The purpose of this article is to explain Bytom in plain English to the non-technical reader.
Bytom is a blockchain-based technology that allows a computer to exist across many machines around the world. A little bit like a big interconnected computer that facilitates transfers of value.
To understand this further, let’s take a closer look at what a computer is:
A computer is a machine that runs applications. These applications let you make changes to the computer that you can save and come back to later. For example, if you save a picture on Microsoft Paint, you can come back later and load up the same picture.
Bytom does precisely this for transfers of value. It can be likened to a worldwide computer that takes value from the physical world, digitizes it, and keeps an untamperable record of it.
How does Bytom compare to Bitcoin?
A good way to understand Bytom is to compare and contrast it with Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a digital currency. A Bitcoin transaction usually involves moving coins from one address to another. The blockchain, in the case of Bitcoin, is a record of all the transactions that have been made.
Bytom is like a computer that keeps a record of all transactions and the state of all contracts at any given moment. You can send and receive coins like in Bitcoin, but you can also do a lot more with Bytom because each transaction can be programmed via the smart contracts.
What are Smart Contracts?
Smart contracts are like conditions that need to be met for a transaction to happen.
For example, Sam agrees to pay Lucy $200 on the condition that she runs from Notre-Dam de Paris to the Eiffel Tower in under an hour. Lucy’s successful completion can be verified by GPS, sent to the blockchain and the smart contract can activate the transfer of $200 from Sam to Lucy if she completes the run in under an hour.
These same contracts can also be used for a variety of other things such as mortgages, insurance agreements, digital identities, supply chain logistics, and many other use cases across a vast array of industries.
In short, smart contracts cut out the middleman from a lot of situations where we’ve grown used to dealing with intermediaries. By cutting out these intermediaries, smart contracts have the potential to bring significant cost savings and increased efficiencies to many aspects of our life.
How does Bytom compare to Ethereum?
Like Bytom, Ethereum is also similar to a distributed computer that uses smart contracts. However, Ethereum is an older generation blockchain. As a result, Ethereum has suffered from various performance issues, from speed bottlenecks to security vulnerabilities, that newer generation blockchains like Bytom have corrected.
As the world gradually adopts blockchain technology, we are likely to see growing awareness and participation in a wide variety of public and private blockchains.
Which is better?
As highly respected public blockchains, both Bytom and Ethereum are likely to attract a variety of different use cases. From financial markets to smart cities, there is a massive amount of transaction volume that will hit public blockchains over the coming years.
Most people underestimate the size of the global market. In terms of public blockchain projects like Ethereum and Bytom, it is unlikely to resolve in a winner takes all situation.
Each blockchain has its unique limitations and trade-offs and these will most likely be embraced by the various complexities of each individual use case.
What makes Bytom unique?
Bytom’s core team shares a particular industry expertise within China that sets them apart from many other blockchain projects. With over 35 developers from Tencent, Alipay, as well as code contributors from Ethereum, Bytom stands out as having some of the most rich tech and industry resources in the space today.
With the Government in China gradually warming to the potential use cases of blockchain technology, Bytom’s core team’s rich industry relationships will help overcome many barriers to industry adoption within China and abroad.
The development team, to date, has built a comprehensive product ecosystem that covers Bytom mainchain, Bytom sidechain (Vapor), DeFi protocol (MOV), cross chain gateway (OFMF), Enterprise Blockchain (Bystack) and also leading an IEEE working standard group.
If you would like to learn more about Bytom, you can check out www.bytom.io/en/ or stay tuned for more articles as we examine the different aspects of Bytom’s ecosystem and explain their various use cases in plain English.
