Author: Samuel

Posted on

Melon

What is Melon?

The Melon protocol brings together a collection of open-source blockchain rules and smart contracts, which are collectively referred to as Melon. This protocol is built on Ethereum, and it is designed in such a way that it can, later on, be deployed on other blockchain platforms in the foreseeable future.

The Melon protocol is comprised of two types of smart contracts:

  • Melon Core

The Melon Core refers to the part of the fund or portfolio which allows the portfolio managers the tools with which they can create and interact with all the functions they need to perform with respect to the funds, while at the same time following the laid down rules and regulations as stipulated in the Melon Protocol.

  • Melon Modules

These are all the functions that portfolio managers need in their portfolio to allow them to go about their job accordingly. Most of these are optional features and include things like volatility calculations, price feeds, daily profit and loss calculations and NAV calculations.

The Melon protocol is an open-source platform, which means that each time an improvement is made to the platform, they can be accessed by anyone.

Therefore, individual users and fund managers are able to engage, audit and upgrade their platform to the latest version of the Melon protocol as and when they are made available.

One of the benefits of adopting changes to the Melon protocol when they are made available is that they eventually help users to reduce their dependency on fund managers, and reduce the costs associated with human errors that might be experienced in the course of traditional asset management.

Through the Melon protocol, it is also easier to create and manage operations, thereby making work easier. By design, Melon is an inclusive, transparent and reliable blockchain platform. Any user does not need special permission for them to set up a fund management account on Melon.

Melon operates like the internet. While Melonport AG is behind the development, they do not own Melon. Melon does not also take fees, making it a public good/service, and a matter of public interest. This is an open-source project, completely decentralized, and safe from feedback loops.

What is the problem that Melon Solves?

Statistically, according to Hedge Fund Research, more than half of the hedge funds currently have a book value of less than $100 million. However, this population is a representation of only 1.4% of the hedge fund industry, worth more than $84.9 trillion in asset value.

There are a lot of barriers that are making work and life difficult for fund managers. Almost all fund managers are constantly worried about counterparty risk and custody when making arrangements of how to transfer assets or where to hold their assets. A lot of fund managers have been declared bankrupt, leading to massive losses across the board.

Traditionally, audibility of fund management portfolios in an accurate manner has always been one of the main challenges facing this industry. Another challenge that fund managers experience is the lengthy settlement process. This will in most cases end up in delays in information sharing and transfer. As a result of these delays, inaccurate information might be passed on from one level to the next, and by the time such errors are discovered, it might be too late to take corrective measures without dire repercussions.

Risk managers in the industry at the moment end up working with inaccurate and imperfect information. Considering that these managers owe their compensation to the same people whose risks they are trying to manage, the conflict of interest often ends up in unprofessional conduct when managing certain accounts.

There is also the challenge of human interaction. The fund management process depends on a very long chain of human interaction, from booking to the settlement of trades and reconciliation. As a result, the conventional fund management system ends up creating a lot of room for error.

In light of all these challenges, how do some fund managers succeed? Success in this industry comes down to a very high working capital, the solvency of the custodians, and the accuracy of the people who work for the fund managers.

Looking at the cost of setting up a hedge fund, it might take close to a year to set up. There are other costs involved, such as the initial start-up cost, and the running costs. These coupled with internal ineptness and external forces eventually conspire and we end up with a massive rate of failed funds all over the place.

How does Melon Solve the problem?

The solution to most of the problems that fund managers experience as mentioned above lie in smart contracts. Smart contracts automate most of the concerns that are costly and require timely attention in fund management.

As a result, there are several barriers to entry that are mitigated by the blockchain. Smart contracts enforce simple rules and parameters, and through this, they automatically honor those as and when the rules are met.

The blockchain ecosystem is created in such a way that it primarily reduces the custody risk that has been inherent to many fund managers over the years. The blockchain accounting system is a trustless system. Therefore, it is visible, transparent, and always open for auditing. This is exactly what the Melon protocol is about.

