Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.Steve Jobs
Complex and intimidating. That’s how the world of cryptocurrencies and blockchain still appears to the average person. Just to get started, we need to choose a digital wallet, cope with long encrypted keys we don’t understand, then select one of a long list of major cryptocurrencies to buy. That merely gets us access to the ‘ecosystem’ of that particular currency. If we want to purchase a different currency we need to negotiate crypto exchanges, which have proven to be quite vulnerable to hacking.
Simplicity is needed.
What if there was one single token we could purchase. A token which we could use to sell bitcoin and invest in a new ethereum DAO- all in a single transaction.
Fusion is a new company which will make this kind of token possible- but that’s only the beginning.
Let’s zoom out and look at where we are today. Over the last 30 years we have built the internet of information. It has become easy for us to exchange information with other people all over the world. Rapidly advancing technology has made it possible for us to start developing the Internet of Value. The Internet of value is composed of the assets held by people or organisations connected to the Internet. These assets include traditional currencies such as American dollars, cryptocurrencies, but can also be expanded to include anything of value- for example votes, music, or frequent flyer points.
The missing component is a common currency to transfer our assets on the Internet of value. That is what Fusion will provide
Obstacles
While the Internet of information is well developed, the Internet of value is still in its infancy. The fusion White Paper identifies three primary bottlenecks that are slowing development.
The first is in interoperability. Value can be held in crypto currencies, databases, networks or many other forms. There is no single agreed-upon measure of value.
The second is in scalability. This is closely related to Limited interoperability. If we want to conduct transactions involving large and various sources of value, this becomes exponentially difficult without a common currency
The third is in usability. The White Paper identifies areas such as standardization, platformization, and functional modularity as some of the areas which are lacking.
As many of the issues with usability and scalability can be significantly resolved by improving interoperability, this bottleneck is identified as the one in most need of immediate attention.
This diagram from the fusion White Paper shows how the fusion token can solve problems of interoperability by connecting values such as cryptocurrencies, banks, and stocks.
Source:WhitePaper
How Fusion Will Work
Fusion can be thought of as a control and management layer overlying all other types of blockchains. Distributed network nodes will control the private keys of various other tokens. Other assets in the Internet of value can also be transferred using fusion tokens. Many other financial services available today will become unnecessary. Users can enjoy a cheaper and easier service by using fusion tokens- a common measure of value.
Fusion will implement a system known as Hierarchical Hybrid Consensus Mechanism (HHCM). This system has a number of advantages, including storing application data more efficiently to reduce computing power requirements, and allowing parallel processing of transactions.
Security
Security concerns must be paramount in any financial service. Fusion has developed technology known as the Distributed Control Rights Management (DCRM). This works by distributing and sharding private keys. No single node can gain possession of the complete private key, allowing digital assets to be protected. Separate fusion tokens are generated to represent these assets.
Use Case
As Fusion notes in the white paper, a full implementation of the Internet of Value still lies well in the future. Therefore, a small-scale implementation of Fusion tokens might be a good place to start. Some of the smaller crypto currencies might agree to the use of Fusion tokens as a common method of exchange. Perhaps an online market could be created where users could trade 5 to 10 different crypto currencies through Fusion tokens. Over time, other assets could be added, also able to be traded easily through Fusion tokens. This could be one way of steadily expanding the Internet of Value.
Conclusion
For the Internet of value to develop quickly we need mainstream adoption. The message of Fusion is powerful: here is a single token that you can use to trade a valuable asset you possess for a valuable asset belonging to someone else, anywhere in the world, no matter what that asset might be. The message derives much of its power from it’s simplicity. Apple gave the world a simple way to buy and download apps with the iPhone. The Internet of value has more potential than the Apple network, and Fusion could be the company to actualize that potential.
Further Information
See the Fusion website here
The full team behind the project here
The White Paper here
The executive summary here
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