AERGO ICO Review, Korea’s blockchain fuel for businesses

Perhaps the most hype among Korean ICOs right now

Published in

ICO of KOREA

7 min readJul 17, 2018

With no doubt, AERGO is currently one of the most hyped projects in Korea. I have heard that some pools (yes, they are not supposed to) are selling AERGO tokens at 5 times the ICO price when the project itself has not even started its crowdsale. AERGO is definitely aware of this situation, and it has released this statement on its website as the hype began to grow even more.

So what exactly is AERGO?

Let’s have a look at AERGO’s description.

AERGO, Blockchain fuel for autonomous business
AERGO proposes to be a 4th generation — enterprise ready — blockchain protocol combined with an IT platform that uses advanced technologies.

AERGO is a “blockchain fuel” for autonomous business. It strives to be 4th generation: blockchain protocol + IT platform for enterprise use. Even when 3rd generation blockchain itself is not so widely adopted, AERGO is making a big leap over here with that statement.

Public & Private Blockchain

When it comes to blockchain, people usually think of security, transparency, and trust. Based on these advantages, there has been many attempts from various industries such as manufacture, distribution, insurance, medical care, government, IoT etc to adopt blockchain in their business models and enjoy the advantages. The encryption of data & assets as well as the decentralized/P2P network was definitely attractive to many companies attempting a change from the centralized methods of doing business.

Public blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum definitely have their pros. Yes for businesses in which financial data and legal responsibilities are involved, it was not so attractive to have all their sensitive data scrutinized by the public (Hence the formation of private consortium like R3CEV). At the same time there weren’t applications/programs suitable for corporate-wide use. The situation, overall, was that there was a demand for blockchain, but not an acceptable level of supply.

Why not use both public & private blockchains?

This is where AERGO steps in. AERGO provides both public and private blockchain. Developers using the AERGO platform can setup their applications to be either public, private, or both. At the same time, the AERGO platform acts as a blockchain infrastructure, allowing for an easy setup and configuration. With these features, AERGO wants mass adoption of blockchain through its platform. It will be a easily used platform for software developers, cloud service (like AWS) for public & private blockchains, and a hub for businesses to connect with each other.

The blockchain fuel for businesses

AERGO is mainly divided into AERGO Chain, AERGO Hub, and AERGO Marketplace. The AERGO Chain is a blockchain designed to overcome the issues with public blockchains. The AERGO Hub connects the public and private blockchains. The AERGO Marketplace is simply a marketplace for the exchange of software, computing resources, storage and other services. Yes, I have not gone in depth of these three divisions. Why? because AERGO recently conducted its debut stage in Seoul, and my focus is on the content of that event. If there are further questions regarding AERGO, please leave a comment below and I’ll answer your questions.

Left: AERGO Hub / Right: AERGO Marketplace

2018 AERGO Debut Stage in Seoul

AERGO had its debut stage July 6th, where Blocko’s CTO Hun Young PARK gave a speech on the progress of AERGO.

Hun Young Park of AERGO, also the CTO of AERGO’s parent company Blocko

The event mainly introduced AERGO’s SQL(Structured Query Language), Parallel Processing, and the AERGO Hub.

AERGO SQL

Many IT developers are capable of learning the technologies associated with blockchain. Yet this does not apply to many developers in Korea. Why? Because the majority of Korean developers use Java, so they are not so familiar with Solidity. Therefore, there is a developer language barrier that is stopping talented developers from entering the blockchain industry. AERGO states that it has created a developer framework such as the SQL for a developer friendly environment. SQL is the language standard computer language for database management and data manipulation. According to AERGO, it has introduced SQL because most developers have experience in managing database, and believes this knowledge can be used when developing blockchain.

The SQL prototype is planned to be released in July

2. Parallel Processing

AERGO introduced transaction and block-level parallel processing in the event. Parallel processing can increase efficiency and reduce time when it comes to creating and sharing new blocks. However, the common problem associated with parallel processing is that it does not guarantee the fair processing order of transactions. To address this, AERGO has introduced the Dependency Analysis and DTT(Deterministic Transaction Tree). Unfortunately AERGO says more details on the following two will be announced on its upcoming white paper. Basically, AERGO analyzes the dependecy of a transaction and a certain block to determine the order of events and creating a data structure.

A diagram of AERGO’s parallel processing

3. AERGO Hub & Serverless Computing service

The AERGO Hub is like a playground for developers because everything on the hub is open-source. Usually in a architecture that is not “serverless”, the web applications are conducted like below.

The architecture is divided into the presentation layer, business layer, and data access layer. Different layers have to call upon each other and to set up this kind of system the developer needs to have a well understanding of the technology associated with each layer. Therefore, it is time-consuming. The AERGO hub, in contrast, is “serverless”. By serverless it does not mean there is no server. Instead it means there is no need to set up a computer or virtual machine to setup a server for processing tasks. AERGO uses BaaS(Backend as a Service) or FaaS(Function as a Service) to complete tasks. Some examples BaaS include Firebase, Kinvey and some examples of FaaS include AWS Lambda, Azure Functions, and Google Cloud Functions. By having this architecture, the AERGO Hub can reduce setup/operation costs, provide quick scalability, and save time spent on IT resource management.

AERGO’s debut stage showed how much the project is focused on making its blockchain feasible to enterprise adoption. If AERGO can make its platform easier for developers and businesses to adopt, it definitely has a potential to grow as the top blockchain solutions provider in Korea.

A look into Blocko, and its implications to AERGO

Talking about AERGO and business adoption, we need to have a look at Blocko, AERGO’s parent company. Blocko is a company that provides customized blockchain solutions for businesses. It really is the leader in this field, and is already working with some of the major Korean companies in fields across IT, Telecommunications, Banking, Finance, Solutions etc. Some notable companies include Samsung SDS, POSCO ICT, Hyundai, LOTTE CARD, ollehKT, LG CNS etc.

In addition, it is not Blocko’s first time developing something like AERGO. Blocko’s Coinstack technology is a blockchain solution that serves as a platform for blockchain infrastucture setup by individuals and businesses. Coinstack is already implemented by more than 20 systems with 25 million users altogether. Coinstack is like the early version of AERGO, and Blocko created AERGO to upgrade the limitations that Coinstack had.

Set subtitles to English when watching this video

Here is where I see a lot of potential with AERGO. If Coinstack did not exist, AERGO’s approach would be the following.

Hey, we have this cool thing called AERGO, why don’t you check it out?

But because there is Coinstack, here is how AERGO can approach businesses.

Hey, here is AERGO, an upgraded version of Coinstack, which is something you might be using already. Would you like to try this upgrade?

There is a tremendous difference between these approaches. Because people are always keen towards “familiarity”, I believe AERGO definitely has this advantage when approaching businesses for mass adoption.

Huge competitions ahead

There is more and more news that existing companies like Microsoft and Oracle are stepping into the field of blockchain for enterprises. AERGO has to find a differentiating point on its platform as more and more tech giants will be stepping into the field. I guess I will have to see how AERGO does in the near future.

Recent announcement of Microsoft investing in an enterprise-grade blockchain ecosystem. Image from technologyrecord.com

Final Remarks

So that was ICO OF KOREA’s first ICO analysis. I hope everyone likes it. I started off with a popular Korean ICO, but in the future I will try to review some Korean ICOs that are not well-known outside Korea. I am not a perfect reviewer, so I am always open to “constructive” criticism. Leave a comment below and we can freely discuss. If you liked this article, please make sure to follow ICO OF KOREA on our channels. Thank you!