GoChain, the better of all other!

okipeter (52)in #crypto • 6 years ago

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Introduction

Cryptocurrency has come to stay! Remember a time when transferring money globally at an instant? Well Cryptocurrency changed that, in a fast, easy and almost stress-less way.
Smart contract is a computer protocol that digitally facilitate, verify, or enforce the performance of a contract. In times before, the performance of credible transactions was done with third parties. Well, Smart contract came to change that. Now credible transactions can be performed without third parties, and these transactions are trackable and irreversible.
As expected, cryptocurrency and smart contractors can be used potentially via the blockchain which can take almost every institution and industry to the next level. However, there are some factors hindering this vision.
The problem of blockchain is un-scalability, decentralization problem and amount of energy needed.

The Problem:

Speed and Volume
Public, decentralized cryptocurrencies are slow. Bitcoin can only process 7 transactions per second, Ethereum can only process 13 per second. Also, the time taken to verify transactions can range from several minutes to several hours depending on current volume. This is a big problem.
Energy Consumption
Mining blocks uses an enormous amount of energy via a consensus algorithm known as Proof-of-Work (POW). POW requires non-trivial computational work by mining nodes which, in turn, makes it cost prohibitive for a bad actor to perform malicious acts. This computational workload requires energy. Do you know that about 3.5 million US households could be powered with the energy used to run the Bitcoin network? And that 1 million households can be powered with the energy used to run Ethereum? This is a huge amount of energy, and it is unsustainable.
Decentralization
Decentralization is a central tenant of cryptocurrencies. It aims to ensure that no one company or government or person can control it. In practice however, most mining is done in China where electricity is cheapest. Up to 75% of all blocks are mined by large Chinese mining companies. This is a fact of Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin, Ethereum and other top cryptocurrencies. Is this really decentralization?
Rigid Contracts
Ethereum offers smart contracts. Smart contracts allow users to write small, unmodifiable programs that aims to ensure that all involved parties are committed to a set of rules with absolute certainty. This has a high rate of success that almost every ICO has run on Ethereum’s smart contract system in the past years.
However, are these smart contracts are really not smart. They are extremely rigid contracts that wont adapt to changes like real world contracts do. Parties involved in a contract have no ability to upgrade their contract if necessary to adjust terms or to fix bugs in contract code. There are also several successful attacks made on smart contracts, and many are public.

Previous attempts at solving the problem:

Proof-of-Work Algorithm
POW was originally invented as a means to combat spam; if the cost of sending an email is computationally expensive, then spamming would be cost prohibitive, while a normal user would still send emails for an almost free cost. This is the same concept used in cryptocurrencies to prevent malicious actions by making it prohibitively expensive to modify the blockchain. POW however, suffers from poor performance, a lack of decentralization, and excessive energy consumption.
Proof-of-Stake Algorithm
The idea behind the POS is that those with the most coins in circulation have more to lose than others, so they are positioned to work in the interest of the network. This approach avoids the cost of computing hashes, however, it makes assumptions about the interests of its members being in line with the network.
Validators within the POS network are anonymous users who are identified only by their wallet address. This provides no additional accountability over POW for bad actors who can make a lot of wealth on the network. Also, transaction fees goes to those who already have the most money within the network. Lastly, the speed is only 100 transactions per seconds.
Proof-of-Authority Algorithm
Proof-of-Authority is a consensus algorithm where a trusted set individuals provide all transaction processing. This trust allows transaction processing speed to improve significantly by skipping the PoW hash computation. A few networks exist but they currently only focus on private networks or do not focus on performance as a goal. Many also do not have compatibility with the Ethereum network. Also, there is a strong incentive for bribery. Another issue is that validators must post their physical address publicly, this opens potential for intimidation or physical threats. Also, most individuals lack the experience and infrastructure to run a secure transaction processing system.

The GoChain Solution
GoChain is a next generation smart contract platform. It is a standalone blockchain. It solves the scaling problem with immediacy, using an improved Ethereum codebase. GoChain currently have a working TestNet showing in excess of 1300 transactions per second ongoing with stability and has been running as high as 2400 transactions per second.

Check out the stats from a recent 10 hour test run.

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Presently, Ethereum can only process 13 transactions per second, which is the industry capacity, and the truth is that their network is at capacity. New blockchains are been built, but these wont fix the Ethereum scaling problem. Also, these new blockchains are roughly 12-24 months out. A high percentage of smart contracts are Ethereum based (over 90%) and an immediate solution to the “scalability trilema” is needed. And, that’s where GoChain comes in.
GoChain will solve the Ethereum scaling problem with immediacy, and anyone currently using Ethereum can transfer to the GoChain network seamlessly without making any code changes. And once you join the GoChain network, you get:

10x more decentralization: this is achieved by using the Proof of Reputation algorithm
100x increase in speed: with this speed, think about the boundless achievements possible on the blockchain, it definitely keeps me in awe.
1000x improvement in energy consumption: at this low rate of energy consumption, it means more work can be done at much more lesser energy. GoChain is indeed an improvement

Proof of Reputation; the protocol and it’s benefits:
GoChain intends to solve the problem by changing the consensus algorithm from Proof of Work (POW) to Proof of Reputation (POR). POR is an upgraded, stronger, and more secure form of Proof of Authority (POA).
In POA, transactions are approved by accounts known as validators. POA is employed in private networks and a few companies that have adopted, by using individuals as the validators, in which the identities of the individuals are made a public information, thus making the identities at stake, in exchange these individuals are rewarded and monetarily incentivized to process transactions. Making the identities of the individuals a public information is meant to try to dissuade them from being bad actors as this would damage their reputation. However, how far do you think this would go if the value of the network persuades the individuals to cheat?

This is the main reason behind GoChain’s POR. The POR uses companies as validators not individuals. A company with a reputation will definitely have a lot more to lose than an individual. A company caught cheating would be risking its reputation, the reputation of its officers, shareholders and even it’s entire market cap.

GoChain takes it a step further by planning to use 50 companies in 50 different countries as facilitators. This is to force decentralization. Using 50 companies would ensure a perfect decentralization, thus making the network very very difficult to compromise. GoChain also ensured that no one government, like the United States or China, can come in to take over the network by spreading the nodes geographically.

How will the validators be chosen?
GoChain will initially choose the validators and then selection of the validators would be done by the network.
What kind of companies will they be?
Venture backed startups with a burn rate, VC partners, angel investors, and new product or service are the kind of companies to be choosed. The reason for choosing these kind of companies is that these companies would have a huge incentive to maintain the network integrity, so as their market cap and integrity remain safe.
How does GoChain plan to achieve 1300+ transactions per seconds?
GoChain is solving this partially by moving to POR and by dealing with the large amounts of data in ways that allow for much faster speeds. The data storage issue alone at 1300 transactions per second produces 0.7 gigabytes a data an hour. However, any offcahin solutions such as Raiden or Plasma would be able to work on top of GoChain to achieve a faster speed.
The energy Consumption Issue
By switching to POR, energy utilization needed to process the blocks is decreased considerably.

Check out the road map of GoChain in the image below: