Coin Spotlight: ARK
Giving everyone the power to easily create, customize, and scale their own blockchain networks.
What is ARK?
ARK offers a technology stack, unique in its simplicity, to create and deploy standalone blockchains for any use case. These newly created blockchains will have the ability to interoperate through ARK SmartBridge Technology. The main goal of ARK is to create a network designed specifically for the mass adoption of blockchain and cryptocurrencies by providing useful tools and resources. “A Fast Secure Core Technology” with “Practical Services for Real People.”
The team is building a sandbox ecosystem where businesses and other users can create their own blockchain from a clone of ARK in just a few clicks. Making this network widely-accessible requires a heavy focus on presenting an inviting user experience and incorporating as many other blockchain technologies and coding languages as possible.
To put it simply, think of each separate blockchain as its own island in an enormous ocean. If someone is currently on Ethereum Island but wants to go to Bitcoin Island, the only way is to get in the water and swim the distance, which is both difficult and slow. ARK is the bridge connecting each island allowing people to get there quickly and effortlessly.
Currently, each cryptocurrency runs on its own individual technology making them incompatible with each other, however, ARK aims to bridge the gap between all the different available blockchains.
ARK SmartBridge
ARK’s SmartBridge Technology is the capability to connect and communicate between blockchains. With it, every app and project produced on any blockchain has the potential to reach a significantly larger audience and even Bitcoin will also be able to acquire the functionalities of other altcoins.
The SmartBridge communicates between blockchains using a special data section called Vendor Fields and special Encoded Listener nodes, hubs set up by anyone to listen for SmartBridge transactions, that sort through this data for tasks that it can perform.
Example: If you wanted to trigger an ETH smart contract but hold ARK, you could just send the instructions through ARK SmartBridge, right in the wallet to trigger the event. The code embedded in the ETH chain is always listening for an ARK SmartBridge transaction and will collect this info and trigger the function to issue a contract.
Delegated Proof-of-Stake
ARK’s consensus algorithm is known as Delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPoS). This allows ARK to have a high-performance blockchain while maintaining global decentralization and keeping the power in the users’ hands. DPoS is much more energy efficient than PoW (Proof-of-Work) and more representative than PoS (Proof-of-Stake).
The ARK blockchain has an 8 second block time making it one of the fastest blockchains out there.
ARK token holders can vote for any ARK delegate, and the top 51 according to vote weight add transactions to the ledger and forge new ARK. Delegates are people or teams of people around the world that run delegate nodes to secure the blockchain and create new ARK tokens.
Coinplan is very excited to feature ARK because they are looking to enable everyone to easily leverage blockchain technology regardless of their aim or technical background. They value a fast and lean network, hence the 8 second block time, optimizing both decentralization and performance. ARK features a fair and balanced voting system and allows anyone to create, customize, and launch their own unique blockchain instantly with little to no coding required.
The team has a few milestones for 2019 including:
- All-new whitepaper
- All-new website
- ARK Deployer GUI (making ARK cloneable with push-button deployment)
- Core 3.0
You can view ARK inside Coinplan’s Blockchain-as-a-Service Portfolio here.
To learn more about ARK, please take a look at these helpful links:
