Crypto Academy Season 2 Week 8 Homework Post for (@pelon53) - Hashgraph Technology

Hello readers, welcome to this post. This season of cryptoAcademy has been great and I've learnt quite a lot fom the various lectures.

This week's lecture by professor @pelon53 talked about Hashgraph technology and I will follow the queries he made to make my assignment.

Before going by the questions, I will talk a little about the hashgraph.
This hashgraph technology is a new form of technology which is gradually getting a little fame because it is claiming to have better qualities than blockchain. The hashgraph technology is a better alternative form of the blockchain system and it is more efficient; more secure and faster(making huge or large transactions in seconds) too.

1. Explain in detail the Gossip protocol, used in Hashgraph.

Just as how the blockchain system uses different algorithms like proof of work, proof of stake and tec., the hashgraph technology has the gossip protocol with which it operates with.
The gossip protocol like how the name suggests, it's just as how literal gossips work. People gossip about things and these words spread very fast. Or you can liken it to how rumors or epidemics spread fast.
Let's say John gossips something to Josh, Josh in turn tells Mary, then Mary also tells three others. The other three tell others and it goes like that. This what we call the gossip about gossip in the gossip protocol because even though the words were only gossiped to Josh, the rest also gossiped the gossip and it spread.
That's how the gossip protocol works in the hashgraph technology just that, with this, nodes are ones "doing the gossip".
A node "gossips" or sends data randomly to other available nodes with the goal of reaching an agreement or consensus.

As the data is being passed on, the subsequent nodes that receive the data also work on the data of the previous node. So it checks all other previous nodes that have been involved with the data, the time of arrival of the data, the node and data interactions, etc.
Let's say a node sends data to another node, the node which just received the data will access what the previous node did with the data, when it was brought and properties of the previous data. The data will then be passed on to other nodes and the cycle will begin; and all this is done to reach a consensus.
It is way more secure and faster than the blockchain. This protocol can make about 250,000 transactions in a second but for the other blockchain systems, it's a whole different story.
All these transfers and transactions and only made possible by the gossip jacket where a data is sent through the gossip jacket from one node to another.

This makes the system more faster, secure(cyber attacks are unlikely) and also has more efficiency.

Some of the few advantages I will talk about are;

• The gossip protocol is utterly decentralized and thus, doesn't involve any middleman operations.
• Information can not be lost easily because there are numerous random nodes that have this information or data so it's less likely to lose your data
  A disadvantage of the gossip protocol is that, if any of the nodes receive wrong information, or the information is changed, the model's info will change and wrong info can be displayed.

2. Explain Tolerance to Byzantine Faults in Hashgraph.

Byzantine fault can be explained as the situation or phenomenon where a node fails in its functioning but this failure is not detected by the other nodes. Let's say node A fails to find some information but node B doesn't find out about the inability or the failure of the node A.

Before transactions can be validated in the hashgraph system, the nodes in the distributed network must reach a consensus, obviously, and also there must be a mathematical proof.
Because of this, the Byzantine fault tolerance works in a way that even if some of the nodes in the network fail to function properly, a consensus is reached and there is a validation of the transaction in the system.
If 2/3 of the total nodes is deemed valid, a consensus will be reached and then the transaction will be validated.
So it actually depends on the majority of the faulty nodes and the unfaulty ones.
It's just like people in a company voting on a motion. Let's say 20 people are voting on a decision. If the number of people voting for the motion is 2/3 out of the total, they win. It's the same for those that vote against the motion.
So similar to this, if the number of faulty or invalid nodes exceeds 1/3, the system will not reach a consensus.

3. Make a comparison between Hashgraph Vs Blockchain, for a voting process in your country.

Just as it's been already said, the hashgraph technology is better than the blockchain system in quite a number of ways and the blockchain technology also has its own advantages too.
I'll state the differences below.

Finance/Cost
As we all know, the blockchain technology's cost is quite higher than that of the hashgraph technology.
When we consider the Proof of Work consensus algorithm of the blockchain system, we can see that expensive mining devices are used which really requires a lot of money.
So let's say we vote with the Ethereum network, it's obvious that there will be a lot of gas fees paid.
So there's no doubt that voting with the blockchain technology will be costly than that of the hashgraph technology.

Fame
Undoubtedly, the blockchain technology is more famous or popular now to people than the hashgraph technology. People are into the blockchain systems more than the hashgraph systems because hashgraph is not really well known yet.

Security
The security in the gossip protocol of the hashgraph tech is more powerful or stronger than that of the blockchain technology. Data in the hashgraph are sent to all nodes in the system which actually helps to keep data very well without losing them easily. Hashgraph technology has also proven to be resistant to cyber attacks such as sybil unlike some blockchain systems that can be hacked by fraudsters.

Consensus Algorithm

As we all know, the blockchain systems use different kinds of consensus algorithms like roof of Work, Proof of stake, proof of elapsed time, proof of burn, etc. but the hashgraph technology only works with the gossip protocol.

