Visions of the Future
“If ever you are passing my way,” said Bilbo, “don’t wait to knock!
Tea is at four; but any of you are welcome at any time!”
Previous time we were talking about what is blockchain and sharding technology implemented in Elrond Network. Today we will try to focus on other things, one way or another however directly dealing with the subject of blockchain scalability, because this is precisely the main goal Elrond Network declares and what is working on.
First, consider what is scalability. In simple words, this is the ability of the system to provide its resources in accordance with the ever-increasing volume of work or load. So when we are talking that “Elrond is a linearly Scalable Public Blockchain with novel Secure Proof of Stake consensus and Adaptive State Sharding. Testnet exceeded 12k TPS with only 5 shards and 65k with 20 shards!”, we mean the value of the network speed, that is how rapid information is recorded in blocks, and then these blocks that make up the network are confirmed. We mean that network has scalability while the more nodes join the network the more speed we will have! And it works! As you can see using sharding on various testnet versions gives an amazing results.
What an awesome feeling to meet new people who are interested to run a node on Elrond Network. This is what crypto should be about — Uniting people around great technology.
For comparison, Bitcoin (the first cryptocurrency) manages to accommodate only 7 TPS (transactions per second), while Ethereum (the first smart contract ecosystem) has only 15 TPS. There are plenty of projects that reported to have solved the scalability problem, but they have managed to achieve much more modest results: 360 TPS (Algorand), 1000 TPS (Dfinity), 2500 TPS (Zilliqa) or 7000 TPS (Kadena). And we are not talking about network latency. So technically Elrond is far ahead and has a strong advantage in being able to solve the scalability issue!
There are many application fields for blockchain technology. Any company can use its own fast and small private blockchain that runs on several dozen nodes, however, its security and potential for use will be limited. While, there will be no benefits from a large, but at the same time cumbersome and slowly working network. And in almost any case, speed and scalability are a necessary condition for its use, while not neglecting decentralization and security at the same time. Elrond Network strives to create a product that would be in demand among enterprises and become the main smart contract platform that will be able to integrate Internet of Things devices around the world. By the way Elrond Network has recently entered the Trusted IoT Alliance (TIoTA), joining a retinue of high-profile enterprises and developer organizations to create a collaborative consortium ecosystem at the forefront of IoT innovation.
What are smart contracts?
First of all let’s look at an example of the difference between a conventional contract, which is set on paper, and a smart contract, which is digitally presented.
How it used to be before smart contracts? Imagine a group of people who want to establish some rules and conditions for the distribution of values, as well as a certain mechanism to guarantee the implementation of this distribution according to the given rules and conditions. Then they came together, created a document where they wrote down their identification data, terms and conditions, set the date and signed.
This contract was also certified by a trusted party, such as a notary public.
Do you remember the Bilbo Baggins contract form the Hobbit story? It’s great when you deal with good, honest people or your true friends even if they are Elves and Dwarfs.
Only friends can act together.
Further, these people diverged in different directions with their paper copy of such a contract and began to carry out some actions that might not correspond to the contract itself, that is, they did one thing and it was assured on paper that they should do something completely different. And how to get out of this situation? In fact, one of the members of the group needs to take this paper, take some evidence, take it to court and seek compliance between the contract and the actual actions. Quite often it is difficult to achieve fair execution of this contract, which leads to unpleasant consequences.
What can be said about smart contracts? They combine both the possibility of writing the terms of the contract and the mechanism for their strict implementation. If the conditions have been set and the corresponding transaction or request has been signed, it is no longer possible to change the conditions or affect their implementation.
There is one validator or the whole network, as well as a database that stores all the smart contracts that came in for execution in strict chronological order. It is also important that this database should contain all trigger conditions for the execution of a smart contract. In addition, it must take into account the very value distribution described in the contract. If this applies to some digital currency, then this database should take it into account.
In other words, the validators of smart contracts must have access to all the data that the smart contract operates with. For example, one database should be used to simultaneously record digital currencies, user balances, user transactions, and timestamps. Then, in a smart contract, a condition may be the user’s balance in a certain currency, the onset of a certain time, or the fact of a certain transaction, but no more.
It’s a job that’s never started that takes the longest to finish.
In general, the terminology itself was invented by the researcher Nick Szabo and was first applied in 1994, and was documented in 1997 in an article that describes the very idea of smart contracts.
Smart contracts imply that some automation of the distribution of value is carried out, which may depend only on those conditions that are predefined. In its simplest form, it looks like a contract with strictly specified conditions, which is signed by certain parties.
Smart contracts are designed to minimize trust to third party. The decision center, on which everything sometimes depends of, is completely excluded. In addition, it is easier to conduct an audit for such contracts. This is a consequence of some design features of such a system, but most often we mean by a smart contract a decentralized environment and the presence of functions that allow anyone who wants to analyze the database and conduct a full audit of contract execution. In this way, protection against backdating data changes that will entail changes in the performance of the contract itself is guaranteed. Digitization of most processes when creating and launching a smart contract often simplifies the technology and the cost of their implementation. That is why smart contracts are so important. This will shape the new global digital economy and it is already starting to happen now.
“I am glad you are here with me. Here at the end of all things, Sam.”
Elrond Network plans to add smart contract support to the ecosystem it creates. Elrond builds its Virtual Machine (VM) infrastructure on top of the K Framework, which is an executable semantic framework where programming languages, calculi, as well as type systems or formal analysis tools can be defined. Elrond Network virtual machine will be compatible with:
- IELE VM (an intermediate-level language based on LLVM
(Low Level Virtual Machine)) - KEVM (version of Ethereum Virtual Machine written in K)
- WASM (Web Assembly)
Several smart contract`s languages specified in the K Framework, will be supported by Elrond Network`s Virtual Machine. In principle any smart contract language formalized in K can become a smart contract language in Elrond. In practice, low level languages are preferred for direct support. Higher level languages, such as Solidity are used indirectly, via a compiler that converts the high-level code into lower-level code. As we already know Elrond Network blockchain code are written on the Go language as well as smart contract interpreters are generated via Go backend. So Elrond can operate with most of popular languages such as IELE, Solidity, C/C++, Rust, C#, and others. Ethereum uses Solidity to write smart contracts. Despite the fact that Ethereum become very popular, there are some difficulties in the design, development and testing of smart contracts in Ethereum. Indeed, practice shows that a very large percentage of all errors belongs to the human factor. This is actually true for already written Ethereum smart contracts, which have a complexity from medium and higher. If for simple smart contracts the probability of error is small, then in complex smart contracts very often errors occur that lead to the theft of funds, to their freezing, to the destruction of smart contracts in an unexpected way, etc. Many such cases are already known.
The another drawback is that the virtual machine itself is not perfect, as it is also written by people. It can execute arbitrary commands and this is a vulnerability: a number of commands can be configured in a certain way, which will lead to unforeseen consequences. This is a very complex area, but there are already several studies that show that these vulnerabilities exist in the current version of the Ethereum network and they can lead to the failure of many smart contracts.
There is another big difficulty, which can be considered a drawback. It consists in the fact that it is possible in practical or technical way to come to the conclusion that if you compile the byte code of the contract that will be executed on the virtual machine, you can determine some specific order of operations. When performed together, these operations will very heavily load the virtual machine and slow it down disproportionately to the commission that was paid for these operations. A lot of research has been done, a lot of practical experience has been gained: both positive and negative, but nevertheless there remain difficulties and vulnerabilities, which still have to be fought somehow.
However, at this stage in the development of smart contracts, it is necessary to ensure the compatibility of different virtual machines. It will make life easier for programmers writing code in different languages. This is certainly a very good step on the part of the project team because it will attract more developers to the Elrond Network community.
Visions of the Future
Today, billions of electronic devices are used in homes, factories, oil production facilities, hospitals, cars, and other places. Already, more than 60% of the world’s population uses smartphones, and in some countries such as South Korea, this figure reaches 95%.
The rapid growth in the number of devices calls for solutions, allowing you to connect these devices to the network, collect, store and analyze their data.
“He found himself wondering at times, especially in the autumn, about the wild lands, and strange visions of mountains that he had never seen came into his dreams.”
If we will imagine the world of the future, then most likely will see gigantic modern megalopolises crammed with various electronic devices that form smart homes, smart system for managing production and energy sectors, in cars on the roads, inside drones in the air, absolutely everywhere… in everyone’s hands, on his head, or even in human`s bodies. These myriad devices already now have several different types of sensors that create a constant flow of information, communicate with each other. The world will literally be swallowed by the Internet of Things.
In several interviews the CEO of the project Beniamin Mincu said that Elrond Network can be easily applied in the field of the Internet of Things. He mentioned automotive IoT where cars comunicate with gas stations or electro charging devices to automaticaly pay. But there are limitless use cases for Elrond Network since at its core it is a platform to launch DApps (Decentralized Applications), working based on smart contracts. As long as someone has a new idea for an application and want to launch a decentralized one on a blockchain: it will become a potential use-case.
Common DApp use-cases:
- Games
- Marketplace
- Social Apps
- Supply chain
- Digital collectibles
- Voting
- Decentralized Exchanges
- Gambling
- Finance
- Development
- Media
- Wallet
- Storage
- Identity
Let’s see what Elrond Network have already achieved and what lies ahead.
We are approaching to the Elrond Network Mainnet launch, this will be the final step in the end of this year. But there are still many things to do. Recently Elrond Validator Economics Proposal was announced as well as game dApp “CryptoBubble” rolled out.
It should be also mentioned that in the first part of 2020 the main focus will be on introducing the Elrond digital identity and launch the Elrond DEX.
Enable anyone, anywhere to access the digital economy. This is what Elrond was built for. All of this takes time, but we’re getting there. One step after another. Onwards!
Right now it is way too early to speculate who will become Elrond’s anchor clients but Elrond already has a plenty bunch of good partnerships.