The Melon protocol significantly reduces the barriers to entry that are experienced by fund managers.

One of the promises behind this project is to increase audibility and visibility by providing a decentralized system upon which coded rules are enforced, moving trust from counterparties and central authorities, and enforcing all operations on the blockchain.

By providing these services, the Melon protocol creates a large pool of portfolio management talent from which investors can make a selection. While Melon is built on Ethereum, the long-term plan is to make Melon interact with as many blockchains as possible, creating a platform where users can manage all their assets.

What makes Melon better than the competitors?

The Melon protocol addresses a lot of the concerns that are associated with traditional fund managers, making this one of the best alternatives in the market at the moment. The following are some of the reasons why Melon trumps the competition:

Investment Size

With Melon, users are able to manage their own wealth. There is no need to hire an investment manager or have to worry about the costs involved with hiring one. There is no limit to your investment size. You can invest with as little as you can, and the maximum is an endless pit. To start investing in a portfolio that is listed on the blockchain, all you need is 0.65 Ether.

Cost of Transaction

Trading on the Melon protocol attracts very low and highly competitive fees compared to what conventional fund managers currently charge. In fact, these fees are only applied when you are trading.

Decentralized Platform

The Melon protocol is a completely decentralized and trustless platform. This does away with some of the challenges that are often associated with centralized server management of funds, and the dependability on human interaction.

This is a platform that is secure, visible to all users, hence freedom to audit on the blockchain. All the portfolios that are created on the Melon protocol are established on the Ethereum blockchain.

Any assets that are available in these portfolios are held on the blockchain, hence establishing transparency in the management of the said portfolios.

Regulation

Digital asset management on the blockchain is still relatively new, hence the regulations governing the same are relatively unclear. However, through smart contracts, there is so much that you can do to automate your portfolio and make it respond to certain triggers.

You can also create smart contracts that alert you whenever risk breaches or loss triggers are identified. Given the transparency on the blockchain, both regulators and investors have access to clean data on the Melon protocol, hence real-time data on performance and risk exposure.

Administration

The blockchain platform allows fund managers the best experience for administrative tasks, operational support, and technological upgrades and updates. This is possible because of smart contracts, which are built to handle specific instructions either periodically, or based on event triggers. These instructions are coded in the smart contracts and a chronology is available in the Melon protocol library.

Visibility

One of the perks of using the Melon protocol is ease of access to performance records. Because of high visibility, fund managers can look forward to a significant reduction in the cost of marketing and advertising.

Account performance is standardized, and as a result, users are able to compare fund managers based on their performance and track records. This is reliable information that automatically pitches a fund manager’s talent to prospective employers and investors. Data on the blockchain speaks volumes about your performance.

Logistical Concerns

You do not need to worry about some logistical challenges like furniture space. Using the Melon protocol endears you to a more cost-efficient, affordable, accurate and faster platform for fund management than any conventional platform you might have access to.

Ease of Access

Melon is built in such a way that anyone can simply audit, interact with and experiment with the software. It is simple, easy to use, and even beginners are able to try their hands at fund management, building a good track record and harnessing the best of blockchain technology while at it. The costs of establishment and operation are minimal. Users can take advantage of this and create a profile, building their visibility and reputation while at it.

On the other hand, developers have a good platform upon which they can create modules and earn tokens for the code they contribute to the Melon protocol depending on how these modules are used. This, therefore, is a good way to establish an incentive process where developers get rewards for contributing to the development of the Melon protocol.

How can Melon be categorized?

Melon is an autonomous system built for cryptographic asset management. The frontend and backend are both executed and hosted on decentralized platforms. While the backend is leveraged off Ethereum smart contracts, the frontend runs on IPFS.

What’s Melon’s vision on Security?

