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Continuing our GoCrypto series, an interview project that explores the insights of global blockchain and cryptocurrency thought leaders, Mike Ermolaev had the opportunity to speak with Beniamin Mincu, the visionary CEO and founder of MultiversX. In this interview, Beniamin shares insights into the impact of MultiversX’s latest technological advancements, strategies for community engagement, and his vision for the future of blockchain technology.
Each round will be supported by GoMining, an infrastructure support project focused on sustainable Bitcoin mining through NFTs, to create a more fair mining environment.
Mincu’s role in the development of MultiversX and blockchain technology
Known for his pioneering work in the blockchain space, Beniamin has played a key role in developing scalable L1 solutions, focusing on cross-chain security, interoperability, asset tokenization, and sovereign chains. Prior to joining MultiversX, Beniamin co-founded and led Metachain Capital, a digital asset investment fund dedicated to accelerating innovation in the blockchain space through capital, key connections, and strategic advice. He has received investments from leading market players.
Under his leadership, MultiversX has emerged as a top 100 L1 project, processing an impressive 263,000 transactions per second across a growing ecosystem of over 8,200 dApps and 3,200 nodes. It is also one of the greenest chains, recognized for its carbon neutral footprint.
The latest Sovereign Chains deployment on this chain provides an on-demand sovereign execution environment, 100x scalability, and a meta-coordination layer for Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and other L1s.
The impact of auction-based mechanisms on network decentralization and security
MultiversX has reached a major turning point with the launch of an auction-based system, giving validators a new role in strengthening the security and decentralization of the network. Beniamin explains:
“The auction model has brought about some notable improvements. The Nakamoto coefficient has increased by 50%, the number of nodes managed by the top 15 providers has decreased by almost 15%, and the trend of small staking entities increasing is very positive.”
Previously, with validator caps in place and high demand to participate in the MultiversX staking economy, smaller providers in particular had a hard time growing. Even if they were successful in attracting stake from delegators, they had to go through a first-come, first-served waiting list that could take up to several months. During this time, they typically offered lower APRs due to inactive standby nodes, which could potentially lead to dissatisfied delegators leaving due to uncertainty.
“The system is now much more merit-driven,” Beniamin said. “And we are already seeing success stories from smaller providers who have seen their node count increase 5-10x since the Staking V4 upgrade.”
One such success story is Colombia Staking, a staking operator in South America, which has actively participated in the ecosystem and gained support from the community by running a node at home using Starlink and solar panels.
Improve developer productivity and test accuracy
To further accelerate the development process and simplify network testing, MultiversX introduced Chain Simulator, Beniamin explains:
“The Chain Simulator can be used to replicate the behavior of a local testnet. Unlike traditional testnets, the Simulator operates without a consensus group, allowing for isolated testing. It provides testing in the same state as the mainnet, facilitating more accurate and realistic development scenarios and rapid system testing of smart contracts.”
One of the main advantages of Chain Simulator is its ability to execute transactions instantly, even during mainnet block times. Beniamin explains:
“Transactions can be executed instantly, despite the mainnet block time, so tests with a large number of transactions can be performed much faster than if they were performed on the mainnet or a real blockchain,” he said. “Chain Simulator allows developers to construct rare custom states of the blockchain and find edge cases that would be very difficult or impossible to replicate in other environments,” he added.
Prioritize Swift fixes and future improvements
Additionally, to address the challenges faced by validators, MultiversX has implemented Vega Patch 2, a protocol upgrade that includes certain fixes and optimizations. Beniamin explains:
“This particular protocol upgrade brought a few minor fixes to how node endpoints and the auction list cache are updated. The general consensus among validators and developers on the MultiversX network is that any issue that is in production, no matter how small or large, should be prioritized as soon as possible, and not simply deferred until it is relegated to 'bad tech we can live with'. Given how complex distributed systems are, you never know when something minor might lead to a large-scale issue. That's why we as a community always try to move quickly – not just in building things, but also in shipping patches (which will eventually be inevitable).”
