Innovating Beyond 'Bad Tech that We Can Live With': An Interview with Beniamin Mincu, CEO & Founder of MultiversX

In continuation of the GoCrypto series, an interview project featuring insights from 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 his insights on the impact of MultiversX's latest technological advancements, their strategies for community engagement, and their vision for the future of blockchain technology.

Each installment is powered by GoMining—an infrastructure-backed project focused on sustainable Bitcoin mining through NFTs for a more equitable mining environment.

Mincu's Role in Advancing MultiversX and Blockchain Technology

Known for his pioneering work in the blockchain space, Beniamin has been instrumental in developing scalable L1 solutions, focusing on cross-chain security, interoperability, asset tokenization, and sovereign chains. Before joining MultiversX, Beniamin co-founded and led Metachain Capital, a digital asset investment fund dedicated to fostering innovation in the blockchain sector through capital, key connections, strategic advice, and more with investments from major players in the market.

Under his leadership, MultiversX has emerged as a top-100 L1 project, processing an impressive 263,000 transactions per second with a growing ecosystem of over 8,200 dApps and 3,200 nodes. It is also among the greenest chains, with a recognized carbon-neutral footprint.

The chain’s latest Sovereign Chains deployment provides on-demand sovereign execution environments, 100X scalability and a meta-coordinating layer for Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and other L1s.

Effects of the Auction-Based Mechanism on Network Decentralization and Security

MultiversX saw a major turning point with the launch of an auction-based system, granting validators a new role that bolstered the network's security and decentralization. Beniamin explains,

"The auction model brought some visible improvements: the Nakamoto Coefficient has seen a 50% increase; nodes managed by top 15 providers reduced by almost 15%; and the growing trend for smaller staking entities is vastly positive."

Previously, with the capped validator set and the high demand for participating in the MultiversX staking economy, providers, especially smaller ones, had a hard time growing. Even if they were successful at attracting stake from delegators, they had to go through a first-come, first-served waitlist that could take up to several months. During this time, they typically offered a smaller APR because of the inactive waiting nodes, resulting in unhappy delegators that would potentially leave due to uncertainty.

"Now the system is way more merit-based," Beniamin notes, "and we are already seeing success stories from small providers which have 5-10x their number of nodes since the Staking V4 upgrade."

An example of this success is the South American staking operator, Colombia Staking, who garnered community support thanks to its active involvement in the ecosystem and approach of running nodes at home using Starlink and solar panels.

Enhancing Developer Productivity and Testing Accuracy

To further accelerate the development process and streamline network testing, MultiversX introduced Chain Simulator. Beniamin elaborates,

"The chain simulator can be used to replicate the behavior of a local testnet. Unlike a traditional testnet, the simulator operates without a consensus group, allowing for isolated testing. It can provide testing with the same state as on the mainnet, facilitating more accurate, realistic development scenarios and swift system testing of smart contracts."

One of the key advantages of Chain Simulator is the ability to execute transactions immediately, even during mainnet blocktime. Beniamin explains,

"Transactions can be executed instantly, despite the mainnet blocktime. Therefore, a test with a bulk of transactions can be performed much faster than it would take on mainnet or against a real blockchain." He adds, "With the Chain Simulator, developers can configure a rare custom state of the blockchain and hunt for edge cases that otherwise would have been extremely difficult or impossible to replicate using other environments."

Prioritizing Swift Fixes and Future Improvements

Additionally, to address the challenges faced by validators, MultiversX has implemented the Vega Patch 2, a protocol upgrade that includes specific fixes and optimizations. Beniamin explains,

"This specific protocol upgrade brought a few minor fixes on a node endpoint and on the way the auction list cache is being updated. The general consensus of validators and developers on the MultiversX network is that issues residing in production, no matter how small or big, need to be prioritized as soon as possible and not postponed until they are labeled as simply ‘bad tech that we can live with’. Given how complex distributed systems are, you never know when something minor branches into a large-scale impacting issue. So we, as a community, always try to move fast - not only in creating things, but also in shipping patches (inevitable, after all)."

