This 2018, we are witnessing the emergence of many Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) more than ever since the massive media exposure of Bitcoin last year due to its sudden spike in price. Aside from Bitcoin, there are also other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum which serve as a platform, exchange coins like Binance Coin, privacy coins like Verge, and some other utilities with specific use for their industry like MediBloc.
Bitcoin started the first generation of blockchain technology in 2009. In the first generation, you just install an application and you’ll be interconnected to everyone in the blockchain. Ethereum started the second generation of blockchain technology in 2014. In the second generation, anyone can create their own tokens and decentralized apps as long as they’re compliant with the platform’s standards just like the ERC20 token standard of Ethereum.
Since millions of people around the world suddenly got their hands in cryptocurrencies last year, their specific blockchain networks immediately suffered undesirable congestion and we had seen evident problems from them.
Lack of User Friendliness
The first problem is about intimidating user interface. In Bitcoin, you input your address or transaction hashes on blockchain explorers to check your wallet and transactions. The details shown are not for newbies because sometimes you need to manually search your details from the list of transactions. In Ethereum, you need to create a separate wallet which is time consuming for newbies especially if they’re going to differentiate their Ethereum address to the smart contract address of the token they will be depositing for. Because of this, many people mistakenly deposited Ether to the smart contract address, making them lose their Ether in the process.
Poor Performance & High Transaction Fees
The second problem is about the very poor performance and high cost of transactions. I personally experienced last December sending Bitcoin to an exchange where the lowest transaction fee was around $40. After sending Bitcoin, the transaction took almost 12 hours. Because of that unforgiveable delay, I wasn’t able to join an ICO. Another one was around $30 and the transaction took 6 hours. I was then not able to join the uptrend of a specific coin. Last December also, I heard about the congestion caused by CryptoKitties of Ethereum. Because of the event, it made the usually low transaction fees of Ethereum unusually high.
Non-Interoperability of Blockchains
The third problem is about the lack of interoperability between blockchain platforms. Yes, exchanges do the transforming of your coins to be used in their specific use. If you want Bitcoin, it’s used as base to almost all exchanges so you can just deposit there. If you want to use Basic Attention Tokens (BATs), you need to deposit your currency first, convert it to the primary pairings of your exchange, then exchange it to BATs. If you want to use a coin for you specific application, the same process applies before you can actually use them. It’s like wanting to use Linux for database management and MacOS for media applications but you can’t leave Windows because all your games are there. That’s one of my main reasons why I still use Windows primarily because I’m a gamer. I can install Virtual Machines and other Windows simulator on Linux and MacOS but it will take hours for an average user to make things work due to compatibility issues because you need to make all your device drivers working on your hardware.
After some research about the problems of current blockchain technologies, I stumbled about ArcBlock and I have some very good news.
ArcBlock plans to revolutionize the previous technologies of Bitcoin and Ethereum. If Bitcoin was Blockchain 1.0 and Ethereum was Blockchain 2.0, ArcBlock wants to be Blockchain 3.0.
Why should we love ArcBlock?
#1: Focus on User Experience
ArcBlock wants the whole experience as user friendly as possible. They want to implement all applications to hide the complexity of the applications and its blockchain to the masses. Either you’re using the applications on a computer, tablet, or mobile phone, they want to create a better experience minus the hassle of the technicalities of blockchain technology. All of its functionalities are in one place. Even its wallet can just be accessible in one click unlike when you do My Ether Wallet and Metamask on Ethereum, it will take some time learning from scratch.
#2: Better Performance and Scalability
With the target of achieving more than 100,000 transactions per second, ArcBlock will be the base for blockchain applications in the future. This can be used for voting systems every time a country has a national election. This can be used for lottery applications where thousands or even millions of people simultaneously bet on a specific time. This can be used for social media platforms where people can communicate, share ideas, and share information. Since performance and scalability will be much better compared to previous blockchain technologies, we’ll expect the transaction fees to drop drastically.
#3: Cloud-based Blockchain
In current blockchain technologies, users run a program then they’re interconnected to everyone in that blockchain. ArcBlock wants to implement a Cloud-based blockchain technology so as to intensify its security within the blockchain. We all know that cloud systems are more secured than regular computers because of the level of security cloud has to offer. They’re even planning to partner with established cloud-based service providers such as AWS, Windows Azure, and Google Compute Engine.
#4: Community-driven
ArcBlock plans to implement a community-driven approach to its ecosystem by giving a set of standards to their developers. In the whitepaper, APIs are their set of guidelines to be followed by developers and the developers can develop on Blocklets. With that approach, every developer will be more enticed to improve and develop previous and further applications for the future.
#5: Marketplace
I believe this is the first time for a blockchain to have its own marketplace for developers. ArcBlock plans to launch a marketplace wherein developers will get rewards when they participate by creating, improving, evaluating, and using applications. Developers will not need to go through the hassle of creating their own applications from scratch because they will already be supported with the very own APIs and Blocklets of ArcBlock. In the marketplace, developers can contribute their Chain Adapters, Blocklets, and even working applications.
#6: Interoperability
Since ArcBlock plans to be the future of blockchain, it plans to be the most interoperable blockchain as possible. It will be the blockchain that can accommodate different kinds of blockchains by the use of their Open Chain Access Protocol. Since it can work with different blockchain technologies, application developers will not need to follow different kinds of guidelines and standards such as ERC20 just to make ArcBlock applications work with Ethereum based ones.
ArcBlock Initial Coin Offering
Because there is a need to improve the current state of blockchain technology, ArcBlock gave the crypto community a chance with their concluded ICO. The price of their ArcBlock Token (ABT) is 1,900 ABTs per Ethereum or around $0.60 depending on the price fluctuations of Ethereum. When Bitcoin started in 2009, it was just around $0.10 per Bitcoin. In December 2017, its price reached up to $20,000. We never know what the price of ArcBlock may reach in the future as it sets to challenge Bitcoin and Ethereum.
For more information about ArcBlock, you can check their website at https://www.arcblock.io/. You can start reading their whitepaper to know more about ArcBlock and its technology.
Website: https://www.arcblock.io/
Whitepaper: https://www.arcblock.io/file/whitepaper/WhitePaperEnV2_en-US.pdf?v=4
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/arcblock.io/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ArcBlock_io
Telegram: https://t.me/ArcBlock
Author's Bitcoin Talk Profile: emmanmalaman