Author: benson

Komodo ICO (KMD)

The Komodo ICO ran from Oct-Nov 2016. At the time they raised a total of 2636.37BTC. Komodo is a Zcash fork and so it will have all the same privacy features. However, they are not part of Zcash (ZEC). Their work is built on top of the open-source Zcash project.

What is Komodo

The zerocash protocol allows a higher standard of privacy and anonymity to transactions. It makes it  possible to send money online without disclosing receiver and sender information, while at the same time allowing for verification of the transaction’s authenticity. This utilizes a technology called zk-SNARKS.

Komodo is also developing something called delayed proof of work or dPoW. Komodo has two levels of mining and two separate proofs of work (PoW). Only Komodo has to attach itself to the Bitcoin blockchain. Because of this, third party blockchains can use Komodo as an additional security layer. The Komodo blockchain will have the 64 notary nodes. The notary nodes, apart from finding blocks and recording transactions on the Komodo blockchain, take the confirmed blocks on the Komodo blockchain and notarize or engrave them on to the bitcoin blockchain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBTMjFotWS8

Other Applications

Apart from the features listed above, Komodo is also being developed as part of a broader project called SuperNET. SuperNet aims include:

1. assetchains that allow anyone to create their own asset with its own blockchain
2. multiwallet where those assets can be stored, including many coins like Bitcoin and Komodo
3. atomic swaps, so that people can trade their coins from the multiwallet without counterparty risks
4. pegged assets – which are a form of price-stable assets created on the assetchains – these assets solve the problem of price volatility by attaching themselves to the value of stable currencies like EUR or USD.

Resources:

Whitepaper https://komodoplatform.com/whitepaper/

https://steemit.com/komodo/@komodoplatform/a-guide-to-better-understand-komodo

Data is one of the most valuable assets we have nowadays. Information on a person’s preferences and habits are highly sought after by companies. It’s a central part of the business of a lot of tech companies. Big names such as Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters have a combined revenue of over 20B USD in part due to their aggregation and monetization of data.

What is Enigma

At its core, Enigma is a decentralized data marketplace. It wants to take the power out of the hands of a few players and return it back to the people. They want to enable people to trade their data in exchange for incentives.

With Enigma, they propose the following advantages:

• More open data will be available for research.
• More people and organizations will reap the benefits of selling and controlling their data.
• Data’s value would become explicit, as opposed to implicit (which is the case today).
• Data sharing could be revolutionized in the same way Bitcoin has revolutionized payments

The protocol will have both on-chain and off-chain transactions. In their words, subscribing to a data source is managed on-chain, including rewards and penalties, which are exchanged using our token. The data itself, its storage and transmission, lives off-chain. In that sense, the blockchain acts as the controller of the network while the off-chain network handles everything else.

Catalyst – How to Apply Enigma

In conjunction with the creation of the Enigma data marketplace, they also plan to develop Catalyst. It will run directly on the Enigma protocol and empower users to share and curate data and build profitable, data-driven investment strategies. It is a way of delivering quant trading to the masses, breaking down the massive barriers to entry usually associated with it.

Enigma Hacking

It would be remiss of me in an Enigma article to not mention the hack that happened about two weeks ago. The CEO’s email was compromised, and the hacker used it it to elicit funds from community members in their Slack channel. The oversight has since been fixed and extra precautions were implemented to prevent further cases from happening.

Resources:

https://www.enigma.co/

https://blog.enigma.co/beyond-catalyst-enigmas-vision-for-the-future-of-data-22fbb5845556

https://www.enigma.co/enigma_catalyst.pdf

(Updated on 31-08-2017)

OmiseGO is a token proposed by Omise that allows real time, direct transfers across multiple fiat currencies and digital currencies. Omise go is an existing payment management platform mainly focused on Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, Singapore and Japan. With this new project, they plan to take this one step further and integrate their services with blockchain technology.

What it Offers

1. Ethereum based financial technology
2. Ease of use – no bank account needed
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     One of the standout features of Pacific Spins is its welcoming bonus package, which provides new players with generous rewards upon signing up. Additionally, the casino prioritizes player safety and security, utilizing advanced encryption technology to protect personal and financial information. Customer support is readily available through various channels, ensuring that players can get assistance whenever needed.

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3. Affordability – low transaction fees
   • Using traditional remittance methods make it difficult for a lot of their target market to send money home. The fees will take up a large percentage of the total amount. OmiseGo can offer almost instant transfers at low cost.
4. Allows easy transfer between fiat currencies and also digital currencies

What it Means

Ultimately, OmiseGo should make it easier for foreign workers to send money home to their families. It also has the additional benefit of extra security through decentralized currencies. Millions of users in fast growing economies will be given the opportunity to go from fiat currencies to digital currencies.

**Update**

OmiseGo has announced their collaboration with McDonald’s Thailand. Founder, Jun Hasegawa, confirmed the news on his Twitter. Following the news, OMG has seen a slight rise of over 4% today.

The problem of hard and soft forks have been huge issues in both the Bitcoin (Bitcoin Unlimited, USAF, Segwit) and Litecoin communities. Decred has come up with their own solution to this and may be something that other coins look to going forward. In this article I’m going to explain what a hard fork is, how the voting process works, and why it is so important for the development of a coin.

Hard and Soft Forks

Let’s start off by explaining what forks are. In simple terms, these are updates to the main protocol of a certain currency. Hard forks describe an update that causes a permanent divergence in the block chain. Both block chains may continue to run but they will not be able to send funds to each other as they are using different rules and the coins are not compatible with each other.

Soft forks, on the other hand, are backward compatible updates that allow users to mine from both original nodes or updated nodes with the new rules. If by a certain time, a consensus is reached and a certain percent of the hash rate is mining from the updated nodes, then the new rules are implemented across the protocol and miners of the original nodes will basically be wasting their time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNpf0f3IGNs

Why Fork and Who Gets to Decide?

So the programming team decides perhaps they want to make a substantial upgrade to the network to enable a set of features. These features might be very important features such as lightning transactions which allow immediate transfer of currency. It’s important that the community keeps on developing these features because otherwise, your coin is going to be stuck in the mud.

While the development team can propose upgrades usually what happens is that the mining community decides whether to implement these or not. The mining community acts as the accountants of the system. They process transactions and they form new blocks in the block chain. Consequently, they have the power to decide how to build the next block.

One major problem with this is that the mining community decides what the future is and not the consumers – the people who actually use currency. One small set of people decide how upgrades should be processed and the other side that actually uses it, the majority of the users, get zero say in the matter.

Decred to the Rescue?

With Decred, they solve this problem by having the community vote on the blocks created by the mining community. If miners start implementing different upgrades the community can vote whether they want the upgrade to go on line or not. If the created block does not follow a certain protocol, they can vote it down and even refuse payouts to miners that don’t follow what the community wants.

So this, in essence, allows the community to actually keep an eye on what’s happening with the miners. We don’t have just one power that doesn’t represent the community. Rather, we end up with the user community sort of policing what’s happening with the mining community.

People who hold the coin should have the greatest say in how the future goes forward. Decred solves both hard forks and soft forks by allowing users to vote on the issues. Issues such as segwit and lightning transactions, which have caused many controversies in the Bitcoin and Litecoin communities. Decred is already trying to implement these changes this year and they may get these technological upgrades in advance of other coins.