Image modified from the original source (GoChain Webpage)
Blockchain and Crypto, The Train To Real Freedom That No One Should Miss
With the advent of Blockchain Technology, one of the ever dreamed goals of mankind is one step away from becoming a reality: free and decentralized trade of assets throughout the world. Since the disruptive appearance of Bitcoin in 2009, blockchain technology has allowed us to overcome two major and historical trade hindrance, distrust between counterparties and a censorship-prone system.
But there are many problems yet to solve, the most pressing ones are lack of scalability of current major blockchains, concentration of mining power into one single geographical location, and a consensus algorithm (PoW) that wastes 3.5 billion of dollars worth of energy resources per year.
There are several projects that need roughly one to two years to give an alternative, but a solution is required now for the millions of people who are already merged in this new world full of opportunities. GoChain has promised to provide an immediate solution. Until today, their performance has been up to our expectations and it seems to be getting better.
GoChain. From Steam Locomotives To Bullet Trains
Let's recap current state of affairs
- 90% of all existent smart contracts are Ethereum based. Ethereum Blockchain currently has a capacity of 13 transactions per second (tps) and Vitalik had announced that Casper's goal is to reach somewhere near to 100 tps. This is just not enough if you compare it with the 56 000 tps Visa Inc. current capacity. If we want to truly achieve global scale mass adoption, we need a platform capable of playing in the big guys league.
- PoW Consensus Algorithm provides a tool that discourages malicious behavior from miners. It is just too expensive to cheat the network and is very profitable to well behave due to valid block rewards. But PoW is extremely inefficient, some transactions may require hours to be validated on the Bitcoin Blockchain. Meanwhile, Ethereum Blockchain is not in a much better situation, most of the time the network is at its full capacity and transaction verifications are delayed beyond acceptable periods of time.
- Decentralization guarantees that no single party will be able to manipulate the crypto ecosystem, it is one of the key security features of any cryptocurrency. But today, 70% of block production for major cryptocurrencies is located in China and in case of company collusion or Government intervention the integrity of the network will be seriously compromised and a 51% attack will be very likely to happen.
- Current smart contracts are too rigid, almost all new software has undetected bugs on their release date, a mechanism to fix those bugs and upgrade the code is needed to avoid big losses. We have learned our lesson, the attack that exploited a set of vulnerabilities on the DAO caused the loss of more than $ 60 million. This taught us the hard way that current platforms need new tools to amend undetected human errors and upgrade deployed smart contracts.
The New Horizon To Which GoChain Will Take Us
- One of GoChain's key ideas is to implement a stronger and more secure version of the PoA consensus algorithm called Proof Of Reputation (PoR). In PoR big and well-known companies will be the ones responsible for block validation. Those companies reputation has to be important enough that they expose their business to high risk if they lose credibility. This option is superior to PoA in the sense that for almost everybody, an individuals stake is just a tiny fraction in contrast with the value of the entire network. Big companies have much more at stake and only those with the proper Market Cap, Brand Significance, and Public Trade History will be considered fit to be authorized blocks signers.
- Since only authorized signers can validate blocks, they only have to communicate and distribute newly created blocks among themselves. With this feature, current ethereum transaction capacity will be surpassed by x100 times and a platform that can readily scale will be at our fingertips. Other nodes on the network will be able to fetch blocks data and query the state using a read-only API. The data for those nodes will be stored in replicas spread around different locations providing high availability.
- GoChain Network will be fully compatible with Ethereum Network. There will be no need to modify the code of any preexisting software on Ethereum. Thus, there will be a seamless integration between the GoChain Network and DApps/smart contracts already running on Ethereum. Also, smart contracts on GoChain will have a module that will allow parties to update the code to fit everchanging situations, provided that all parties agree with the update or preestablished circumstances met. Furthermore, a detailed explanation posted on Gochain's Medium account explains that GoChain's fees are at least x7500 times cheaper than Ethereum's.
