The world has been blessed by many technological and scientific breakthroughs, many once terminal diseases now have a cure, what took days or months now happen everyday in a matter of milliseconds, there is an explosion of information and wealth right now.
The internet was a great breakthrough and the introduction of the world wide web was even a bigger breakthrough, it has made the Jeff Bezos of Amazon and the entire hundreds of thousands of jobs possible, post office mall are now things of the past because of the introduction of electronic mail, education and knowledge can now been accessed by anywhere anywhere, thanks to the internet.
To drive to digitise every sphere of human and business life wherever possible birthed the desire to create a form of money that can work seamlessly as electronic mail. Many attempts were made towards that direction with few examples like those of Liberty reserve, Wei Dai DigiGold, David Chaum DigiCash etc but they all failed.
The 2008 financial crisis coupled with other former and existing financial inconveniences and inconsistencies displayed by the central parties that we trust prompted one man or group of men (Satoshi Nakamoto) to invent bitcoin in 2009.
It’s been a decade now, billions of dollars in different cryptocurrencies have been transacted so far, lots of opportunities have been created but there comes the issue of how sustainable is the mode of operation of bitcoin and its counterparts.
Today, we will discuss an alternative in ,BurstCoin and where it excels over other coins, so join me in this short journey.
The promise of blockchain
I know that blockchain is the future, just like Jeff Bezos saw that the internet was the future of commerce, I truly believe that blockchain is the future of finance and many sectors.
Payments
The introduction of bitcoin made it possible for the first time for a person to transact with another person without any third party. With bitcoin, no KYC is required, you can join and leave the network any time.
If Alice was to send money to Bob, both of them need a bank account each, depending on the countries both of them are in, they would need paypal or a remittance service, pay huge fees, do lots of KYC and wait for some time for the transaction to go through.
With bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies, all that is over, even now there are different shops that accept payments in crypto, thanks to the introduction of stablecoins like USD Tether, DAI.
Defi
Decentralized finance(DEFI) is more than a buzzword, it’s at the heart of blockchain. Gone are the days were many invests in projects that have no clear bearing, DEFI is currently a new frontier with loads of opportunities ranging from decentralized banking, decentralized insurance, decentralized lending and borrowing, decentralized lottery, decentralized prediction markets, decentralized exchanges, decentralized project finance, decentralized fund management, asset tokenization etc, all these and more are possible thanks to blockchain.
Re-inventing economies
Blockchain is reinventing economies, by removing gatekeepers(third parties), lots of people can now act as decentralized gatekeepers and earn rewards for that.
No need for central banks and banks to be the government over transactions, you and I can act as miners over transactions and earn rewards.
Linkedin Learning writes that blockchain is the most highly demanded skill and sector in the world, blockchain developers earn more than their counterparts in non blockchain sectors, many are creating a fortune for themselves by either working for a blockchain startup or creating their own solutions.
The plagues of blockchain
With some of the few examples of the benefits of blockchain,you will be amazed to ask how all these are sustainable.
Before we explain how this is achieved, let's look a little about what’s a blockchain, I usually like to explain concepts in jargon or languages people can understand, blockchain is simply a ledger, data is stored in this ledger comes as a result of a general consensus agreeing to their validity, if they are ledger or database. This ledger or database is different from what we know or have seen or heard of, in that data can only be written to this database and not tamper with. So the next question is how do we know what is valid, when a transaction happens on a blockchain, this transaction contains basic data like origin, destination, amount sent, account balance this is of course when the network has verified that the sender can send those coins because he has access to that account and has the amount.
Nodes compete to find the answer to a cryptographic puzzle attached to a transaction,the first to find answer to this puzzle will have to broadcast(announce) to every other member in the network, other members can now cross confirm his assertions and if found to be true, that transaction is added to the network.
Of course, nodes do not compete to validate a single transaction, many blockchains are designed to validate a block(group) of transactions at once, once that block is confirmed as true, it gets added by a cryptographic glue to other blocks in the network, this chain continues hence it’s called blockchain.
A blockchain can store more than transactions, it can store digital certificates, assets etc
The problem with current consensus
Bitcoin is the father of cryptocurrencies, it requires lots of computational power to achieve consensus. Gone are the days when one can mine bitcoin on their PC, now you need a huge array of sophisticated machines to do that, you even need to join a mining pool if you will ever get tangible rewards. The system now requires huge capital investment.
Another issue is that of its operational cost, if the bitcoin earned as a mining reward calculated against the current value of bitcoin at such time the reward was generated is higher, miners run at a loss(miner capitulation)
Let’s take for example for a particular month,a miner had the following :
Fees earned = $XWith decreasing block rewards and increasing miners, transaction fees may have to hiked in order to sustain the network Another issue is that the carbon footprint from crypto mining is mind boggling, if we are advocating for freedom and privacy as regarding finance, we ought to do so without necessarily contributing to global climate degeneration.Operation cost = $Y
Profit margin = $X- $Y
If $X is lower than $Y,the miners run at a loss.
Another frontier where bitcoin is less commendable is that of energy consumption, the energy consumed in a single transaction is enough to power some houses, the energy bitcoin uses yearly exceeds that of many countries put together.
Other approach
Many have gone beyond these concerns for bitcoin and its consensus mode, there are many approach to do something efficient
Ethereum 2.0
The famous blockchain has seen the light and is transitioning to a model that is more efficient, it’s adopting the proof of stake model. Transactions will now be confirmed as a matter of stakes, the more stakes you have the higher your chances of getting transactions confirmed and earning more rewards.
