Skycoin is an ecosystem. Wait… what?
How is Skycoin an ecosystem, and what does it mean for the future of cryptocurrency?
When people talk about Skycoin, they often refer to it as an ecosystem. What does that mean? How is Skycoin more than just another cryptocurrency in a sea of altcoins and tokens that sprung up in the wake of Bitcoin?
The Test of Time
While the world keeps chasing the next big thing in crypto, Skycoin has been quietly building the future since 2012. It was developed concurrently with Bitcoin, by some of the same engineers who built Bitcoin and Ethereum. These developers set out to correct many of the shortcomings of the Bitcoin protocol, and in the process developed solutions to problems that still plague major cryptocurrencies and blockchain application platforms to this day.
For example, Skycoins are pre-mined, meaning there will be no increasingly centralized warehouses of ASIC-running supercomputers guzzling electricity while they solve incredibly complicated cryptographic puzzles just to facilitate simple transactions on the blockchain.
Enter Obelisk
Instead, Skycoin uses Obelisk, a truly decentralized and scalable web-of-trust-style consensus algorithm that distributes influence across the network, making transactions incredibly fast, eco-friendly, and virtually free of transaction fees or associated “proof-of-work” costs.
One Coin x One Hour = One Coin Hour
And Skycoin isn’t just the world’s most powerful cryptocurrency; it’s also the engine that generates Coin Hours. Coin Hours are produced at the rate of one Coin Hour per hour per Skycoin you hold in your wallet. Hold 100 Skycoin for one day, and you’ll have 2400 Coin Hours by the end of it. Coin Hours are a parallel currency that helps keep Skycoin transfers virtually free, and will one day form an important part of the economy of Skywire, Skycoin’s decentralized Internet.
Wire in the Sky
Skywire is another big reason why Skycoin is frequently referred to as an “ecosystem”. Skywire is the next generation of the Web; a worldwide wireless mesh network that is faster and more secure than the current Internet, and completely private with end-to-end encryption baked-in across the network. Think about it: no tracking, no privacy violations or compromises, and best of all, no expensive bills from an Internet Service Provider who can spy on your browsing activity, throttle your speed, or cut off your access at any time. Skywire is a truly decentralized Internet; an oasis of net neutrality and freedom because it’s maintained and shared by people who believe the Internet should be for everyone.
How do you pay for access to Skywire? With the Coin Hours your Skycoin generates automatically. Coin Hours can be exchanged for more Skycoin, so those payments are the incentive for everyday people to maintain Skywire nodes on the network, which brings us to the next major component of the Skycoin ecosystem: the Skyminer.
Mining for Fun and Profit
The Skyminer is simply a hardware device that is configured to provide nodes to the Skywire network, increasing Skywire’s storage, processing power, and bandwidth for everyone. You can buy an eight-node Skyminer from skycoin.net or build your own for a few hundred dollars or less. Running a Skyminer node literally makes you your own ISP, and generates a passive income day and night while strengthening the infrastructure of Skywire. There are already nearly 10,000 active nodes deployed around the world and more coming online every day.
Fiber is good for you
Another pillar of the Skycoin ecosystem is Fiber. The Skycoin team cracked the code of making blockchain technology lightning fast as well as infinitely scalable. The answer is Fiber; a system of multiple blockchains running in parallel side-by-side. Every project running on Fiber gets its own fully-customizable blockchain strand woven in among all the other strands, making the network even faster and stronger. Check out KittyCash.io for one lighthearted example of what is possible to deploy on Skycoin’s Fiber platform.
CX is the key
Then there is CX, which is Skycoin’s custom-built programming language, Turing-complete, and built on the foundation of Google’s Golang programming language. If you’re a coder, you’ll find CX simple to learn and fast to implement, so you can take full advantage of the Skycoin blockchain application platform to launch your project, video game, or smart contract.
Hop on the $SKY train
That’s just a brief look at why Skycoin is frequently and correctly labeled an ecosystem, and we didn’t even get to the hardware wallets, CXO libraries, or dedicated Skywire antennas.
The fact that Skycoin isn’t just a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, or a blockchain platform like Ethereum, but all of those things and more is what makes investors excited about the future of Skycoin. The hardware already deployed, as well as forthcoming, lends a tangible legitimacy to the Skycoin ecosystem that is hard to ignore.
The bottom line…
Skycoin is a hugely ambitious and interconnected set of revolutionary technologies with both software and hardware components that work seamlessly together to form the most powerful and innovative community in crypto.
If you liked my writing and would like to contribute to me making more feel free to donate some Skycoin: GCB5KK9LmJzxxxh2hMoKm3HRXwaJe9vRfd
