Move old cryptocurrencies to modern blockchain networks
I know, I know, 17 to 18 years is not a century ago but in the blockchain realm, it is. We have to concede that the first generation blockchain networks are not based on the best technology. Don’t get me wrong, they introduced a great concept with the blockchain but since then, after a couple of years, we discovered several weaknesses. a) there is too much vested interest to keep things as is, miners are making money with the actual consensus technology, they surely do not want it to change. b) digging into its undocumented source code is like digging for some archaeological artifact.
On the other hand, new challenges in the form of EOS, Cardano, Cosmos, just to name a few of them, are trying to resolve some of the experimented problems of the of the first generation blockchain networks. Some of them competing on the transaction costs, others on the consensus confirmation speed, some even made it more modular and more adaptable to different languages. These pretenders to the throne come with the promise to be as if not more efficient than the Visa or MasterCard networks. This is good news, I do not see myself waiting for 10 minutes or hours to see if my transaction got enough fees to be accepted by the miners. Even more, if I buy something in a store who decided to accept cryptocurrencies.
If, for a moment we pay attention to the history of money. it evolved slowly, I agree but went through several technical incarnations. From shell to metal, to paper to finally be virtual today, taking different forms, either as a number in a software as a plastic card. Moreover, it can freely move from one ledger to another without a problem.
Ok, let’s stop for a moment and examine the technological state of the first generation blockchains. Let’s take Bitcoin as an example. Bitcoin is hosted in a single ledger replicated in nodes which are parts of the Bitcoin network. So, it is a single ledger. Can I move the bitcoin as I can do with fiat money? NO. movement of Bitcoins is restricted to the bitcoin ledger. So, even if the blockchain technology is evolving at a fast pace, most of the cryptocurrencies if not all are limited to live in a single host network. Would it be great if we could easily move Bitcoin across Blockchain and be able to make transactions at the same speed as we can do today with Visa or Mastercard?
