What is Mina (MINA)?
MINA is the native asset for the platform of the same name. The Mina network presents itself as “the world’s lightest blockchain”, as its size is constantly maintained at 22 kB. It facilitates faster operations of decentralized applications (dApps). All information regarding the Mina price can be seen in the chart above.
Who is the Team Behind Mina?
The founding team of the Mina crypto platform includes Evan Shapiro, Izaak Meckler, Brad Cohen, Emre Tekişalpm, Vanishree Rao, and Joseph Bonneau. The project was conceived as an inclusive open-source blockchain protocol.
Shapiro is the CEO and Board member of the Mina Foundation, the organization behind the crypto platform. He’s a software engineer who directly contributed to building the Mina protocol. Meckler is a fellow software engineer and the CTO at O(1) Labs, a Web3 security solutions provider.
Cohen, Tekişalpm, and Rao are all also part of the O(1) Labs team, contributing to the research and development of Mina. Bonneau is the Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne. His research focuses on cryptography, blockchain technology, and cryptocurrencies.
Mina aims to solve one of the biggest issues related to blockchain technology – scalability. As new information is registered on the distributed ledger, the blockchain size continues to grow, requiring more energy and hardware to be fully processed.
The team started their work on the lightweight blockchain in 2017. The project was initially known as Coda Protocol. However, in September 2020, following a trademark lawsuit, the name was changed to Mina.
In January 2021, prior to the launch, the network started a bug bounty program. Its goal was to reduce the network vulnerabilities before releasing the Mainnet. All participants were eligible for rewards that accounted for 1% of the overall Mina supply at the time.
The Mina Mainnet officially launched in March 2021. Around this time, the MINA price was roughly $4. Throughout its first year in the market, the asset was volatile, experiencing frequent fluctuations. Its peak during the first year from launch was recorded in June 2021, when the asset value nearly reached $10.
What Are the Features of Mina?
The Mina token was launched with a supply of 1 billion. However, there is no maximum supply cap for the asset, and it can be produced continuously. The token is inflationary; however, to help adjust the Mina price, the first 1 billion tokens are going to be gradually unlocked within 8 years.
Mina stands out for its compact network side. The platform was programmed to maintain a blockchain size of 22 kB regardless of the logged transactions. This is minuscule compared to Bitcoin, which exceeded 400 GB in 2022, and expands by roughly a gigabyte every few days.
Mina is a succinct blockchain, meaning that it always maintains the same size. As other blockchains of this type, it’s used to complete two key functions – verify and update the blockchain data. The native MINA token is used for transactional utility.
Due to its architecture, the Mina developers have taken additional precautions to avoid network exploitations and security breaches. As such, there are three types of network contributors – verifiers, snarkers, and block producers. All Mina users are verifiers by default if their devices are able to process the lightweight blockchain.
All data on the Mina blockchain is authenticated using zk-SNARKs (Zero-Knowledge Non-Interactive Arguments of Knowledge). This way, the validity of transaction information is verified without exposing it. Rather than dealing with the full blockchain history, snarkers only process a compressed proof of several latest blocks.
Block producers are users that stake their assets to support the network. These users take the transaction data and combine it into blocks. They also work with SNARKs to compress the blockchain data. Producers are able to receive MINA coins as a reward and an incentive to continue contributing to the chain.
There’s a direct relationship between block producers and snarkers on Mina. Block producers are paid in transaction fees for creating new blocks. They then pay the snarkers using the transaction fees for a predetermined Mina price to receive valid data. Block producers usually prioritize transactions with the lowest SNARK prices.
Snarkers process the transaction data and create the lightweight zk-SNARK, which the block producer must then download and use in a new block. This way, the block producers are rewarded by the network while incentivizing the snarkers in return.
For its network, Mina employs a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus algorithm known as the Ouroboros Samasika. This algorithm was designed with succinct blockchains like Mina in mind. It allows network nodes to verify data directly from the genesis block, thus optimizing the operations and saving both space and energy.
The transaction process on Mina includes steps that are unique to succinct networks. First, users must initiate transactions with a MINA price value of their choice. Once it’s initiated, it enters the mempool with other unconfirmed valid transactions. Snarkers then create transaction proofs – SNARKS.
Once enough SNARKS have been created from multiple transactions, block producers bundle them into a new block. The selection of transactions is not automatic, and the block producer has the right to select their priority. This means that the trades with the most profitable Mina price value for the producer are typically prioritized.
The new block with the validated SNARKS is added to the blockchain, and the network is updated with accurate data. The snarked transactions are then taken out of the chain, maintaining the 22 kB network size. Finally, the zk-SNARKS of the network are fully updated to ensure all validators have access to the same data.
As a lightweight network, Mina offers fast transactions with low fees. This is achieved via the parallel scan state. It’s a method of putting blocks that have not been verified yet into groups and forwarding their proving process to parallel provers.
Mina is also known for being a smartphone-compatible platform. On average, a transaction on Mina lasts around 200 milliseconds, and the state proof size is under a kilobyte. This energy efficiency means that mobile devices can also handle the transactions and act as network nodes.