Looking ahead, Beniamin shares that while Phase 4 of the staking module has been completed, future improvements are still on the horizon. He notes,

"Soon after our mainnet in 2020, we published and publicly discussed with the community the staking roadmap. Phase 4 has been the last puzzle piece in that plan, and it’s great to see all the stages proposed live, and make MultiversX one of the most decentralized non-pow networks, second after Ethereum by validator node count with 3,300+. We are currently monitoring the progress, with positive feedback and results so far, and we do not intend to propose major changes soon. Our current main focus is on improving finality (up to 90% improvement), reducing latency (6 to 1s), providing an even better environment for developers and upgrading the state of crypto in all ecosystems with the Sovereign Chains SDK for native interoperable L2s."

Epochs Handler Refactor and System Management

Beniamin also discusses the improvements brought by the new epochs handler refactor, which has enhanced the overall system management and adaptability of the MultiversX network. He states,

 "The epochs handler is the only component that knows exactly when new features and major fixes should be enabled, effectively helping the network reach synchronization on behavior changes, thus almost all major node's subcomponents rely on it. With its refactor we wanted to simplify and align it with our coding guidelines. This way, we achieved a component that is lighter, more extensible, way less prone to human errors during development and easier to integrate in all the internal repositories that must process differently before/after a specific epoch. Currently, it handles 114 different flags on mainnet."

Community and Developer Feedback

Feedback from the community and developers plays a crucial role in shaping the future developments of MultiversX. Beniamin explains,

"Our interactions with community members and builders yield two main types of feedback. One group consists of individuals who believe in our technology, team, and vision. These highly engaged, long-term community members stay closely connected to monitor protocol progress and core app development. The other feedback stream comes from cross-chain enthusiasts interested in the broader Web3 space. They view MultiversX as a robust, flexible platform capable of addressing key issues like security, scalability, and UX/DevEx across Web3 chains." 

He continues,

"By engaging with the community and Web3 builders, we determine priorities, allocate resources, and devise strategies for adoption and growth. Our recently released roadmap includes a framework to further involve the community, allowing everyone to upvote initiatives across various verticals, including the protocol and Sovereign Chains."

Driving Adoption, Innovation, and Community Engagement

MultiversX leverages a multifaceted approach to drive adoption and innovation within its ecosystem, including participation in major events and hosting large-scale hackathons.

He notes,

"Conferences and meetups are first and foremost great ways to gather direct community feedback and have brainstorming sessions on what can be done better. IRL catch ups are the most effective (and fun) in this regard, from our experience. Secondly, they are also great distribution channels through which we raise awareness around the MultiversX technology, services, ecosystem, builders, and the great on-chain upgrade with its potential to upgrade virtually all verticals. In general, they are very effective for intros, deals, and new collabs as well."

Addressing the impacts of the MultiversX Network Hackathon on the development of new blockchain solutions and the engagement of the academic community, Beniamin elaborates,

"They are part of a long-term process and strategy to onboard developers and young builders to MultiversX. The anticipated impact of these initiatives is to at least keep going the way it’s going. We have ongoing joint collaboration with close to 10 universities from across the globe, where we research blockchain implementations together with the academics & various field experts, as well as held course in classes, have EGLD payments for school taxes, or have entire MultiversX courses directly integrated into master programs. Our hackathon events also receive very good interest, with one of the recent ones drawing close to 1,000 developers who formed 150 team projects to battle out for $1M in prizes and innovate in Web3."

He continues,

"The large-scale hackathons we have hosted have demonstrated the strong interest in MultiversX, showcasing hundreds of projects leveraging the protocol's unique features, ecosystem, and tools. The diversity of these projects is remarkable, spanning payments, DeFi, tokenization, Web3 gaming, Metaverse experiences, and developer tools. These events are injecting new energy into the builder community and expanding the ecosystem’s interconnectedness."

Looking ahead, MultiversX plans to enhance developer engagement through partnerships with prestigious universities, such as the launch of a blockchain course with eCornell for 100 students and a collaboration with Milton Friedman University in Hungary to organize a hackathon for Web3 projects. Lastly, Sovereign Chains grants aim to support new initiatives, making the technology more attractive to developers. MultiversX is also in discussions with cross-chain projects interested in Sovereign Chains and is excited about their potential to go live.

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.