One of the biggest challenges facing centralized management systems is their design. A central unit is a prime target for any kind of attack. Melon is built fully decentralized, which does away with this challenge. For governance purposes, there are incentives that are built into the Melon protocol that help the entire community participate in the development of the blockchain platform. Instead of a central authority, those who hold MLN tokens elect a technical council. The role of this council is to cast their votes on matters concerning Melon updates and upgrades.

Melon Protocol Bug Bounty Program

This is a program that is run for developers on Melon. Any developer in the world is welcome to test the security features of Melon, especially the smart contracts and the frontend. This is important so that the developers can raise concerns as and when they notice them, and this can be addressed immediately.

This way, individual developers are constantly working round the clock to keep the Melon protocol secure. In exchange for this, the developers get rewarded in MLN tokens. The bounty program aims to make security testing an incentivized program, and by involving the developers who actively use the Melon protocol on a daily basis, this bestows confidence from developers and users alike.

Examples of Melon use cases/applications

Midas

Midas Technologies AG is one of the partners who is currently using Melon for their retail investing app, together with an airdrop service. As an investment app, Midas offers their users a value proposition that each user has a fund on the Melon blockchain, and as a result, they use it to hold their cryptographic assets in the same way a digital wallet would.

Midas aims to make investing in portfolios and buying cryptographic assets very easy for all the users. Through the Melon blockchain, Midas is able to combine digital security and financial innovation.

Resources

https://coincheckup.com/coins/Melon

https://melonport.com/

https://ipfs.io/ipns/melon.fund/#/ranking

https://medium.com/melonport-blog

https://medium.com/melonport-blog/melon-token-launch-858e341e050

https://bravenewcoin.com/assets/Whitepapers/melonprotocol.pdf

Posted on

LBRY Credits

What is LBRY Credits?

The LBRY network is a protocol where users are able to create apps which can interact seamlessly with all the digital content that is available on the LBRY network. LBRY is, therefore, a place where users can find all kinds of digital content, more like the largest digital library on the internet. It is a library that is available and accessible on all devices.

By design, however, LBRY is not just a single library, it is a decentralized library consisting of different components, all which work in tandem with one another. Users who upload apps on the LBRY platform should be able to do this through different host networks like Torrents, or they can also use a stream or priced download service, something like iTunes. Alternatively, those who wish to can also make their content available for free, like YouTube.

Perhaps one of the best things about LBRY is that the users do not necessarily need to understand the science or tech behind it for them to get the most out of LBRY. It is a project that was created to be simple, and easy for all users to understand.

What is the problem that LBRY Credits Solves?

It is important to understand the problem that LBRY was created to solve before we delve into information on how the naming in LBRY works.

Naming systems are used so that we can have an understandable, and humanely readable identifier attached to an asset, which is better than terms or words that are not easy to remember like ID numbers.

Traditional domains mapped names to numerical IP addresses. However, LBRY does one better than that, LBRY uses a permanent ID that is unique and can be easily identified and remembered.

Coming up with an efficient naming system is not one of the easiest things to do. Besides, the traditional naming systems have their inherent challenges. Most of these are centralized and as a result, they often suffer the scourge of censorship. This is because the top-level provider owns the domain, not even their users.

Looking at some of these challenges, the team behind LBRY were looking to build a solution that would do the following:

  • Prevent the extortion of creators by squatters
  • Help maintain short URLs which are easy to remember, while at the same time making it easier to locate different content with a single keyword
  • Allow creators the chance to register and own a URL for life, without having to pay recurring fees
  • Mapping a single word onto content without using a modifier or an extension

How does LBRY Credits Solve the problem?

Before going any further, it is important to highlight the fact that through LBRY, users are able to fully own a URL forever. This is something that is currently not possible with the domain service providers we have.

