Author: Samuel

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Verge

What is Verge?

Verge is a unique cryptocurrency that was specifically designed to be integrated into everyday usage. It is built following Bitcoin, and therefore it is an improvement of it. Verge also shares most of the objectives that Bitcoin has, including the ability to provide entities, enterprises, and users a blockchain platform that is decentralized, efficient, fast, and allows them to go about their businesses without worrying about privacy.

The mission behind Verge is to empower people all over the world to help them embrace the beauty of blockchain technology. Verge aims to make blockchain a normal thing, and not just a preserve of a few individuals who are well adept in blockchain technology knowledge.

Through Verge currency, users are, therefore able to conduct their transactions free from the normal bottlenecks that are associated with fiat currency transactions, and the common challenges that have been mentioned adversely about Bitcoin.

Through Verge, all users are in a position to enjoy flexibility when sending or receiving payments from time to time. There are useful tools and integrations on the platform that make it possible to handle large transactions on Verge, while at the same time supporting smaller transactions with ease too.

The idea behind Verge is to make all transactions untraceable. This is possible by obfuscating the user’s geolocation and IP address. The goal is to eventually allow prompt confirmation of transactions, while at the same time facilitating a high throughput.

What is the problem that Verge Solves?

The blockchain platform has been quite a revelation. However, even with the benefits that it can bring, a lot of people are still not in the loop.

Most people see the blockchain as a preserve of those few individuals who have proper working knowledge of cryptocurrency, the geeks, and the nerds. This is one of the challenges that affect the deployment and wide adoption of blockchain platforms and technology all over the world.

Another concern that has existed in the blockchain ecosystem is the issue of vested interests. This is a case where projects are funded by companies or ICOs or pre-mined coins. In such cases, there is always another angle to activities on the platform, because the persons behind the project have their own interests to look after, including profitability.

Other than these, Verge is built to find a response to some of the challenges that affect Bitcoin. Bitcoin has been largely useful. However, there are some obvious challenges, such as very slow speed of processing transactions, and a high cost of doing business.

How does Verge solve the problem?

There are different ways through which Verge addresses the issues that have been raised. First of all, Verge makes an improvement on what the Bitcoin blockchain is all about. Verge has a workaround for the slow speed of processing transactions on the blockchain, making it a better alternative to Bitcoin. Other than that, this has also opened avenues to challenge traditional financial institutions like banks who have a lot of control over the way their clients use and access their networks.

In order to bring blockchain into our everyday lives, Verge has put in place measures that encourage direct transactions between senders and recipients. By eliminating the need for third parties, this has also made a lot of transactions cheaper and more efficient. This does away with unnecessary delays that are often associated with third party involvement in transactions.

Verge is not a privately held company, neither is it backed by an ICO or pre-mined coins. This is a community-supported project, and all the development on Verge is open source.        

What makes Verge better than the competitors?

The mention of cryptocurrency usually elicits the idea of Bitcoin in the minds of a lot of people. However, there is so much more to cryptocurrency than Bitcoin.

In fact, Verge is one of the projects that have come out to improve on some of the weaknesses that are inherent in Bitcoin. Here are some factors that give Verge an edge over Bitcoin.

Electrum

Verge uses Electrum to boost the utility value. Electrum is all about simplicity and speed, with an emphasis on very low resource utilization. Electrum makes use of remote servers to run some of the challenging aspects of the Verge ecosystem. It is also through Electrum that users are able to recover lost wallets by using a secret seed phrase.

Other than that, Electrum provides Verge users an easy to use and simple cold storage platform. This allows them to keep some or all of their coins offline. There are very few wallet providers that offer I2P and Tor support, and Electrum is one of them. Whether using the mobile or desktop wallet, Electrum makes sure that all transactions cannot leak to any of the connecting servers, thereby enhancing the user’s privacy.

Complete Anonymity

The concept behind Verge is complete anonymity. This is a blockchain platform that promises to make the internet a safe and anonymous place for all who intend to use it. There are several structures in place to make sure that the users are able to go about their transactions completely anonymous. This is a plus, especially when you realize that in most cases, banks, for example, leave a trail of information that can be used by anyone for whichever reason they deem fit. When using Verge, therefore, you can be certain that your information is safe from financial regulators, bank officials, and any other third party.

Usage and Ownership

A lot of the payment platforms that we use today have users as passive members. Your work is to follow their rules, however prohibitive they are and give them your money. Verge does things differently. Other than using the platform, users are also able to own the platform. In essence, therefore, when using Verge, you are not just sharing or transferring value, but you are also becoming a part of an innovative network. Therefore, you take part in decision making, and from time to time, you can be called upon to cast your vote on some of the important concerns that take place on the network.