Speed and Productivity
As it is been made mention of above, the hashgraph technology is way more faster and productive than the blockchain network. Because of the numerous nodes working together at a time, transactions are made faster on this system than on the blockchain systems. If the blockchain system can make 10,000 transactions in a second, the hashgraph can make 500,000 transactions in a second; this makes it quite obvious that the hashgraph is more productive and faster than the blockchain system.

Why I choose Hashgraph for virtual voting in my country, Ghana

I'm not that old but I have witnessed a quite a number of elections in my country, Ghana.
Usually, there are always problems concerning the number of votes after every elections in most African countries. Losing parties do not accept the fact that they've lost the elections ad feel there might have been some miscalculations somewhere.
I have witnessed twice of this incident which resulted in the court rooms.
All these happened as a result of poor supervision and also bad systems of voting which is why I wish we were using the hashgraph technology for voting during election periods.
To have a fair election, the virtual voting of the hashgraph, if adopted by my country will really help since the hashgraph technology is fair and not biased. There would not be any instance where data will be lost because the nodes in the system securely keep every information or data that's been fed to them.
Also, since the voters would love to know the results fast enough, the hashgraph will help in this way because it can make many transactions in seconds. There will be no need to gather and count all votes across the country which is quite tedious.
Election results can be sabotaged or deliberately attacked by other opposing parties; but with the hashgraph technology, it will be very difficult to hack and alter results which is a very good thing to keep the election results secure.

However, because the hashgraph is not well popular currently and it is not well proven, it might be hard to accept it now if it was offered but it is what I would choose for my country if it had the same scale of popularity as the blockchain system because it looks better than the blockchain in so many ways.

4. Explore Hedera Hashgraph. Show screenshots.

Based on CoinMarketCap, the Hedera token which is HBAR currently has a value of $0.2424.
The other screenshot below talks a little about the token which I think you will find useful.
The rank of the token on the market as I was writing this post is 51.

.

I'd like to visit the Hedera page now and explore.

So you just visit hedera.com and the first page you will see is the one below. It has a globe which can be rotated with your mouse pointer.

There are also several menu options at the top which can be clearly seen. For example, "Networks".
There is also a "Watch Video" option below but mine is covered by the notification there.

I am going to talk about them one by one.

Network

The first option contains other options like ,Token service(helps users to create fungible tokens and NFTs in the system), Consensus service, How it Works(helps in testing how new applications works on the hashgraph system), Explorers(helps you to explore the hedera system) and Dashboard(helps in knowing all the transaction statistics in the system).

Devs

From the Devs section, you can find the Docs(which contains documents and detailed information about Hedera. It gives all data or info that a user might need about the system.)
You can also find the Hedera SDK( it possesses the hedera API in various languages)
There is also the FEES option which talks about the transfer fee on the system or platform.
The Open source gives update of the network and also provides information of the hedera hashgraph system on Github.
The learning center obviously gives more details of the hashgraph system.

Use Cases

This sections contains a lot of options.
As it can be seen from the screenshot I took, there are options like, Payments(talks about payments made on the system), Fraud Mitigation(an education on how to avoid been scammed or frauded on the network), Data compliance, Identity, Tokenized assets, permissioned blockchain, Case Study, Healthcare, Enterprise and Gaming.
All these options have a brief explanation of what they are about and their importance to the system which contribute to the betterment of the network.

HBAR

The options found in this section are Overview, Account Creation and Wallets and Exchanges.
The HBAR is the token of the hashgraph hedera network and the Overview option gives clear detailed information about this cryptocurrency.
The Account creation obviously gives users the opportunity to create a hedera account
The last option talks about wallets nd exchanges that can support the hedera token, HBAR.

Governance

This option, when clicked on, reveals all the organisations that manage and own the hedera network.
These organisations ensure the smooth running of the network. We can see some prominent ones such as Google and LG.

About

This is the last section you move to before you get started on the network.
It has options like Team, Journey, Roadmap, User group, Careers, Media, Press, News, Blogs, Papers.
When you click on the Team option, you will find all the team of workers who created the Hedera and also those who are running it. It starts with the CEO

THE TEAM

Every single person has a "bio" option attached just in case you want to learn more on him or her.
You can go further to explore the other options in the About and you will learn a lot of important things.

Conclusion
From what I've learnt so far, if hashgraph technology is what is exactly as speculated to be, there is no doubt that it's better than the blockchain system. It has many great advantages as compared to the blockchain system. Better security, safer and faster transactions, more productivity,etc.
I just hope it keeps growing so that many countries will adopt, especially during the voting periods.
I'll thank professor @pelon53 for the lecture and insight on this amazing technology and I hope to get more in the upcoming season.

I welcome any corrections and thanks for visiting this post.
All screenshots were taken by me. Some were used with the phone and others were used with the PC(screensnip).
The exploration of the Hedera was done by me and my google account profile photo can be clearly seen, other features on my laptop too are available.