Loom Network — Why Being Ahead Matters

Zombie Nik III
Nov 7 · 3 min read

If you haven’t heard of Loom Network, you definitely need to check them out.

They are a multichain interoperability platform with integrations to Ethereum, Binance Chain, TRON, Bitcoin (announced), Libra (announced), and Cosmos (announced).

But most importantly they actually have a working solution. Not promises. Not “soon”. But an actual platform developers can deploy to TODAY. They have a massive head start compared to their competitors.

Someone recently asked if Loom had that big of a head start.

My answer: yes, they have THAT big of a head start. And it matters a lot.

Take a look at Bitcoin and the head start it had. No other PoW coin has been able to compete on pure “cryptocurrency” grounds.

Or take a look at Ethereum and the head start it had. Although Ethereum has had delays in their Eth2.0 schedule, Ethereum-killers have done remarkably poor in terms of attracting developers away.

Being first in this space seems to matter a lot. And I’ll explain in a bit why.

But what matters just as much, if not more, is being able to consistently deliver.

And that’s what Loom Network has done.

Most Loom “competitors” have barely launched their mainnet, if at that.

OmiseGo promised a mainnet years ago. They’re still in testnet mode, hoping to make Plasma work (last time I checked)

Enjin promised Efinity, a scalable blockchain. Nothing has happened so far.

At least one gamer complained: “ Some games on @enjin are getting rekt by them being so slow to do anything"

Wow, if this is the competition, it really isn’t much.

Another supposed competitor is Matic.

Loom Network figured out months ago Plasma doesn’t work as a usable scaling solution because of the exit games required.

Matic is still trying to do Plasma?

I look forward to end users complaining about the week long exit games and pushing developers away from them.

Every few months we get people asking:

“How does Loom plan to compete with X?”

And a few months later nobody is asking about that specific competitor anymore.

Nobody asks anymore how Loom plans to compete with OmiseGo.

Nobody asks how Loom plans to compete with Enjin.

And that’s a trend that will keep going on.

That’s because Loom seems to be one of the extremely few blockchain projects that is consistently delivering and producing results.

No wonder high quality projects like Axie Infinity and Neon District are building on Loom Network.

OK, so what about the head start. Why does that matter?

It matters because 1) being at the bleeding edge means you benefit from figuring out what does and doesn’t work and 2) if you’re ahead and you build faster, at some point nobody can overtake you.

Let’s start with the first one.

If you’ve ever done academic research, you know how important it is to be at the bleeding edge.

At the bleeding edge, you’re not spending time competing. You’re spending time discovering the new and you get to reap all the rewards: first to publish, massive amount of citations, awards, etc.

The same applies here. When you’re first, you get the advantage of figuring things out way ahead of everyone else and gaining from that knowledge.

For Loom Network that could be realizing there are opportunities in untapped markets and as the first player gaining maximum benefit while your competitors fight for the scraps.

It is not a coincidence that the biggest thing in the blockchain space is DeFi and DeFi is overwhelmingly happening on the Ethereum blockchain.

Ethereum was the first major smart contract platform to go live and DeFi is the benefit they’re reaping while Ethereum-killers are barely getting off the ground today.

In regards to the second point, compound interest can be your best friend or your worst enemy. If you’re competing with someone who is ahead of you and building faster than you…well do the math, you’re never going to catch up.

The moat gets bigger, the advantages keep piling up and suddenly you’re left so far behind you have to ask why even bother.

The only time you can catch up is if the front-runner slows down. An example is Bitcoin not innovating anymore, leaving space for Ethereum to shine as a smart contract platform.

But if 2019 is a predictor of things to come in terms of delivering, I can’t wait to see what 2020 will bring for Loom Network.

Zombie Nik III

Written by

ZombieNik3. #securetheloom

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