Technology
In it's mission statement, Lisk's goal is to make blockchain technology for everyone. But what does this really mean?
One analogy to understanding Lisk is understanding the foundation of what made Microsoft successful. While technology inside computers was revolutionary even before Microsoft existed, it was not until Bill Gates built a way for the average person to utilize this technology did the internet truly take off. The internet needed a way to interact with. With its innovation of the operating system, people could now build things on top of their tools at a much faster pace.
You may have heard the buzz word "blockchain" get thrown around a lot. While there are plenty other resources to help you understand this concept, for now we will simply define blockchain as a super-groovy, next-level technology (much like computers in the 90's).
In the same way computers needed an operating system like Windows to have your grandma jump on AOL messenger, blockchain needs an operating system of itself. A way for the average person/company to harness it's power and create things on top of it. This, is where Lisk comes in.
One of the hardest things for a technical team to do is describe their technical product in a non-technical manner. As Lisk describes this struggle, we have to describe it at a "Mom's level". While challenging, Lisk gives one of the best visual examples I have ever seen using a simple diagram of a town/city. Let's take a look.
In the town, you can see a house built on a street. This house represents Lisk and all their technological glory. They have a pool, pantry full of snacks, and a mighty cool media room. Currently, other people have no idea how to build a house of their own. Think of them like cavemen, still trying to figure out fire. How we solve this problem? We teach them.
To help reach the cavemen, from their house, Lisk builds out a road that extends across the city. This road represents the super-cool, groovy blockchain we mentioned earlier. Cavemen now have the ability to flintstone their way to the Lisk house and begin learning the basics of building a house. Maybe how to build a bunk beds. Maybe just how to get Netflix to show on their new 60 inch monitor. The application does not matter. What matters is the Lisk is giving others the tools and applications necessary to build.
Let's fast forward 4000 Lisk years and Liskville is booming. So much so, the highways are congested with 5pm traffic. This is actually a very common problem of some other cities like Ethereumburg and Bitcointopia. To solve this problem, Lisk has created something called a "side chain". Let's think of a side chain as that back alley path to your house that only you know about. Now, even if the super groovy, next-level block chain gets clogged, you have a path to your destination.
Another 2000 Lisk years pass. As the city grows, interactions and ideas inside the community grow. Sky scrapers are built, Chick-fil-a's are expanding, and coffee shops are becoming hipster havens. So how would it be possible to expand from a city to the entire world? One big obstacle is communication. Currently, in 2017 real world, there are many different languages across the world like English, Spanish, German, and many others. In order to truly become universal, we need a universal language. Lisk uses a dialect called JavaScript. While it has a funny accent, it is the most widely adopted language across our hypothetical universe. By choosing this language as its official language, people can jump on boat across the river and fit right in.
Kuddos to the marketing and graphic design team on this one. So what are some things you can build with Lisk? Here are some examples directly from their website.
"Possibilities are endless, like developing platform independent social networks, messengers, games and so on. All on your own blockchain network including corresponding token, fully decentralised, and all this without the hassle of complicated consensus algorithms or peer-to-peer networking protocols."
Team
Almost as impressive as the technology is the team behind Lisk. An all-star bunch
Although the team was hard to locate (have to scroll all the way to to the bottom), they are definitely an impressive bunch. All sporting the classic startup t-shirt with a logo on it, they currently have 28 team members and look to be growing (open positions). Additionally, they have brand ambassadors from China, Romania, Russia, Australia, France, Italy, and the USA. Strange side note, it was quite interesting to me that the co-founders were not listed above everyone else like I normally see. Not sure if this was intentional, but I thought it was quite refreshing and showed true humility. Here are some of the core members:
Timeline
Currently sitting at #20 on the CMC rankings, Lisk is somehow still flying under the radar to many of the new crypto enthusiast. With an SDK that has yet to be released and a logo that looks like it was made in Minecraft (sorry Max), many potential investors are still overlooking the impact this company could make on the entire blockchain ecosystem. All of that is about to change on February 20th.
Many of us still remember the hype and hysteria surrounding the early Microsoft launches and the occasional wacky moments of Steve Ballmer going crazy on stage. While it’s easy to look back at with eye-rolling cringe, these moments in time were truly indicative of the passion so many had for new technology and innovation.
On February 20th, Lisk is hosting a globally streamed relaunch of their company at the Westhafen Event & Convention Center. Probably the coolest entrance I have ever seen since Walter White on Breaking Bad. It is here, in Berlin Germany, that the team finally plans to unveil the new brand and the technology they have been working so hard on for the last few years.
To give us more insight on what this re-launch could mean to price fluctuation, we can take a look at an eerily similar example just six months ago. On June 22, Ant Shares (“Chinese Ethereum”), announced it would be re-branding to the company we all now know as NEO. On August 14th, just six days after their relaunch was official and finalized, the NEO price jumped 667% to sit at $50 (up from $7.50). The company has continued to rise and now sits at $120 and #12 on CMC.
Since the time of the Lisk re-rebrand announcement on November 22nd, the price has already tripled in price. If you believe in the Lisk team, technology, and marketing abilities; sitting at $60 in Q1 does not seem too out of reach.
I hope you found some value in this article.
Here are a list of some other Steemit exclusive crypto articles:
Lisk: Don't let the name fool you
Substratum: Net Neutrality's Backup Ninja
Opus: Decentralized SoundCloud
UTRUST: The Paypal of the blockchain era
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