But the problem with this model is that it enables an oligarchy system where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
With proof of stake, it’s no more a race of computational power but that of stakes, just like bitcoin where you could buy more computational power if you have the money, you can buy more stake with more money as well.
There are many variants of proof of stake, like EOS employing the help of 21 coordinated or elected leaders, Pure Proof of Stake in Algorand and many more flavors.
Another approach is that of using masternodes, here it is still using stakes but for much more than transaction confirmations but in all these we see that something is usually at stake.
The case for Burst blockchain
Burstcoin (also called Burst) is a digital cryptocurrency and payment system. Burstcoin was introduced on the bitcointalk.org forum on 10 August 2014. Burstcoins are mined using an algorithm called proof-of-capacity (PoC) in which miners use computer storage instead of the more common energy-expensive method proof-of-work (PoW) which involves permanent computational operations.
Burst was officially introduced on the 10th of August 2014 with the goal of solving other cryptocurrencies’ biggest problems : lack of decentralization, waste of energy, unfair releases, supremacy of big miners and corporations. It is the first and only cryptocurrency secured by the Proof-of-Capacity algorithm.
The critical difference between Proof of Work and Burst’s Proof of Capacity is that instead of needing ever more expensive, power hungry processors and graphic cards, it uses inexpensive, low-power hard drives. Proof of Capacity is inherently more secure, and trimmed versions of the blockchain are easier and more secure as well. The other biggest advantage that Proof of Capacity has going for it is its mining, working like a built-in coin faucet in the form of hard drives that allow anyone to earn free coins in exchange for providing extra security for the network.
The energy requirement for Burstcoin mining is minimal compared to most other cryptocurrencies, making Burstcoin one of the most energy efficient within the field of proof-based cryptocurrencies. Storage space is required however: as of May 2020, the estimated network size approached 341,000 terabytes.
You can do such without having to deal with the noise that comes with other cryptocurrencies.
Burst features
Token exchange: No more the pain and hassle of dealing with centralized exchanges. Burst has built in token exchange, so you can easily create and trade your own token in the Burst ecosystem. You no need to pay for listing.
Smart contracts : With BlockTalk, one can develop smart contracts on the Burst Network. BlockTalk is a compiler from Java to Burst turing complete AT code.
Marketplace :With this feature, you can sell and buy digital products in a decentralized marketplace.
Alias system : You no longer have to deal with the complexities of interacting alphanumeric text, with BURST you can transform such to easily understandable formats like email addresses, URLs, phone numbers, SKU codes and more.
Arbitrary messages : You can send encrypted messages from one end to another, this feature can be used to build file sharing services,decentralized and other high level Burst services.
Crowdfunding: You can conduct a crowdfunding for any campaign in an easy way on the BURST network.
Payment solution: It can be used for payment anywhere in the world,the minimum fee for any transaction on the network is 0.00735 BURST. You can send the same amount to up to 128 people all at once with the same fee(0.00735 BURST). You can also send different amounts to up to 64 persons with only 0.00735 BURST in fees. It also has a built in escrow service.
How the rewards are calculated
Block reward : The bitcoin network is halved every 4 years,the burst blockchain reduces mining rewards after every 10800 blocks by 5% .
Who’s building burst
Currently the project is maintained by a group of volunteers. You can join the network as a volunteer or donate some BURST coin for the development of the network. It consists of three teams each focused on different areas, we have the Burst Application Team(BAT) responsible for all teams development, the Marketing Team(under the Burst Marketing Fund, they are marketing and adoption) and finally the Creative Team(the team responsible for designs and graphics)
Upcoming hard fork - SODIUM
The network will upgrade on June 20 2020 at blockheight 765,000, it will usher in a new area for the Burst network, below are some of the upgrades and features that will be added.
Updated smart contracts: they will allow for 50 times larger complexity and reduced fees. Combined with the BlockTalk Java smart contract compiler, they will enable the next wave of projects on the network(Defi,NFT,DEXs,Games etc).
Better security: stricter fee regulations will be enforced in the consensus protocol and a new logarithmic time constant will be added to reduce variation of block time.
Different types of wallet
it supports wallets across multiple platforms: web,mobile and PC.
You can download any wallet of your choice here : https://www.burst-coin.org/wallet/
Explorers
You can view all the data you need to know in the Burst network,things like block forging,assets overview,transactions etc.
https://explorer.burstcoin.network/
https://explorer.burst.devtrue.net/
https://explore.burstcoin.ro/
Where can one buy BURST COINS
Bittrex :https://bittrex.com/Market/Index?MarketName=BTC-BURST
Stex : https://app.stex.com/en/basic-trade/pair/BTC/BURST/240
Upbit : https://upbit.com/exchange?code=CRIX.UPBIT.BTC-BURST
And many other exchanges
Learn more
Website :https://www.burst-coin.org/
Community: https://t.me/burstcoin
https://twitter.com/getBURST
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1541310.0
https://reddit.com/r/BURST
Blocktalk smart contracts
https://github.com/burst-apps-team/blocktalk
Blocktalk decentralized exchange
www.btdex.trade
Proof of space
https://burstwiki.org/en/proof-of-capacity/
Block reward
https://burstwiki.org/en/block-reward/
Who’s building the network
https://www.burst-coin.org/community/
Burst blockchain explorer
https://explorer.burstcoin.network/
Upcoming hard fork(sodium)
https://burstwiki.org/en/burst-sodium-press-release/