When using LBRY, URL entries are referred to as claims. A claim in LBRY can consist of any of the following:

  • A number of credits
  • A name, which is a string of characters that the creator chooses to identify the URL
  • Any added data that corresponds to the identity of the publisher or the content they are publishing

All the claims on LBRY are not consumptive. What this means is that you do not lose anything when you spend a given number of credits on any claim, apart from what you spend on transaction fees. Besides, you have full control over the credits you have allocated to any claim. This means that you can send them elsewhere, recover them or use them for any other purpose other than that which was intended. Should you choose to do this, the claim becomes invalid.

There are different types of URL resolutions that are supported by LBRY. These are as follows:

Permanent

This is identified as lbry://<name>#<claim_id>

This URL contains a name and an ID that is assigned randomly. The publisher has permanent ownership and control over this URL. Permanent URLs can be very short because they are created to support temporal ID matching.

Community

This is identified as lbry://<name>

The URLs, in this case, are not owned or permanent because they are controlled by the community. Therefore, resolutions are passed to determine the identifiers that are considered appropriate for the community.

Channel

This is identified as lbry://<@chanel_name>

These URLs are built corresponding to the identity of a publisher. They resolve to the identity of the publisher and the content that they have published. You can specify channel URLs with or without the modifier #. If the URL is not modified, this only returns the channel as determined by the community.

Signed

This is identified as lbry://<@channel_name>/<example>

This URL returns content that has been published by a specific name, <example> within the given channel <@channel_name>

LBRY has a commitment to providing content freedom to all internet users. This is a project that is aimed at making sure that consumers and creators are free to create, consume and monetize their content without the use of intermediaries.

There are 4 important tenets that underpin the way LBRY operates, and this is one of the reasons why LBRY is able to achieve their noble mission. These are as follows:

  • Naming

On LBRY, you do not buy a name, you simply reserve it. Therefore, you do not lose credits when you reserve a name. They are instead put on deposit. When you get into an auction and win the name, the credits will be tied to and held on that name until the time you decide to withdraw the credits.

This means that you are not purchasing a name from any individual. Subsequently, the transfer of names yields no profits to anyone either. Perhaps the only cost you will incur is the inability to spend or cash out credits that are used to reserve a name.

  • Community Names

The URLs that are controlled by a community barely change instantly, especially if there are a lot of credits assigned to them, and if you have held them for a very long time. A day is added to the waiting period, up to a maximum of 7 days after 7 months, for each month you are in control of the name.

  • Consensus

Everyone on LBRY has a say in virtually everything. Let’s say, for example, you claim lbry://bestmoviethisyear and those who watch the film say it lived up to the hype, your content will be kept alive through purchases and tips.

In case the community comes across a URL whose resolution they deem inappropriate, they can rally behind calls to have it changed. As a result, this is a very powerful tool that has helped ward off bad elements from the LBRY network.

  • Keywords

Usernames on LBRY are used in the same way keywords and search terms are used. When you search for anything on LBRY, a recommendation engine exists that will suggest all valid claims.

Even if your content does not have a community URL to it, people will still be able to see it. Besides, when users conduct a search, they can also see different types of content associated with the search term.

What makes LBRY Credits better than the competitors?

It is important to address the disparity between LBRY and the competition by looking at some of the differences that exist between individual competitors, as below:

Alexandria/SingularDTV/Decent

The main difference between LBRY and Alexandria is that LBRY already has traction, and is in use. After the release of Alexandria, however, there has not been significant progress since the client went public.

Of the three platforms, none offers a user-friendly discovery mechanism and namespace like LBRY. Beyond the confines of the cryptocurrency niche, LBRY is the only one of these factions that are already enjoying the best reception and backing.

BitTorrent/IPFS

While LBRY has borrowed so much from the concepts behind BitTorrent and IPFS there are some challenges that these platforms face, which LBRY has built upon.

These two platforms offer a decentralized means of accessing unique information. However, what they do not provide is a catalog for all the information available, which LBRY provides.

If you look at the URLs, BitTorrent has very complex magnet URLs. IPFS, on the other hand, does not have an authoritative, namespace like the one LBRY offers.

