The better decentralized network : Hedera Hashgraph case study

Hedera Hashgraph — A fast, secure consensus network

Hashgraph, an efficient, provable, byzantine fault-tolerant, ACID-compliant ecosystem that can be understood as a faster alternative to current blockchain networks, presents some promising solutions to the problems already mentioned in the previous article. At a very high level, the most promising feature offered by the platform is that it easily fits into the matrix of the current DLT wishlist. The list of attributes that could be attractive for an aspiring decentralized application are :

1. Governance Operating Model: Provides a solution to “death by trivial forking” and keeps the upgrades within the scope of a council. The council comprising of members from unique industries across various different industry segments & geographic regions. This would allow faster decision making cycles on key aspects like software upgrade, fees and compliance. Virtual voting based on a patented algorithm excludes the necessity to do any mining for PoW and hence takes away the race for the reward problem.
2. Fast Consensus: A “gossip about gossip”-based consensus that theoretically works faster than any existing blockchain solution. The theoretical limits can stretch well beyond 100K TPS, which would allow for the adoption of more real-time use cases to be implemented on a DLT, a major differentiator that is missing in today’s landscape. The current transaction speeds have been measured well above 10K TPS with 2–3 seconds to finality.
3. Security : DoS-resistant design along with the current governance model ensures that the network is operating at a more optimal security and that there are no ways to skew any voting or decision-making. The consensus model is resistant to sybil attacks and the voting is virtual; hence there is no way a node can prioritize transactions.
4. Operational / Transaction Cost: By avoiding proof of work and costly hardware-based mining models, the transaction cost can be kept considerably low and focus can remain on adding more value for customers. A more resilient fee model that is based of fiat and equivalent native currency allows ease of use for specific use cases.
5. Low Adoption Complexity: The platform can support multiple technologies by using a canonical transaction format to interact with the network. There are various use cases, examples and SDK that can get a developer quickly onboarded on the platform. The rich ecosystem of client SDK, wallet tools and developer advocacy allows quick POC phase for new applications.
6. Support for Micropayments: While some of the current blockchain networks like EOS & Ethereum require a premium price in terms of processing delays or non deterministic fees for performing transactions. Other networks like Stellar,Ripple etc. require certain parts of the solution to be performed off-chain. All of these problems render the ability to do micropayments as an “anti-pattern” of sorts for the current DAPP landscape. Hashgraph solves this problem by enabling fast transactions that can have a value smaller than 1/100th of a cent alongside having the fee for that transaction be an even lower amount, such as 1/1000th of a cent. This is a game-changing use case for the application of crypto transactions at the micropayment level.
7. Multi Wallet Support: Multi-device support with a secure digital wallet that allows you to safely manage your crypto assets, even while you are mobile. Existing support models allow embedded wallets for your mobile applications as well. There are already over 100 DAPP’s being built on the HashGraph network. There is also support for Hardware wallets like Ledger, Trezor etc.
8. Promises of Futuristic Throughput: With the ultimate goal of harnessing computer power without losing money on costly hardware and power, the algorithm promises throughput like never before in the history of the digital crypto space. The usage of gossip and virtual voting has the potential to push the limits beyond 100K TPS for inter node communication, resulting in a new benchmark for a distributed ledger.
9. Use it as a secure digital vault : The distributed ledger can store files and provide cryptographic proof of storage without exposing the contents. Most current implementations of a data store allow you to store hashes while the actual data is stored elsewhere, such as in IPFS or cloud storage. These are detached systems that can cause issues such as having no ‘long term guarantee’ which leads to consistency or integrity issues due to its non-chain aspects.
10. Smart Contracts : The HashGraph platform allows developers to store and execute smart contacts written in the Solidity language. This platform also promises a fair transaction ordering, parallel execution, and ability to design various types of keys to allow more flexible way of change management. This allows developers to mix and match all the conceptual features of a blockchain platform into a secure DLT while still having a futuristic roadmap for DAPPs.

In conclusion, the future will hold many new surprises for blockchain enthusiasts, and it is evident that there is a huge scope for evolving and maturing this technology. While current popular networks like Ethereum and EOS have had both ups and downs, they still command interest in today’s DAPP space.

HashGraph network promises a new fast, reliable and cost effective way of looking at new ideas in the crypto space, and will provide the stepping stone for enthusiasts to overcome the limitations of current blockchain technologies. The next article is about how to get started with Hedera, the native cryptocurrency and the creative ways to build your next big idea on the blazing fast DLT.

Read more on how to get started …

References

Hashgraph Fees https://www.hedera.com/fees
Getting Started docs https://docs.hedera.com/docs