After almost ten-month-long bears market, more and more investors are shifting their eyes onto blockchain-based applications, i.e. dApps, rather than pure speculations on market movements. However, before a large amount of dApps are developed, more supports are needed from blockchain technologies. From now on, I am going to share some brief overviews on blockchain projects from time to time, so that we will be able to get a better idea of how to distinguish projects, then invest slowly in good ones and get out of scams as early as possible.
Today we are going to talk about AElf which is identified by the industry by its multi-layer side chains and parallel processing technologies.
It is known that there are some hurdles affecting the mass adoption of blockchain technologies:
1. Low TPS leading to bad user experience;
2. One chain won’t fit different business models. For example, a tree structure of chains might be needed by a business management system; a ticketing system requires higher TPS, while an ID system needs higher reliability, etc.;
3. The increasing demand for storage. As more transactions are done and more data is stored on blockchains, block sizes are growing at an incredible speed. We know that 130G space in the hard drive is needed for running a Bitcoin node, while that of 180G is needed in order to run an Ethereum node;
4. Cross-chain communications still seem to be very challenging.
Now let’s see how AElf overcomes the above issues:
1. We have seen that the TPS in AElf test nest has reached some 150,000 in this July, which is stunning, thanks to AElf parallel processing technology. In AElf system, a (side) chain will be broken into several smaller chains the get processed in parallel, which will significantly increase TPS. It can be forecast that after some optimizations, AElf system will easily be over ten times faster than now with the features of clusters and multi chains.;
2. Users are able to create and customize their own side chains to meet different requirements or different business scenarios. Side chains will offer customizable data structures, smart contract logics even consensus mechanisms. For instance, for users who pay more attention to speed, PoS might be a good choice but for those who need more decentralization and reliability, PoW is the best;
3. AElf defines and triggers snapshots of the whole chains when needed. As soon as a pre-defined condition is met, a snapshot is taken and all details of previous transactions are dumped, an epoch is then created. This way, only the minimum storage is required when running an AElf node;
4. AElf is able to communicate with Bitcoin, Ethereum and other blockchains. A multi-layer cross-chain system will be formulated to enable data and value transfer inter-chain, which will greatly help blockchain mass adoption.
In terms of applications of AElf, the current 15,000 is definitely able to satisfy the need of financial industry, such as cross-border payment, trade finance, supply chains, etc., seamless communications between side chains will also beneficial to asset registration, account management, real-time transactions and insurance claim settlement. Apart from finance, based on the current safety and speed that AElf can offer, it will be able to find a place in legal, medicare, power, anti-counterfeiting, IP and digital identity industries. The multi-chain structure also makes AElf suitable to government functions, such as citizen identity, government information release even elections.
In all, the future of AElf is bright and we should keep a close eye on it in the coming years.
