Penguin FA — Akroma ($AKA)
This article was first released to the CryptoBirb Exclusive Moon Club.
For more information, visit discord.gg/emw5Npb.
Website | White Paper | Twitter | Discord | Medium | Github
Circulating/Max Supply: 15,043,206/100,000,000
Mineable ✅
Masternodes ✅
Table of Contents
Overview
Akroma is a fork of the Ethereum code that wants to solve problems with scalability and limited functionality by offering a dApp development platform with smart contracts, oracle functionality, and masternodes.
Sustainable Governance
The project strives to run on a ‘sustainable governance’ model that tries to ensure that the project will be continuously maintained and improved while reducing the chances of bad actors. There was no pre-mine and no ICO for Akroma. Core team members were given 10,000 AKA at the beginning of the project and are additionally compensated in AKA based on the hours they work. AKA wallet addresses of core team members were also posted for the sake of transparency.
The fact that there was no ICO or premine means there is no large stash of Ethereum, Bitcoin, or AKA for the developers to cash out and run away with. The more they work on Akroma, the more AKA they will earn. The more value they add to Akroma, the more value their AKA should have. This should motivate the team to continue working on improving Akroma.
Note however that the Akroma team did conclude a token sale on September 19, 2018 for Kastle, a cryptocurrency exchange project. Kastle’s AKT token was created using Akroma. 10% of Kastle ICO and operating funds will be directed towards helping Akroma development.
Masternodes
Akroma’s different masternodes can serve many functions. The Balefire Masternodes will support the Balefire chain, which allows Akroma to provide oracle services to developers. Masternodes could also be called upon to perform various functions, such as content distribution, running artificial intelligence, or rendering.
Token Utility
The $AKA token is required for executing smart contracts, paying miners, paying masternode holders, and paying for continued development. Currently, 5000 AKA is required to run a Full Masternode, while 15,000 AKA is required to run Remote and Boot Masternodes. Block rewards are currently divided between miners, master nodes, and the Akroma Foundation in a 6/2.25/0.75 split.
(Update: On December 25th 2018, Akroma announced the removal of Boot and Remote Masternodes and temporary disabling of Full Masternodes)
Team
There is currently no information about Akroma’s team on their recently redesigned webpage. The following information is based off what can be seen in their old website in this interview. Note that Victor Reza has been confirmed by Eric to no longer be working on iOS.
Founder Eric Polerecky had over a decade of experience as a software developer before he founded a consulting firm that specialized in blockchain-related projects. When startups came looking for a scalable blockchain platform they could build on and couldn’t find one that fit the bill, he decided to create a platform that his team could use to build the applications they wanted. Eric certainly has enough experience in software to understand what developers want and need.
Ian DesJardins, developer and co-founder of Akroma, graduated with a degree in Computer Science — Software Engineering in 2014 and has had about 6 years of listed experience working in software development. Currently working as a full stack software developer writing webapps, his LinkedIn profile states that he has only been able to work on Akroma in his “spare time”.
Android developer Gunveer Natt graduated from college in 2014 and does not have a very long list of credentials. While more years of work experience would have been preferrable, Gunveer did work as a software engineer for Bosch and is currently working as a Senior Android Developer for Change Financial.
Designer Andrew Hainen graduated with a degree in Graphic Design and has been working in design for over 6 years. Visual design can be easily overlooked in a team with many coders, so it is good that they have a team member focused only on graphic design.
The other two core team members are designer/developer Stephen Koller and community manager Megan Mayle, whose LinkedIn profiles are not available.
We can see that the majority of the core team consists of mainly developers and designers. For a project that wants to build a dApp platform for developers, that is not necessarily a bad thing. However, as the project continues to grow, brand awareness and clients/partnerships will be important factors in ensuring that Akroma gets the attention it needs for further success. Eric recognized this issue in a Q&A on April 2018 and even stated that they “recently added a team member focused on business development”, but there still hasn’t been much progress announced on this front.
Another issue is that most of the team (with the exception of Eric) is apparently only able to work on Akroma part-time . The previously mentioned ICO for Kastle should have given the Akroma team some funds to devote more time to the project. However, it could also potentially divert the team’s attention away from Akroma, as evidenced in their latest October update, which states: “Most of the current development is focused on Kastle, we hope to have a beta of Balefire in January.”
Roadmap
Since Akroma was first officially announced on Jan 25, 2018, they have completed many milestones. This includes an Android app, master nodes, a Chrome extension, an alpha version of their blockchain explorer, an alpha build of their desktop wallet, and a web wallet. They even have an early version of Akroma Oracles working on a testnet. However they still have not met their Q2 2018 goal of getting an iOS app on the App Store.
If this is what the team can achieve while most of them have only been working on the project part-time, it is certainly commendable. Hopefully the funds gathered from the Kastle ICO should allow the team to ramp up their efforts on Oracles, as this is what will really make Akroma stand out from other platforms. The next milestone to look out for is the release of Balefire masternodes, which will provide the infrastructure they need to have reliable Oracles. Since the Akroma team hopes “to have a beta of Balefire in January”, it is safe to assume that we will wait until early-mid 2019 at the earliest for Akroma’s Oracle feature to be fully realized.
Competition
Pirl
One of Akroma’s closest competitors is Pirl. Released on 30 September 2017, Pirl is also an Ethereum fork with smart contract functionality that adds masternodes in order to alleviate scaling issues. Pirl has a more ambitious and fleshed out road map which includes plans for Poseidon, an all-in-one decentralized app that includes features such as a dapp platform, exchange, payment gateway, and a smart contract creator. What is notably missing from Pirl’s plans however, is an oracle. This will definitely be the key feature that distinguishes Akroma from Pirl.
Unfortunately, Akroma is not the only project working on oracle capabilities.
Oraclize
Oraclize was announced way back in November 2015 and already works with Ethereum, as well as 6 other coins. Their working product puts it well ahead of Akroma on the oracle front, but Oraclize does charge a fee for their service. Akroma is promising that their oracle will come at “no cost to developers”.
Zap
Zap is creating an oracle marketplace that allows data stream owners to monetize their information by packaging it as oracles that Ethereum and EOS blockchain developers can access. They have even made it possible to speculate on the price of oracles through Initial Oracle Offerings. One advantage of Zap’s approach is that it is not decentralized. There is no need for consensus as to what information should or should not be added to the oracle. As long as there is someone willing to sell the information, it can be made available on their marketplace. Zap is also relying on the market to help sort through all the data and pick out the oracles that are most valuable. Akroma’s oracle offering does not have these free market elements as their oracles will be “updated by a trusted party (Akroma Foundation)”, but Akroma oracles will be free to Akroma dApp developers.
While Zap has been completing work on such elements such as their Ethereum API, OracleMarketCap, and MyOracleWallet, their oracle marketplace with third party sources is still not ready at this point in time.
Chainlink
Chainlink promises to securely link smart contracts to external sources of information, then securely transmit the results to an off-chain endpoint such a bank or payment network. Chainlink’s decentralized oracle network will help verify the accuracy of the data being transferred by checking with multiple nodes. Providers can sell access to their APIs to dApps or smart contracts by operating a Chainlink node. Chainlink has also been associated with Swift — SmartContract.com’s website states that they are “proud to be working with SWIFT on their own SWIFT Smart Oracle”. While it is currently possible to run a Chainlink node, Chainlink’s mainnet has not yet been announced. Akroma’s planned Oracle offering does not have Chainlink’s output capabilities but again, Akroma’s proposed price tag of ‘free’ should be able to lure developers towards at least trying Akroma’s solution before considering Chainlink, which requires developers to pay data providers.
Conclusion
The individual elements of the Akroma project are not that unique, but there are few projects that are planning to put them all together into one developer-friendly package. With a strong focus on functionality for developers, good governance models, and smart contract as well as oracle capabilities, Akroma could be a very strong choice for potential decentralized app developers.
However, lack of funds and time has prevented this team from taking Akroma as far as it could have over the course of 2018. The Kastle exchange is also taking some of the dev team’s focus away from Akroma, though the much needed influx of capital from that project should help accelerate future Akroma development.
Investors looking for prices to go up should look out for any updates regarding progress on their oracle feature as a potential catalyst. The price could also benefit from the project doing more work on getting noteworthy partnerships/clients and getting listed on some big exchanges.
Overall, this is a project that is focusing on the right issues and offering a solution that blockchain developers would be glad to have. However, it is not the only project that is working on oracles, and is certainly not the only blockchain platform. Akroma needs to get its platform up and running as soon as possible so that it can get ahead of the competition and capitalize on growing developer interest in decentralized app development.
Recommended Resources
The Birb Nest publication is a facet of the CryptoBirb community. For more information please visit https://discord.gg/kUpraEH
