Nebulas: Chinese Google of the Blockchain?

This photo of a real Nebula looks cooler than their logo

Nebulas is creating a search engine for the blockchain. The title kind of gives it away.

Team

The team appears to be pretty rock solid. They have a few former NEO employees and an engineer from Google. The team also has sector experience at a previous blockchain company which is rare and highly beneficial to have. They won’t be making any rookie mistakes. Nebulas is also is already staffed up with engineers so I think they have a good chance to hit their deadlines and will ship a viable product.

Tech

Nebulas plans to use value ranking to create the search engine of the blockchain. To be honest it sounds exactly like the way Google PageRank was originally setup for the web. The whitepaper has a lot of pages diagramming how the search function will work. I have no idea what all of it means but the way they structured it seems reasonable.

The Nebulas bloclchain is designed to be easily upgradable without having to fork the chain. This is a key feature of 2nd and 3rd generation blockchains as we have seen all the pain and conflicts created by attempts to upgrade Bitcoin and Ethereum. This also allows for smartcontracts to be upgraded which is a feature I have not previously seen. The ability to upgrade smart contracts/the blockchain is also helpful if the search algorithm isn’t perfect initially because they can easily upgrade it.

Finally, they have designed incentives into the platform. Well thought out incentive structures based on game theory are a hallmark of 3rd generation blockchains. The next generation founders are not just thinking about what the technology will be used for but also how it will be used.

Market

I am not aware of any other competitors in the space. Wait just kidding, there is Google. This is a major elephant in the room for Nebulas. If Google wanted to enter blockchain search, they probably could do so quickly and at relatively little expense (for them). The good news for Nebulas is I haven’t seen any evidence anywhere that Google intends to enter the market. Also if Nebulas gets a big enough head start anyone else entering in the space might be unable to catch up due to network effects.

Final Thoughts

Nebulas has a strong future. The blockchain space has already grown so large that it is hard for any one person to know every coin, token, or smartcontract inside out. This tech is sorely needed for the space and I think it will only bring good things to the community as a whole.

To do your own research have a look at How to evaluate Altcoins like a Venture Capitalist

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