Partnerships
NETOPIA Payments
NETOPIA is the biggest electronic payment processor in Romania, expecting to process in 2018 more than 13 million digital transactions with a total value of around $400 Million.
Elrond and NETOPIA aim to jointly explore the potential of integrating Elrond’s token, ERD, into the NETOPIA payment platform allowing their merchants to offer on their turn to their users and clients the possibility to acquire products and services through ERD tokens as well.
Distributed Systems Research Laboratory
Distributed Systems Research Laboratory (DSRL) part of the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca — Computer Science Department, has extensive experience in many fields of the distributed systems related research areas such as: Energy efficiency in large scale distributed systems, Machine learning, Big data analytics, IoT and blockchain technology, Ambient assisted living and Multidisciplinary optimization. The DSRL laboratory is actively involved in EU funded research and innovation projects, has an established collaboration network comprising a large number of universities and companies and has published over 100 articles in international conferences and high impact journals.
Elrond and DSRL aim to collaborate on research-education themes, namely:
- Development of research topics, including:
Analysis of the practical applicability of blockchain technology in the energy field and use case scenarios;
Jointly explore the possibility to use the platform developed by Elrond Network in the energy field;
Joint participation in research projects with national or European funding in blockchain technology;
Identifying common Masters and Doctoral themes and creating materials for academic and educational purposes.
- Knowledge transfer supporting Elrond with University led applied research
- Dissemination of results by jointly organizing scientific scholarship sessions and scientific conferences in the areas of interest.
Nash
Nash, (formerly known as NEX) is a decentralized finance platform made for exchanging digital assets, interaction with cryptocurrency wallets, and browser-based blockchain-powered web-app development. Nash also introduced the world’s first fully regulatory compliant exchange security token.
Elrond and Nash, aim to jointly explore the potential integration of the Elrond blockchain platform and tokens (ERD) into the Nash payment platform, allowing their users and clients the possibility to trade and acquire ERD tokens across different platforms. Additionally, Elrond and Nash aim to join efforts to further develop and research interoperability as one of the main connecting bridges for the ecosystem.
TypingDNA
TypingDNA is a behavioral biometrics company, protecting online users based on how they type on their keyboards. The company’s products are successfully used by financial institutions as well as clients from other industries such as security companies and identity access management (IAM) providers.
Elrond and TypingDNA, aim to jointly explore the integration of TypingDNA biometrics solutions into the Elrond platform and future products in order to improve security and remove the friction plaguing many blockchain platforms right now.
SmartBill
SmartBill is an established FinTech company providing SaaS-based services to small, and medium-sized businesses for invoicing, accounting, and inventory management. It’s invoicing and accounting SaaS platform is counting more than 60 000 clients, 2 Million invoices issued each month with a total value exceeding $350 Million each month.
Elrond and SmartBill, aim to jointly explore the potential integration of the two platforms to provide to their users and clients blockchain-based features, like trust, transparency, or traceability.
Holochain
Holochain is a community of passionate humans building a distributed generalized compute platform. As an open source project, Holochain is built by the collaborative work of many people in ways both large and small. However, in its current nascent phase, most of the support comes from Holo, a company building out the first large-scale use of Holochain: a network for distributed hosting of Holochain applications
Elrond and Holo, aim to explore the potential integration of the two technologies to provide more flexibility and performance to developers and dApps within each ecosystem. Furthermore, Elrond and Holo are also exploring other potential use cases, like providing fast and secure finality via Elrond to payment applications requiring it on Holo.
Runtime Verification
Founded by Professor Grigore Rosu, Runtime Verification provides cutting-edge technology to design safe and secure systems and languages based on mathematically-grounded principles. Its technology not only detects the rarest, trickiest and most costly bugs lurking in existing codebases or specifications, but also stimulates the design and development of better programming and specification languages, where such costly bugs cannot exist by design or can be detected cheaply.
Elrond brings a significant improvement to the blockchain space, setting new performance standards in terms of throughput and execution speed. In addition to performance, we believe dev tools and security measures like formal verification methods are instrumental for developers. Through the partnership with Runtime Verification we intend to raise the security standard by adding formal verification to our smart contracts, while integrating K framework to support several VMs and smart contract languages at the same time.
Xangle
Xangle provides accurate, comprehensive, and up to date token information as well as company information of blockchain projects so that crypto investors and exchanges are able to make better investment or listing decisions.
Good technology needs to go hand in hand with good practice and Elrond is making yet another important step in building trust through the partnership with Xangle that offers another layer of transparency. In an environment that has historically been affected by mistrust and general perceptions have been negative, we feel transparency is important and needs to come by default.
There are no many blockchain projects that have so many partnerships before their Mainnet release. But although the first steps have already been taken, we are still at the beginning of the path to a bright future.
Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate,
And though we pass them by today,
Tomorrow we may come this way
And take the hidden paths that run
Towards the Moon or to the Sun.
And remember that we are not afraid our way is long!
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