- GoChain has a feature that will promote mass adoption of cryptocurrencies, it is the Proof of Reputation Consensus Algorithm. This new protocol will bring in to the crypto ecosystem some of the most respected and trusted companies. Thus, users who are still skeptical will adopt crypto because they will have the guarantee that a reliable and solid company is now supporting the crypto ecosystem.
GoChain has all the power of the Turing Complete Ethereum Blockchain without any of it weakness!!
Possible Usecase And Implementation
The biggest challenge that GoChain has is to get noticed. Today there are more than one and a half thousand different cryptocurrencies, for almost all users it is impossible to handle that huge load of information and to distinguish which projects are the true diamonds.
Therefore, GoChain should focus its attention into projects that might become viral in short time. For example, CryptoKitties raised around $12 million and gained 1.5 million users in just a few months. But recently the transaction volume and the value of the kitties have plummeted.
The co-founder of this project blames the rising costs of processing transactions on EthereumThis project is a perfect use case for GoChain.Thanks to the full compability with Ethereum software, CryptoKitties project could be easily deployed onto GoChain Network. Transaction costs will be reduced greatly and user experience will be better than ever due to the far superior performance of the Network. In addition GoChain will have access to a huge user base, a great deal for all parties.
Source
Let's review what GoChain has achieved so far
A stable network capable of processing 1,300 transactions has been released!
Fun fact: The GoChain testnet processes the same amount of transactions in one week as the lifetime of Ethereum transactions: 185,436,845.
Source
You can check on GoChain Network statistics here. And you will be delighted with an image like this one:
I feel like I am in Wonderland when looking at this figure: 5.00 s average block time!
Also you can visit GoChain Block Explorer to get someting like this:
Wallet operations may be executed in this page. While browsing you should have these options:
GoChain's rapid success is notorious, in a really short period of time they also have achieved the following:
All images of this table are from GoChain Medium Account
GoChain's full compatibility with Ethereum has allowed a seamless integration with My Ether Wallet, with just a few clicks you can easily interact with the GoChain Network in the same way you interact with the Ethereum Network.
Blockfolio is one of the most popular crypto portfolio management apps. It allows you to manage all your cryptocurrencies with usefull market analysis. GoChain is a supported token on this portfolio.
Kucoin is hosting a node on the GoChain Network. A well-known exchange took a step forward and now supports GoChain and the PoR Algorithm.
GoChain token is listed on Kucoin, trading pairs includes GO/BTC and GO/ETH. If you want to check how GO/BTC market is doing, go here.
Conclusions
GoChain's project is the solution for current bottlenecks that are preventing blockchain technology to gain mass adoption and to readily scale. GoChain's crafty team had developed an upgraded form of Proof of Reputation Algorithm, an elegant and simple solution that addresses both scalability and security issues.
PoR will drive important companies to host the nodes authorized to sign and validate blocks of transactions. These companies' reputation has to be of great significance for their business. With the whole market cap of those companies at stake, the risk of cheating the network is too high. Thus, the Network will be more secure. Also, smart contracts and DApps code will be upgradeable, this will prevent parties from losing funds in the event of an unexpected error in the code of some smart contract.
Finally, GoChain will allow us to use the same code used in current ethereum DApps and smart contracts. For those of you who are curious (like myself) and want a more detailed information about how to deploy a smart contract onto GoChain Network, check this detailed explanation from Gochain's Medium account.
GoChain Project Additional Information
Take a look at Jason Dekker (GoChain CEO) explaining GoChain's features in Consensus-2018 to a well-known crypto journalist from the CNBC.
This is the project Development Timeline
Meet GoChain Team and Advisors
Source: GoChain Webpage
These are GoChain Partners and Investors
Source: GoChain Webpage
If you want a more detailed information about GoChain, feel free to visit:
Here is a video of my thoughts about GoChain
This is my entry for the @originalworks contest
gochain2018