Security

Security is always a priority on a network where money and data exchange hands. The same applies to Verge. On Verge, one of the last things you will ever have to worry about is the risk of third-party seizure. Take the case of banks, for example. All it takes is an order from some authority figure and your accounts can easily be frozen.

A lawsuit is enough to lock away your funds until someone feels you can now gain access to them. For people or entities that hold a lot of money in their accounts, this is a risk that you cannot afford to take. Besides, you become an easy target.

Investing in Verge, however, allows you to keep your money away from some of these external influences. A blockchain platform is an anonymous place. No one even knows that you own an account in the first place. The same applies to the content of your account or the nature and level of transactions that are involved with your account. This is one of the best ways to enjoy complete financial freedom to access and use your money.

Blockchain Benefits

Verge was primarily built to help in advancing some of the key principles of the blockchain platform and leveraged on Bitcoin. To do this, Verge has had to make improvements on some of the inherent challenges that Bitcoin has.

Verge specifically offers users an efficient, fast and reliable platform where they can send money and value across different networks cheaply. It is a P2P blockchain platform, allowing users to send money directly to recipients without having to involve third parties like banks, who eventually add their fees to the transaction and make it more expensive. Wherever you are, as long as the sender and recipient are on the same network, Verge can be quite a useful resource for transactions.

Growth Potential

Verge has enjoyed a fairly stable growth potential ever since it morphed from DogeCoinDark. The community around Verge has been growing exponentially since then, as has the value. In fact, it is expected that Verge will keep growing and become a key player in the blockchain space over the coming years.

How can Verge be categorized?

Verge is a privacy-backed cryptocurrency. The idea behind Verge is to make transactions between users and entities on the platform untraceable and anonymous, while at the same time championing the case for fast confirmation times and high throughput.

One of the interesting things about Verge is the fact that it is purely a community-driven, open-source project. This means that there is no foundation or company with vested interests in the Verge project. It is all about decentralization, anonymity and a strong commitment to privacy.

What’s Verge’s Vision on Security?

Verge, like any other blockchain platform, has to make sure that security is a priority. There have been claims and concerns about security in cryptocurrency. Since 2016, the team at Verge has been working round the clock to make sure that they can deploy some of the best techniques to keep the ecosystem safe from attacks.

One of the obvious attacks that affect all blockchain platforms is a >50% attack. This is a situation where an individual manages to gain more than 50% stake on the platform, granting them the ability to control the core functions of the platform.

To avoid this, there are some protocols that Verge has put in place. To protect the Verge network, the following are some of the security techniques that are currently in place:

Verge uses multiple algorithms to help achieve even distribution of miners. This is an important step because it helps them overcome so many challenges that miners experience on Bitcoin. There is the obvious factor, that those who have supercomputers have an advantage over the rest of the users on the network. On Verge, this does not happen. Through even distribution, everyone has a fair chance of mining the next block. This is also a good way of mitigating the risk of >50% attacks.

One of the strongest security points for Verge is that they have a very good development team. The development team is very responsive and is constantly reviewing the network to identify security flaws, gaps and apply fixes where and whenever applicable. Other than the development team, Verge also has an active community of users, who help highlight challenges that they experience when they use the platform, raise these and get the development team to work on it.

Verge is an anonymous network. This blockchain platform deploys enhanced anonymity through stealth addresses, I2P integration, and Tor integration, making it a safe place for anyone who would wish to conduct their business online without worrying about privacy.

The Tor project helps to employ more than 7,000 relays, which eventually conceal not just the location of the user, but also the usage statistics and specifics. The relays break down data into stages. At each stage, the data is encrypted in such a manner that no amount of surveillance can reveal the details of their transactions.

The I2P integration is another security feature that has worked wonders. This is the same protocol that companies often use to conceal the location of their servers, for obvious security concerns. It is also through this integration that users are able to generate different addresses when they are sending some value on the blockchain. As a result, it is impossible to triangulate the location of the sender or recipient.

Information and data that is shared through Verge are private and protected through advanced cryptography. This level of encryption makes sure that access to the data is restricted only to those for whom the data was intended.

Examples of Verge use cases/applications

There are several companies/brands that appreciate the level of anonymity and the security protocols that are championed on Verge and have come on board, implementing Verge in their daily operations. These include the following:

  • Nutaku
  • Fractal Visuals
  • Traffic Junky
  • Dioxyme
  • Pex Peppers
  • Bim Trainings
  • Tree of Life Guitars
  • Wooden Timepiece

Resources

https://coincheckup.com/coins/Verge

http://vergecurrency.com/

https://medium.com/verge-currency-xvg

https://vergecurrency.com/faq/

https://vergecurrency.com/static/blackpaper/Verge-Anonymity-Centric-CryptoCurrency.pdf

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Storj

What is Storj?

