GoChain: A Smarter,Stronger and Efficient platform for the fast growing world of cryptocurrency.
My entry to @originalworks for the contest: GoChain
This post is about the way blockchains can achieve a faster stronger smarter and secure transaction and the company GoChain
CRYPTOCURRENCY AND THE WORLD:
The world is gradually shifting from the traditional means of trading which makes use of fiat to a digital trading that uses cryptocurrencies and smart contracts.
Cryptocurrencies are decentralised (to an extent), the transactions are peer to peer (P2P), anonymity of users, and compatible with markets around the world. The smart contract is basically a protocol that facilitates, verify and enforce the performance of a digitally created contract. Both Cryptocurrencies and smart contracts are shaping the economy of the world.
Since the invention and use of Cryptocurrencies in 2009, there has been the need to create a more secured, scalable and decentralized blockchain. Most block chain may say that decentralization has never attained its true form even though the existing firms may claim otherwise. Amongst some of the problems facing the current system are: speed of transaction, volume of transaction, storage and energy consumption. GoChain is a company with the main aim of solving the problems.
CURRENT SYSTEMS AND PROBLEMS:
[1] DECENTRALIZATION
A centralized economy or blockchain gives room for governments to manipulate or influence the rates of the blockchain. Since most of the platforms are concentrated in certain parts of the world , government s or even firms can "tweak" the system to go in their favor and defrauding its customers. China for instance has the cheapest electricity tariffs and 75-80 percent of the blocks are mined by big companies and if there be a collusion, 51% of the attack would be possible. WhitePaper page 8
[2] SPEED AND VOLUME:
Current platforms are very slow when it comes to completing a transaction. Verification of users on a platform accounts for the bulk of the time spent in the transaction. The amount of transaction carried out per second is still very small. The systems won't handle large transactions and even when they handle small ones , they do it too slowly. Bitcoin has carries out 7 transaction per second and the Ethereum has a 13 transaction rate per second. As small these numbers may appear, it will take the process several minutes or hours to attain completion. And as the saying goes ”time is money ".
[3] ENERGY CONSUMPTION
The mining process in crypto platforms requires a lot of computations and consequently, a lot of energy (electrical). Energy can be a problem especially in areas with cutthroat tariffs. The Bitcoin platform alone consumes the same amount of energy required to power 3.5million household in the United States. That is no small consumption.
[4] STORAGE
Most firms accumulate outrageous amount of data during a transaction on a daily basis.
The blockchain does a lot of computations which accounts for the large amount of data . The Ethereum blockchain currently has an average of 700,000 transactions per day which equals 120.4MB(daily) and 43.9GB per year. Propagating this across 23,000 nodes will result to a staggering 101 pentabyte of data. Too much storage one might say.
[4] RIGID CONTRACTS
Anyone engaged in real life business will understand the concept of contracts. However, in the digital world , contracts are different and stiff. Unlike real-life contracts, once the terms of the contracts are set, they are immutable. You cannot alter the terms and conditions of the contracts. Participants lose a lot of money form this "bug" in the digital contracts.
Why GoChain ..
How do they solve the problems of the existing systems?!!!
[1] speed and volume
GoChain will improve speed and volume by using trusted nodes. Since the are trusted nodes, verification is fast and high volume of transactions can be processed. The size of signers on the GoChain are a small set and this allows for increase in block size. Now this takes care ofnthebproble of PoW also. Increasing block sizes using the PoW is tedious and consuming but on the GoChain,needing no computation, avoids this entirely.
[2] Energy consumption
Gochain has no authoritative node and this implies that no form of mining will take place like the PoW. Consequently, no computers will be used in carrying out large computations and this saves energy. The primary duty of the node is to process transactions,run smart contracts and verify blocks.
[3] Storage
Gochain solves the problem of storage by ensuring that a set of nodes uses checkpoints to store small fractions of the total blockchain required for processing.
[4] Smart-er contracts
The new smart contracts proposed by Gochain is going to be easily deployable and writing, less
cumbersome. It will have a semblance to a real world contract. Modification is now possible and the gochain platform will set out modalities on how to modify a contract( the when and how).
