What Is Golos
Blockchain technology is adrift and moving rather fast. After Bitcoin introduced the decentralized and peer2peer method of sending value, programmers have now taken the technology to other niches. One case of this diversification is Golos.
- A closer look at Golos
Golos (translates to “voice” in Russia) is the main cryptocurrency of the Golos.io platform (a Russian blogging platform). It is a licensed fork of Steemit project that runs on the Graphene blockchain.
This means that the cryptocurrency network has most of the features that you get in the Steemit system.
The Golos cryptocurrency was designed with the primary target of motivating publishing of quality content. It was designed in 2016 by a developer referred to as Cyber Fund. The developer is largely involved in supporting and investing in blockchain startups.
During the launch, ICO was only available to Russians. This method was intended to help promote the adoption of blockchain in the Russian community. The ICO raised $450,000.
- The performance of Golos
When Golos coins entered the market early in December, the value was $0.07. Then, it grew by about 40% to $0.1 early in February 2017 before dropping to $0.009 in mid-march 2017. Between April and early December 2017, the price rose to $0.18.
Golos reached its highest price of $0.4 early in January 2018. However, the good performance did not last. The price took a bearish turn starting from January culminating to $0.03 in early October 2018. The community is very optimistic that the price will change and take a bullish trend.
What is the problem that Golos Solves?
- Poor adoption of cryptocurrencies in the market.
Since 2009 when cryptocurrencies debuted, it has been a bumpy road trying to get people to adopt and use them as alternative currencies.
While it might appear like all is well because of a large number of cryptocurrencies, the experts argue that the rate of adoption is very poor.
When new coins enter the market, many people who rush to buy are investors looking forward to selling at a profit in the future. Therefore, people acquiring the coins for direct use in everyday activities such as shopping and paying bills are few.
Golos is aimed at extending the use of the blockchain technology in the social media and publishing niches. Indeed, the cryptocurrency specifically targeted reaching the Russian communities.
- Lack of motivation for publishers especially in social media.
Today, almost everybody is on social media. The ease of access has made it a rich niche for publishers to sell content. However, the lack of motivation has pushed publishers off the market.
The problem has been worsened by the rising cases of black hat SEO where people plagiarize or release low-quality content but still get credit through tricks such as buying links. Golos targets to address the problem by ensuring that publishers get rewarded for their work.
- The high volatility of cryptocurrencies.
One of the reasons keeping crypto enthusiasts away from the cryptocurrencies is high volatility.
Unlike the fiat currencies that are controlled by central banks that release more coins or mop them from the market to control inflation, cryptocurrencies do not have central management.
The impact of completely decentralized governance is that response to issues such as competition, regulation, speculation, and new technology swings the price to the extreme.
For example, speculation drove the price of most cryptocurrencies to record high towards the close of 2017.
Bitcoin reached $19,000 early in January 2018. But this growth did not last. In the subsequent months of January through to August, most of the coins experienced sudden price drop to record low. Golos targets to address this volatility so that users can use the coin without worrying their money will lose value.
- The high cost of sending value.
If you want to send value using a conventional wire transfer, the process is lengthy and expensive.
The bank management reviews the sender and receiver according to banking regulations like know your customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) rules.
This bureaucratic process makes bank transfers to take many days before getting effected.
Because banks and credit card companies are profit based organizations, they charge high transaction fee to meet all associated costs. Golos targets to address the problem through complete decentralization of the network.
How Does Golos Solve The Problem
As a fork of Steemit platform, the main strategies used by Golos are similar to those used at Steem. Here is a closer look at the solutions for the above problems:
- A three-tier token ecosystem
A three-tier ecosystem used at Steemit was considered an ingenious method of delivering more value to users. Now, the same model has been carried to Golos to replicate the benefits.
The primary coin on the Golos network is GOLOS that acts like other coins such as Bitcoin. This implies that you can trade the coin in the markets such as Bittrex and Livecoin.
The second coin used on the network is Golos Power is used for voting in the Golos.io network. This implies that if you want to upvote content on the platform, you will need to own some Golos Power. It is also used to reward people who publish quality content.
The last coin on the Golos.io platform is the Gold Backed by Golos (GBG). The target of this coin is to help people joining the cryptocurrency niche to do it without risking the associated high volatility. In the system, 1GBG is equal to 1 milligram of gold.
- Total decentralization of the blockchain platform
Like Steemit, Golos is a fully decentralized platform that combines proof of work (PoW) and proof of stake (PoS) consensus algorithms. Combining the two protocols means that the network helps the platform to enjoy top security derived from PoW and speed of the PoS protocols.
Instead of requiring all the nodes spread in the Golos network to vote before transactions can be confirmed, only the delegates are involved. This means that the transactions are completed faster and the network is more reliable. Note that these delegates are selected by the nodes in its system.