Both IPFS and BitTorrent accept content but do not provide a means of payment to the owners of the content, or the publishers.

LBRY, on the other hand, offers a platform where content curators can create content and publish it to their networks and get paid for it.

Storj/MaidSafe

What sets LBRY apart from Storj and MaidSafe is that while they are making attempts at being decentralizing platforms to enable many users to access their platforms and perform different uses, LBRY is simply a decentralized protocol that serves a simple purpose.

LBRY, therefore, offers an incredible performance and a fast service instead of offering the same service on top of other decentralized projects. While these projects are in their adoption stage, LBRY is already getting mainstream adoption.

Apple TV/ Netflix/YouTube

These are centralized platforms, and with that in mind, a corporate entity controls these platforms. Because of this, they reserve the right to change their rules and regulations at will. They also reserve the right to censor any content as they wish, according to the demands of their corporate partners or governments they serve.

LBRY is an open-source decentralized protocol, whose control rests on the users. LBRY offers the same services that these platforms offer, just that it is decentralized. It is impossible for LBRY to change the rules at will.

Affordable

One of the main selling points behind LBRY is that it is creating a direct link between content curators and content consumers. By eliminating the role and need of middlemen, access to content on LBRY is cheaper and faster.

As an alternative to YouTube, users only get to pay a few cents and no longer have to deal with ads. All the money that the users pay to access LBRY is sent to the content creators.

Therefore, the creators will be earning more than they currently earn on YouTube, which is an incentive to keep generating quality content. The same applies to iTunes users. As an alternative, LBRY is offering cheaper services, and all the money earned for videos and music goes to the creators.

For users who like to torrent, LBRY is a good alternative to bringing back content that is rare and almost becoming extinct. Through LBRY, you earn by seeding such files on the network, making them available for a while longer.

LBRY is essentially the largest media library you will ever come across at your fingertips. You can literally find any type of content on LBRY, and at the least possible cost. The vision is to make LBRY the one-stop-shop for all digital content, from music to video games, and all this with the power in the hands of the users.

Open Source

LBRY doubles up as a company and a protocol. All users are able to access and interact the protocol without as much of a fuss. Other than being an open-source protocol, users are also encouraged to build apps that can compete within the LBRY protocol, making use of the resources available.

On the part of content creators, this makes work easier because you are able to upload content on LBRY and it will be available to all the apps that can link to it on the LBRY protocol. Corporate models are, therefore, under attack from LBRY, especially in terms of their centralized access.

How can LBRY Credits be categorized?

Just like HTTP, LBRY is an internet protocol. Users can access all the content that is available on LBRY through LBRY names. Therefore, LBRY should not be misconstrued to be a brand name. it is a character string used to lead a set of uniform resource identifiers (URI).

To be clear, LBRY is pronounced as library. It is also not an acronym. Technically, LBRY is a truncated form of library, which essentially identifies with the mission that the team behind it has, to make all digital content and media accessible to everyone, everywhere. LBRY is, therefore, supposed to be the largest media repository on a decentralized network in the 21st century.

What’s LBRY Credits’ vision on Security?

While building a protocol through which all digital media content can be shared is a brilliant idea, this can only stay safe with proper security features in place. LBRY is serious about security, and users are often encouraged to mail any security concern to [email protected] for the relevant team to get on it.

LBRY also uses the power of the community to fight off uncanny behavior from the protocol. The community can vote and push out a user account that does not seem to comply with the terms and conditions of using LBRY. This includes users whose accounts are misleading.

Examples of LBRY Credits use cases/applications

When it comes to the use cases of LBRY, it is an open secret. Anything that you can do on the internet at the moment with respect to digital media content access, you can do it on LBRY too.

Resources

https://coincheckup.com/coins/LBRY-Credits

https://lbry.io/

https://lbry.community/

https://lbry.io/news

https://lbry.io/faq