With this even though the blockchain evolves, the participants can easily rewrite their contracts based on the terms provided.
Moneys are saved!!!
[5] Decentralization
Gochain is starting up with 50 validators who are big time businesses and companies cut across all spheres of business and the world (50 different nations). With this approach no single government can manipulate the prices.
SHORTCOMINGS OF CURRENT ALGORITHMS
In recent times most firms have been trying to attain a true decentralized blockchain having all the strengths and no weaknesses. They employed what is known as the consensus algorithm
The current algorithms are as follow:
[#] Proof of Authority (PoA)
Trusted individuals known as validators stake their identities in exchange for money on the network. These individuals are to validate any contract on the platform. This algorithm is characterized by increase in transaction speed since no computation is required. However it s not compatible with the Ethereum blockchain.
Security(for participants) is an issue because trusting individuals can still launder the system to amass wealth. Most of the validators may not have the savvy on running a secure blockchain. Security (for validators) is also a drawback because their information is declared publicly and they can become target for terrorists and assaulters.
[#] Proof of Work
This algorithms makes use of miners who carry out heavy computational works to generate wealth on the blockchain. The more computations on the blockchain the more rewards.
[#] Proof of Stake (PoS)
The validation in the is algorithm is solely based on the stake of the individuals. The more coins you have in the platform, the more the validating power. Users having high stakes will always want to ensure that the system works. There is minor problem which makes this algorithm untrustworthy. The validations are anonymous and thus they can amass wealth and prevent poorer stakeholders from validating. Another drawback is that the system has a commendable energy consumption reduction but it is built for high performance.
With the inefficiencies of current algorithms, GoChain will be implementing the proof of reputation (PoR).
Unlike the PoA , the stakeholders who are validators will be reputable companies. This approach is chosen because the company will have more to lose than a single individual. Any fraudulent act by the company may cause the economic melt down of the company for they will lose the trust of their customers.
The implementation will be as follows:
companies will be chosen as a function of their reputation. This reputation will based on the company's market capitalization, if the are publicly traded and if they require public brands for their business.
Once the companies are chosen the system takes the structure of the PoA.
Ethereum is the platform upon which it shall be built. The wallets and development tools will be compatible on the blockchain.
REWARDS / INCENTIVES
"No risk, no reward" as the saying goes. The signers(nodes on the Platform in charge of creating, signing and distributing blocks to other nodes) on the platform GoChain will be getting an initial reward of 5% of the total token (50,000,000) for very block signed. It should be noted that the rewards rate will decrease over time. There is an assigned signer on the platform that "oversees" the rest nodes on the platform. In the event that thee assigned signer is unavailable, the consensus protocol allows other blocks to be signed.
One of the major problems with PoW is that it is difficult to create a new block especially once a lot of data has been accumulated so GoChain builds a a checkpoint. This checkpoint is a snapshot of the current state of the entire blockchain at a particular block number. This save state allows for the removal of previous blocks and data. When a new node starts, it simply resumes from the last checkpoint. Considering the small size of this data and the current prices of cloud storage , it is the more efficient way to create new nodes.
Gochain Roadmap:
GoChain Tokeconomics
GoChain and the Future
Their main aim on the long term is to create an easy to use blockchain with outstanding improvements on speed of transactions, storage of data, number of transactions to be carried out very second. All this accomplished with little or no margin for error.
CONCLUSION
There are always inadequacies and shortcomings in the digital economic world and it must be taken care of sooner rather than later considering the influx of participants into the digital market. The current blockchain may not be large enough , or perform transactions fast enough or even offer a secure and risk-free exchange but with the GoChain, the blockchain is about to change for the better. GoChain offers 10times more decentralization; 100times more speed and 1000times more efficiency in energy consumption.
For further enquiries:
Gochain website
GoChain Telegram
GoChain facebook
GoChain Twitter
GoChain Reddit
Thanks for reading.
Bye.
gochain2018