Today I wanted to cover the blockchain ARK.

I think that ARK has pretty big potential and I thought I would do a blog on ARK and explain exactly what it is.

ARK was created in 2016 when it was forked from Lisk. ARK is particularly interesting as it is trying to be a very consumer-focused blockchain, rather than something only for investors. ARKs vision is to connect all of the blockchains together and succeed in mass consumer adoption.

ARK currently has 8 second block transaction times, Which is one of the fastest transaction times in the space. If you get the ARK wallet and send ARK to a friend you will see that the transaction happens almost instantly. The ARK crew said that this feature will be extremely scalable and the possibility of faster transactions is definitely doable with future upgrades.

ARK features

Ark has a few features I want to cover in this blog post. Those features are:

• Smart bridge
• DPOS (delegated proof of stake)
• Physical NFC compatible card system.
• Live Gaming and Personality Broadcast Streaming Platform
• Local Currencies
• ARKVM
• Future projects on the roadmap

There is a lot to cover, So be warned this will be a lengthy read.

Smart bridge

The smart bridge is possibly the most interesting feature that the ARK crew are making. The idea of the smart bridge is to have a way to exchange cryptocurrencies without the need for an exchange. The way this works is by allowing other cryptocurrencies a way to be transferred via the ARK network. ARK has what is called a listener which will listen for any incoming transaction, and then swap it using something like shapeshift. In this way, you do not need to use an exchange like bittrex or BTC markets, which could potentially be forced by the government to cease and desist.

Currently, ARKS smart bridge only supports Bitcoin, Ethereum, and LISK. But they have said that any cryptocurrency who would want to be able to use the ARK network can, and all they would need to do is to create a listener, which ARK have supplied the details on how to do this.

You can imagine just how huge this technology is, You could send your crypto through ARK and exchange it for another crypto without the need of an exchange, ARKs transaction fees are 0.1 of an ark and so you would not need to pay a big fee for transferring between multiple exchanges in order to get the crypto you want. This essentially will decentralize exchanges and remove the possibility of an exchange getting shut down.

DPOS (delegated proof of stake)

ARK utilises the DPOS system. DPOS is where your blockchain is run by a number of delegates that are voted in by the community and are in control of performing updates and changes to the network.

Ark has 51 delegates at any one time, which they call forgers. If a forger wants to make a change to the blockchain, at least 51% of the other delegates must agree to the change in order for it to take place.

DPOS also means that if delegates start doing changes that the community doesn't like, The community simply votes them out and brings in new delegates to take over.

There are sites around the web where people who wish to be a delegate can post a resume of sorts. Which will outline why they would be good for the blockchain and what they plan on introducing into the blockchain.

Physical NFC compatible card system.

Another super interesting feature from ARK will be the peer to peer physical NFC compatible card system.

Ark is planning to release their own payment card, This will be totally separate to any of the major card companies such as VISA or Mastercard. The ARK card will only trade in ARK, and will be a good way for merchant adoption.

This card will be able to be distributed to people around the world who have or don't have bank access. It will give people without the ability to use a bank, a way to hold and spend money in a secure and decentralized way.

Local Currencies

On top of the card system, ARK will allow the implementation of local currencies backed by ARK, this solves the issue of separate countries and their different currencies.

A country can create their own currency, but in the background, it will still be running from the ARK network. This means that no matter what the currency is in the real world, It can still be sent and exchanged via the ARK network from anywhere anytime.

Live Gaming and Personality Broadcast Streaming Platform

ARK is going to be implementing a streaming platform, This platform will be simillar to other streaming platforms such as twitch, however, content creators will be rewarded with ark payments generatored based on their content, gifts from their followers and subscription based payments.

ARK will be using IPFS to store all of the data generated by the creators.

ARKVM

ARKVM is how you will go about creating smart online contracts via ark. This will work very similarly to Ethereums DAPPS, however, ARK will not be using DAPPS and so there will be no need to run any kind of EC20 token like ETHER in order to run the smart contracts.

Compatiable programming lanuagages

Currently ARK is being ran on node.js. However seeing that the ARK team are all about being very cunsumer friendly, they are doing something very nice for us developers.

ARK are making it possible for devs to use just about any programming language they would like with the ARK blockchain.

Here is a list of languages they will be supporting and the progress % of that language.

• Python 100%
• Elixir 100%
• RPC 100%
• Lua 100%
• Java 100%
• Net 100%
• R 25%
• C 80%
• Go 100%
• Advanced PowerShell 25%
• Rust 85%
• Kotlin 100%
• PHP/Laravel 100%
• TypeScript API 100%
• C++ 80%
• Nucleid 100%
• Ruby 100%

With this many different programming languages, there is an endless amount of possibilities for applications built into the ARK network. Because now just about any developer can jump on and spin something up, without the need of having to learn another language.

TestNet

ARK will also be implementing the TestNet, this will allow anyone who creates an application to push a button and actually test out the app before publishing it to the blockchain. This is a super handy feature and one that is missing in a lot of other blockchains.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I think that ARK has many fantastic features and really could be a big player in this space, with DPOS driving the ARK network and the smart bridges bringing all of the blockchains together, ARK is truly a blockchain technology to behold.

Thanks for reading!