On it's surface, Komodo is seen by most people simply as "another privacy coin." Though it is very apparent that privacy and security is a major pillar of the Komodo coin (KMD for short) it is quite a lot more than a privacy coin. According the the Komodo website, "Komodo is an infrastructure coin which is required to power many features on the platform." Furthermore, Komodo (KMD) is a foundation for the completely decentralized exchange known as BarterDex and a platform for new companies to enter the crypto space in a secure fashion. Particularly, it seems their focus is on their ability to perform decentralized ICO's (dICO: Decentralized Initial Coin Offering) and atomic swaps through their decentralized exchange known as BarterDex.
Privacy coins are quickly becoming a hot-button topic for 2018 and that's exactly what Komodo started out as. Komodo was a hard fork of Zcash to begin with and retains the "Zero Knowledge Proofs" that allow for completely anonymous transactions on their blockchain. However, they aim at being quite a lot more than just another privacy coin. It's actually quite a lot to try to break down in simple terms.
Let's start by looking at the white paper since that is a very essential document to the success of any cryptocurrency. Komodo's whitepaper is relatively thorough and they do a decent job of explaining their technology in a manner that is relatively comprehendable. Considering how techinical their platform really is, it's quite a feat to explain in a manner that is accessible. They break the white paper into 5 parts and those five parts make up the basic outline for the entire platform.
They are as follows:
Part 1: "Security for the Komodo Ecosystem: Delayed Proof of Work (dPoW)"
Komodo's white paper starts by explaining one the most essential parts of how the Komodo blockchain (which is called "Assetchain") will work. The "Delayed Proof of Work" is a concept that is unique to Komodo and will essentially provide a lot of versatility. Since Komodo is trying to provide a place for newer companies to create blockchains without the typical risks it is essential to understand how Proof of Work (PoW) even takes place. This technology will allow companies to build blockchains on their hybrid network allowing for both Proof of Stake (PoS) and PoW chains to be created on their platform backed with the security of Bitcoin's Blockchain. This is done by "printing" or copying their blockchain into blocks on BItcoin's blockchain. Since Bitcoin has the farmost secure consensus network, it makes sense to create a copy of Komodo within Bitcoin's blockchain. By doing this Komodo essentially renders its own "Assetchain" impervious to the most common types of attacks on decentralized ledgers (i.e. 51% attacks, Genesis attacks).
In theory, dPoW should make Komodo nimble enough to deal with any drastic changes to the cyrpto-sphere and allow them to fluidly change with the times. They will be able to continue to provide top notch security even if Bitcoin becomes less secure than another coin. Komodo will simply start printing their blockchain onto the underside of whichever blockchain is the most secure. This seems like it could be useful to newer companies just emerging into the crypto space that don't want to be susceptible to the numerous bad actors out there. Komodo should, in this way, be able to stand in the way of espionage as well. Delayed Proof of Work is an interesting feature of Komodo's platform and is oft misunderstood. Their white paper does a fantastic job of explaining it.
This is just part 1 of the Komodo breakdown. Komodo is a complex platform that has a lot of functionality and already has working technology. In order to make my analysis and explanation more digestible, I've decided to break the whitepaper analysis into 5 or 6 bite sized pieces. Komodo has a functioning decentralized exchange and has successfully completed almost 70k atomic swaps at the time of this writing. That is something no other exchange or platform can boast. The real roadblock for Komodo will be marketing to their customer base because of its technical nature it isn't instantly apparent what the numerous features are. However, we have talked to someone from their social media team and got an idea of their strategy for the future... which I will bring you in the coming Komodo segments! Happy trading from the entire Cracking Crypto Team.
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