Tron Launches Virtual Machine, Tech Chief Explains Odyssey Features

Yesterday, as promised earlier, Tron released Odyssey 3.0 blockchain software, a major upgrade aimed to position itself as a noteworthy competitor to Ethereum. During the release of Odyssey – the Tron Virtual Machine (TVM) – Marcus Zhao, Tron Foundation’s tech director, explained the crucial features offered by Odyssey 3.0 and the future plans of the Foundation.

The code, which is now available on GitHub, is the beta version of Tron’s virtual machine. It includes a range of tools that would facilitate developers to harness the power of decentralized apps and deploy smart contracts on the network.

The Ethereum compatible virtual machine allows porting Ethereum DApps onto Tron’s mainnet without significant alterations to the code. Tron also claims that its virtual machine practically requires less amount of physical memory for running DApps. The Foundation has also guaranteed that its network offers better scalability than Ethereum.

This means possibilities of congestion, which has become a routine in Ethereum network, is very less while running DApps on its mainnet. Furthermore, TRX token transactions are also considerably cheaper than Ether, a crucial feature that makes the platform more attractive to developers.

Commenting on the launch of TVM, Tron Foundation said

“Tron has always attached great importance to building the infrastructure for the Tron ecosystem. Since the release of the TVM beta version, the Tron team has been conducting tests and debugging for the security and stability of the TVM, as well as optimization for the compiler and the instruction set. Currently, the TVM official version integrates better developers’ tools, developer team building and game engine construction, which creates a VM system with higher performance, better ecosystem and easier operation.”

With the availability of the code, nodes, wallet providers and cryptocurrency exchanges can upgrade their software to reflect the changes.

Notably, Tron’s development team has stated that it will reveal details about multi-signature, zero-knowledge proof and cross-chain communication protocol next month.

Marcus Zhao – Tron Foundation’s tech director

Marcus began by explaining about the 27 Super Representatives (SR), which he considers as “important staff” for Tron to become an autonomous decentralized committee.

The activation of the TVM requires approval from at least 2/3rd of the 27 SR. If otherwise, the committee will not permit TVM to get activated. Additionally, the committee has control over 20 plus parameters, including the block generation reward and transaction fees. The committee will be endowed with these powers only after it upgrades to Odyssey 3.0.

As mentioned earlier, the unique virtual memory mechanism within TVM considerably reduces the physical memory requirement for running DApps. Marcus has stated that this would offer developers with virtually infinite memory, leading to a decrease in the running cost of the DApps. Marcus has further pointed out that EOS faces a similar problem. He emphasized that the unique mechanism provided in TVM will prevent interference to development process from memory related issues.

Furthermore, TVM uses a Distinctive Design Module “along with energy to represent aggregated system resources.” Marcus explained that the fundamental concept of CPU, memory, etc., is shielded, resulting in a vast improvement in the accessibility of the system, while significantly reducing the learning cost of DApp development.

Marcus also pointed out that “the business module for the resource consumption of smart contracts is 2B instead of 2C.” He said:

“Smart contract developer will be responsible for the resource consumption generated at a calling in certain proportion, reducing the resource proportion for the caller.”

The implementation of decentralized exchanges on the banker protocol enables Tron Network users to release not only their own tokens, but also exchange. Tron believes that the facility could considerably improve liquidation of the token and improve Tron ecosystem significantly.

Tron is planning to offer new features such as the plugin mechanism for the database and the BFT consensus in the next version of Odyssey.

The Foundation has also stated that it will focus on compiler optimization, storage optimization and instruction set optimization of Tron Virtual Machine.