Looking ahead, Beniamin shares that while Phase 4 of the staking module has been completed, future improvements are still in progress. He says:
“Shortly after mainnet in 2020, we released our staking roadmap and discussed it openly with the community. Phase 4 was the final puzzle piece of that plan, and it’s great to see all the proposed phases go live, making MultiversX one of the second most decentralized non-power networks after Ethereum with over 3,300 validator nodes. We are currently monitoring the progress, have had positive feedback and results so far, and do not plan on proposing any major changes anytime soon. Our main focus right now is to improve finality (up to 90% improvement), reduce latency (from 6 seconds to 1 second), provide a better experience for developers, and upgrade the state of crypto across the ecosystem with Sovereign Chains SDK for native interoperable L2.”
Epochs Handler Refactoring and System Maintenance
Beniamin also discusses improvements brought about by a new epoch handler refactor that improves the overall system management and adaptability of the MultiversX network. He says:
“The epochs handler is the only component that knows exactly when to activate new features and major modifications, effectively helping the network to come into sync when its behavior changes. As such, almost all major node subcomponents depend on it. We wanted to simplify it through refactoring and align it with our coding guidelines. This way, we ended up with a lighter, more scalable component that is much less prone to human error during development and easier to integrate into any internal storage that needs to handle things differently before and after a certain epoch. We currently handle 114 different flags on mainnet.”
Community and Developer Feedback
Community and developer feedback plays a vital role in shaping the future development of MultiversX, explains Beniamin:
“Interactions with community members and builders provide two main types of feedback. One group consists of individuals who believe in the technology, team, and vision. These highly engaged and long-term community members are closely connected to monitor the progress of the protocol and the development of core apps. The other feedback stream comes from cross-chain enthusiasts interested in the broader Web3 space. They see MultiversX as a powerful and flexible platform that can solve core problems such as security, scalability, and UX/DevEx across Web3 chains.”
He continues,
“We work with the community and Web3 builders to determine priorities, allocate resources, and devise strategies for adoption and growth. Our recently released roadmap includes a framework to further engage the community, allowing everyone to vote on initiatives across a range of verticals, including protocols and Sovereign Chains.”
Facilitating adoption, innovation and community engagement
MultiversX utilizes a multi-faceted approach to drive adoption and innovation within the ecosystem, including participating in major events and hosting large-scale hackathons.
He says:
“Conferences and meetups are first and foremost a great way to gather direct community feedback and have brainstorming sessions on how to make things better. IRL catchups are, in our experience, the most effective and fun. Secondly, they are also a great distribution channel to raise awareness about the MultiversX technology, services, ecosystem, builders, and other great on-chain upgrades that have the potential to upgrade virtually every vertical. In general, they are also very effective for introductions, deals, and new collaborations.”
Beniamin explains the impact of the MultiversX Network Hackathon on the development of new blockchain solutions and engagement with the academic community:
“These are part of a longer-term process and strategy to onboard developers and young builders to MultiversX. The expected impact of these initiatives is at least to maintain the current way things are going. We are continuously collaborating with close to a dozen universities around the world, working with academics and experts in various fields to research blockchain implementations, teach them in their classes, pay EGLD for school taxes, or integrate entire MultiversX courses directly into Masters programs. Our hackathon events are also very popular, with one of our recent events bringing together close to a thousand developers to build 150 team projects, competing for a $1M prize pool and innovating on Web3.”
He continues,
“The massive hackathons we’ve hosted have demonstrated strong interest in MultiversX, showcasing hundreds of projects leveraging the protocol’s unique features, ecosystem, and tools. The diversity of these projects is incredible, spanning payments, DeFi, tokenization, Web3 games, Metaverse experiences, and developer tools. These events are injecting new energy into the builder community and expanding the interconnectivity of the ecosystem.”
Going forward, MultiversX plans to strengthen developer engagement through partnerships with prestigious universities, such as launching a blockchain course for 100 students with eCornell and organizing a hackathon for Web3 projects in collaboration with Milton Friedman University in Hungary. Finally, the Sovereign Chains grant aims to support new initiatives to make the technology more attractive to developers. MultiversX is also in discussions with cross-chain projects interested in Sovereign Chains and is excited to see what they can launch.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not provided or intended to be legal, tax, investment, financial or other advice.
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