting rules please refer to Voting
  • Miner witnesses are elected according to the ranking of collateral. For collateral ranking rules, please refer to Collateral

Penalty Mechanism for Witnesses

  • Under suspicion of an attempt to double spend: If a witness has two blocks at the same height, it is suspected of attempting to create forks and implement a double spend attack.
  • If the network detects this situation, or if someone reports it, after the evidence is recorded, the witness is forced to go offline and some deposits are deducted.
  • No rewards for reporting for the time being

Witnesses being Offline

  • Go Offline on one’s own：witnesses can set up a temporary offline status on their own when temporary maintenance is required.
  • Go offline forcibly: When the witnesses lose blocks, if the last time of the block production is earlier than 24 hours before, the witness is automatically set to be temporarily offline with no further block production arranged, and the position is replaced by the witness of a lower rank.
  • Witnesses can be arranged in the later block production if the witnesses reset an online status manually.