- Motivating publishers by rewarding them with Golos Power
To promote publishing of quality content, the Golos system rewards creators with Golos Power when their content is upvoted. Note that this model works in two ways. The publishers are motivated to create more high-quality content for Golos to draw more users to the platform.
If you are a publisher and have the skills to create quality content in any specific niche, Golos is an open platform that guarantees ready rewards. Remember that you will need to join the Golos platform before being allowed to publish content.
What makes Golos better than it’s competitors?
The fast-growing competition in the cryptocurrency niche implies that respective network developers gave to innovate and deliver higher value than opponents. Here are the main reasons that make Golos better than competitors.
- It targets the rich traffic rich social media niche.
While most cryptocurrencies are targeted at facilitating financial transactions, Golos was created for the social media.
With social media platforms attracting a lot of people because of accessibility, Golos expects to reach them to sell content and optimize growth.
Unlike the common social media platforms such as Facebook where good content is only upvoted with no motivation, Golos is likely to win the trust of more publishers for the added rewards.
The platform is likely to become a center for high-quality content. Such growth is expected to also push the price of the native coin, GOLOS up.
- Golos offers more products that many coins such as Bitcoin.
To make social media more valuable and increase adoption in the market, Golos has adopted more products that most coins in the market. For example, users can join the platform to send funds on a peer2per basis, post content, or upvote content.
- Golos system is completely decentralized.
Golos beats the conventional financial platforms for operating a completely decentralized network. By running as a network of nodes that help to confirm transactions in the platform, Golos does not suffer from a single point of failure.
This means that users can join and use the platform without worrying about getting attacked and/or losing their funds.
The decentralized system has been crucial in helping to pull down the cost of sending value because payments are made on a peer2peer basis. Even when sending funds to a different part of the globe, the transactions are instant and cheap.
The only thing needed is for the payer and payee to be in the same network.
- The platform is associated with the successful Steemit platform.
By associating Golos with Steemit, the development team expects to replicate the success that Dan Larimer and Ned Scott achieved even in other platforms such as Antshares and EOS. Because of the close association with these platforms, Golos is likely to enjoy features that are discovered in them.
How can Golos be categorized?
Golos is a completely decentralized platform of the social media that targets to extend the reach of blockchain technology to more people in the community. Its unique design of the 3-token system has helped to answer different issues such as high volatility and high transaction costs in the conventional media.
The main undoing of the platform is that it was created with the primary target being the Russian community. This means that it might take time before others outside Russia can join and help to grow the platform.
Experts have indicated that this could be the primary cause of the current low price of GOLO in the market.
What’s Golos’s vision on Security?
The Golos vision on security is to become the most secure and reliable cryptocurrency in the market. The focus is to help users to join the platform and use it without worrying that of losing their coins through attacks. Here are some of the methods used to keep the platform secure.
- The system uses advanced encryption that helps to make user information and transaction details inaccessible.
- The development team progressively reviews the Golos system to identify gaps and seal them through regular updates. This helps to prevent attackers who seek to take advantage of vulnerabilities to break into cryptocurrency networks.
Examples of Golos’s use cases / applications
Golos entered the market where hundreds of other cryptocurrencies were already in operation. Despite this, the development team has been very aggressive in extending the use cases of the applications of Golos. Here are some of the use cases.
- Sending value on the Golos platform.
Golos main coin, GOLO, can be used to send value on a peer2peer basis. This implies that you can use it to bypass the standard centralized banking or credit card organizations. Note that to send value using Golos, both the sender and recipient must be in the network.
- Paying transaction fee on the Golos system.
When you are processing transactions on the Golos platform, a transaction fee has to be paid in the native coin. Whether you are sending value or voting for content in the platform, you will need either GOLO or Golo Power coins to clear the payment.
- Trade GOLO in the markets.
If you want to make more money from Golos, you could opt to trade the native coins in the exchanges. These are the main markets that bring together buyers and sellers so that the price is driven by forces of demand and supply. Note that the exchanges require users to start by opening accounts, funding them, and then pairing Golos with other coins such as Bitcoin and Ripple.
- Gold Backed by Golos (GBG) for saving.
Unlike the standard cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or Ethereum that are faced by the serious problem of volatility, Gold Backed by Golos is stable and very effective for saving money. This implies that when you buy Gold Backed by Golos (GBG), the price will be as stable as that of gold bullions. It is considered a better way of saving cash on a decentralized system instead of using the conventional banking system.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@dek/what-are-your-thoughts-on-golos
https://coincheckup.com/coins/golos/predictions
https://coincheckup.com/coins/golos
https://coincheckup.com/coins/golos/analysis/