Storj is a decentralized, open source, file storage solution. Storj uses file sharding, encryption and a hash table built on blockchain to keep user files safe on a peer-to-peer (P2P) network.

The concept behind Storj is to make sure that cloud data storage becomes a private affair, cheaper and faster, which is currently not the case.

There are several limitations that conventional cloud storage solutions like Google Drive and Dropbox have, which Storj is trying to eliminate. Most of these platforms store data in a very redundant manner. The bandwidth from their data centers are often subject to unprecedented attacks, outages and from time to time access to files is restricted.

Besides, the data stored on these platforms is not even private. These companies simply have a lot of control over your files, and how easily you can access them whenever you want to.

What is the problem that Storj solves?

Storj is offering a software solution to a challenge that has in essence always been a hardware problem. Data centers are an important part of the business world today.

Companies need to store data securely. They cannot do this on their own servers, so have to invest in storage from elsewhere. This is where cloud storage comes in handy.

However, the problem with cloud storage as we know it is that it is very expensive. There are very few companies that have been able to convincingly and securely offer these services. These include Dropbox, Microsoft Azure, and Amazon through AWS.

The cost of storage for developers, users, and providers is too high on these platforms. It gets even worse when these storage platforms suffer security breaches or data failure of some sort.

One of the reasons why these systems are expensive is because of the nature of their infrastructure. They have high infrastructural demands, like electricity, networking equipment, and physical data servers. As a result, the companies that offer cloud storage services have to keep spending billions upon billions of dollars each month to maintain their service offers, or to grow their earnings.

How does Storj solve the problem?

Storj protects user files on the nodes and while in transmission. This is done through cryptography and leveraging on some of the benefits of blockchain technology to help encrypt the files.

Storj is an open-source project, which means that it is leveraged on a large and growing community of developers who are devoted to creating apps, tools and eventually help to secure the cloud storage platform.

This is not the first attempt at P2P cloud storage. It has been attempted by virtually any credible player in the industry at the moment.

Storj has a very large community of users, who are referred to as farmers. These are the people who lease out the unused space on their computers, and their bandwidth so Storj customers can store their data in their devices.

All the users are connected through a P2P network. According to Storj, this network is very secure, is up to 10 times faster, and is 50% cheaper than most of the traditional cloud storage solutions that are built on central data centers.

Storj leverages their storage services on transaction ledgers, cryptographic hash functions and public and private key encryption. Storj has brought a revolution in the data space, by allowing users full control of their data, and their devices. There are no central servers that can be compromised.

Storj uses client-side encryption, which means that the only people who have access to the decrypted or unencrypted files are the end users. They also have the encryption keys where necessary. In fact, security has been pitched as one of the strongest selling points for Storj.

The business model

The business model behind Storj is one of the other reasons why it has been a success so far. It is built on compelling simplicity. Individuals need to store their data safely and also be able to access the said data as soon as they need it. These individuals then go ahead and pay for bandwidth and storage as they access and use their data.

Most of the money that is earned from customers is sent to the Storj farmers. The other portion is split between Storj and their partners who have helped the company create demand. This includes open source projects and user-facing file management companies.

Storj, therefore, is like the Airbnb of data storage, or as some would call it, the Uber of data storage. Storj has become one of the biggest data storage companies in the world, but they do not own any data center, neither do they operate one.

Everyone on the Storj platform has something to benefit. Farmers get compensated for access to their storage capacity. Partners, on the other hand, have an additional revenue stream for their business. Storj, therefore, is one of the most effective ways through which companies can institute financial sustainability in their operations.        

What makes Storj better than the competitors?

There are several benefits that can be associated with the decentralized storage platform that Storj is offering, which sets Storj apart from the competition.

Reliability

When it is done properly, broadly decentralized storage is more efficient, resilient, and reliable than any centralized storage platform. To be precise, individual files on the Storj network are encrypted and distributed in more than 84 nodes. They are also sharded and erasure-coded.

More than half of the >84 nodes must fail in order for the file to be inaccessible or lost, which is highly unlikely to happen. Besides, none of the nodes are correlated, which means that they do not share the same power, infrastructure or location.

Security

By design, Storj was built to be one of the most secure cloud storage platforms. The fact that it is decentralized means that there is no central location where all files are stored, which can be the focus of attack. Other than decentralization, all the files on Storj are encrypted. Therefore, for an attacker to have access to the Storj platform, they would have to find all the multiple shards in different nodes all over the world.

This means that the attacker would have to find more than 150,000 unique file locations in at least 200 countries, and in different territories. This is virtually impossible.

