What is Factom?
Factom is a blockchain protocol that was designed to help businesses with storing data. It removes blockchain technology immutability from digital assets associated with blockchains, thus making storage of data on the blockchain easier and cheaper for businesses. It does this by using cryptographic isolation, a process that makes it possible to store unalterable records in a secure environment. Factom aims to solve three primary problems on the Bitcoin network:
●Transaction Speed: Because blocks take a few minutes to create, and to validate a transaction, the community standard of a six network confirmation can take up to one hour for transactions to be confirmed, while some take even longer.
●Transaction Cost: With more and more transactions, mining fees for transactions are always growing.
●Bloat of Network: The amount of transactions per second on the Bitcoin network is capped by its block size of 1MB. And the current versions of Segregated Witness and the Lightning Network are not likely to improve enough on providing a long-term solution to network bloat.
Factom enables easy auditing of data stored, which makes the data storage secure and accurate and less expensive making it more attractive for businesses and other organizations.
Businesses that will find Factom most useful are those that always need to transfer important data and ensure it is always accurate and remains unaltered. Some good examples include medical documents, or land deeds and titles.
With this data stored on the blockchain, it becomes immutable and provides high value to businesses that always use accurate data. It is inexpensive and far more permanent compared to digital storages or paper records of today.
Factom Development
The Factom protocol now has the major cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and Ethereum as part of it. Millions of data blocks are being stored on its blockchain in real-time. Factom was conceived by Paul snow in 2014 during a conversation, and since then, he has pioneered the platform making it one of the most popular cryptocurrencies on the market.
Factom announced it had made profit for the first time in 2016, and this was followed by a Series A capital raise of $4.2 million from a billionaire by name Tim Draper. Factom also received a $500,000 grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which was dedicated to research and development. The United States Homeland Security also provided another grant which is to boost the security of transactions.
Factom’s team has been working on an algorithm called the M2 technology that is able to record transactions instantly which will help in distributed processing and provide new tools to its users
Factom Technology
The Factom protocol technology applies layers over the Bitcoin transaction. The highest layer applied is the Directory Layer. This layer has been developed to organize the Merkle Root of the Entry Blocks.
The Entry Block Layer manages the reference to the entries. It is able to organize references to Entries made. Entries are raw data that the protocol accepts. It can be a private has or a group of data that the user provides.
Factom uses hash technology, a cryptographic function capable of converting digital data into alphanumeric strings, which are in the form of digital fingerprints. Factom ensures hash security in three ways:
Proof of Existence: Every 10 minutes, the protocol anchors a hash to the Bitcoin blockchain. This is the proof of existence method that is able to record the location of all the data added.
Proof of Process: This is the recording of the manner and process of the entry. It removes the problem of double spending.
Proof of Audit: Factom anchors data to the blockchain which makes the data available for audit at any time. While the Bitcoin network can only store financial data, Factom, however, can store any kind of data.
Real Use Cases for Factom
A cryptocurrency has no value if its underlying blockchain cannot provide real world use. Factom provides several uses across multiple industries which include:
●Healthcare Records: Factom can be useful for healthcare records since they need to be stored, confirmed and have their data validated. The healthcare sector deals with large volumes of data that have to be transmitted and frequently updated.
●Mortgage Data: Mortgage data of tens of millions of customers are created and stored by banks, but Factom can make this storage space more efficient and less expensive. Current storage methods are expensive and can be manipulated, but Factom is inexpensive and immutable.
●Legal Documents: Certain documents need to be notarized, but there is no way to prove who signed the documents. Factom ensures that signed documents can not be manipulated later and can be proven authentic.
Factom Tokens
Factom is different from other blockchain solutions because it uses two unique tokens on its network.
●Factoids (FCT): Factoids are coins that are used to decentralize the network and prevent spam by users. It is similar to other cryptocurrencies in that they can be traded freely and listed on cryptocurrency exchanges. They can also be used as incentive for maintaining the network, and paid out to the Federated servers at about 73,000 FCT per month.
●Entry Credits (ECs): Entries can be paid with Entry Credits and they can be used to vote for Authority nodes. They have little value of their own and can be purchased with Factoids or with any currency of your choice, but only through the Factoid platform.
Factom Gets Listed on Halodex
Factom (FCT) has announced that it will be listing on Halodex on the 5th of February 2020, and trading pair will be: FCT/BTC, and FCT/ETH.
About Halodex
Halodex is Halo’s Platform decentralized exchange that does not use a middle party or trust component. Halodex was launched in 2018 and has within that time, has become one of the most recognizable crypto exchanges today listing several crypto projects, and provides an easy way for crypto traders to manage their crypto activities in one platform.
Halodex uses a FINO- First In First Out model to complete orders on a system, which is why it now has a reputation for offering the most secure and fastest crypto exchanges today. Traders can trade with the multitude of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and more. Accessing the Halo Platform is easy through its Chrome web browser extension which provides access to Halodex, explorer, wallet, masternode system, and games.
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