In order to retrieve the shards, the attacker would also have to execute an attack that would compromise all these nodes. After that, they would again have to take on the mammoth task of decrypting all the shards, then go through the same process for each of the files.

One of the security experts once described the security at Storj as spreading encrypted sand on an encrypted beach. Storj keeps growing from strength to strength, and with this growth, incredible numbers. As the numbers increase it becomes increasingly difficult for attackers to find individual file shards. Some networks become weaker and more vulnerable as the numbers grow, but the reverse is true for Storj.

Performance

Storj has been known to perform well even when using large files, or with a heavy workload. In fact, compared to most of the centralized cloud storage services, Storj easily outperforms them. The reason for this is because Storj allows several nodes to deliver individual files in parallel from the edge simultaneously. In this regard, there is no time when a single network or device becomes a bottleneck for the entire ecosystem.

Economics

Storage uses the unused and untapped potential that exists in idle storage capacity online. A lot of farmers do not need to invest in more equipment, unless they feel that they need to, for their own personal reasons, and not for Storj. Other than that, the farmers also do not feel inclined to spend on additional power, bandwidth or manpower. Therefore, Storj is an economical solution for customers, while at the same time providing some good margins to partners, farmers, and the Storj enterprise.

Blockchain

While a lot of projects are leveraged on blockchain, Storj seems to be doing the reverse. There are divided opinions on the use of blockchain since the revolution began. There are some who believe it has been overhyped however, Storj uses blockchain only for the things that they have tried and tested and believe to be efficient.

What this means is that Storj only uses blockchain for computing, trustless interaction, and payments between devices. The team at Storj is focused on creating a distributed system, and the only role that blockchain plays in this is to act as a tool that helps them achieve that.

One of the reasons why Storj is keeping their core functions away from blockchain is that more often, the legal, technical and financial roadmap for most of the blockchain projects are skewed. People are still trying to figure out what their projects are good at and where they can excel in. The one thing that most projects seem to agree on, however, is that they are out to fight Bitcoin and Ethereum for their market share.

Simplicity

One of the challenges that have dogged blockchain platforms in the past is that most of them are too difficult to understand, especially for average users. Blockchain follows a very simple principle. Mathematicians create cryptographic libraries. Developers use these libraries to create products that their users need, without necessarily understanding the libraries. This is how blockchain works. Most developers will never really come to understand how the blockchain works, but they can use it to build apps that will serve their users. The same applies to Storj. Even without working or basic knowledge of blockchain, you can still get the most out of the decentralized cloud storage services.

How can Storj be categorized?

Storj is a distributed cloud storage provider that implements client-side encryption to allow users to share and transfer data without depending on a single third-party storage service.

What’s Storj’s vision on security?

There have been lots of data leaks and security concerns over cloud storage services in the past, and as a result, the issue of security and privacy of data keeps coming up from time to time. Data on Storj is stored in a decentralized manner. For users, therefore, how can they be guaranteed that the devices upon which their data is stored, are safe and free from hacks?

It is simple. Storj is not building a fortress for data storage. Storj is simply an adaptive distributed system.

Whether the farming nodes are secure or not, Storj works just fine. In terms of data protection and security, Storj encrypts all the data before it gets into the Storj network. Therefore, from the word go, no one can be able to read any data without having an encryption key.

All the data on Storj is sharded before it exits the system to the farmers. Every single shard is sent to a different node. Finding the data shards is already a problem on its own. Even if someone were to have an encryption key, he or she would still have a difficult time.

Besides, Storj uses Reed-Solomon erasure coding to create redundant shards. Through this process, even if you were to lose some of the shards, you can still retrieve the file, and redistribute new shards. Therefore, even if many of the farming nodes have been compromised, Storj still makes sure your data is safe.

Examples of Storj use cases/applications

Heroku

Heroku is a channel partnership with Storj that offers a platform as a service (PaaS) platform for cloud services. Through this PaaS, developers have the benefit of an ecosystem where they can build, test, run and manage all their apps and software completely on the cloud.

Together with Heroku, Storj offers developers one of the best-distributed object storage platforms, backed by an easy implementation, optimized speed, and top-tier encryption.

Microsoft Azure

Storj has also partnered with Microsoft Azure to help in deploying Storj development tools. This, built on years of research, has helped them compete with some of the key players in the market. Together, they have built an interactive storage audit protocol. The network has also been bootstrapped to enable them securely store petabytes of data. There are plans to add certificate generation automation for Storj farmers.

Resources

https://coincheckup.com/coins/Storj

https://storj.io/

http://blog.storj.io/

https://medium.com/@storjproject

https://storj.io/faq.html

https://storj.io/storj.pdf