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Skycoin

What is Skycoin?

Skycoin is more than just a cryptocurrency project, it is an ecosystem, and the currency bit is just a factor in the system. What Skycoin does is to eliminate some of the common challenges that are experienced in blockchain projects such as mining of rewards.

Skycoin is built to use energy efficient software, and to offer the fastest transaction speeds that would give companies like Visa a run for their money. To do this, Skycoin is built in 5 components, all which are important to realizing the ultimate dream of the Skycoin ecosystem. These are:

  • Skycoin – a very fast and secure currency that is supported by bandwidth
  • Fiber – a decentralized open blockchain network
  • Skywire – a decentralized mesh internet that is fully anonymous
  • Skysuite – a complete suite of decentralized applications
  • Skyminer – the hardware and access point for Skywire

More importantly, the idea behind Skycoin is to bring forth a project that would be a champion for private internet access and unmatched security, which are currently lacking not just in the conventional financial markets, but also in a number of blockchain projects.

What is the problem that Skycoin Solves?

Resource constraints

In the early programming when Bitcoin was first released, there were several problems and loopholes that made it prone to attacks. One of these was a miscalculation that the process of mining would somehow end up producing an economic incentive which would make decentralization appealing to users.

However, this was not to be. Instead, proof of work ended up concentrating influence within a select category of miners, users who supply most of the resources needed at a cheaper power cost.

These groups eventually have the power to control the network, orchestrating some of the largest changes to the network, such as forks.

In fact, according to the founder, control over mining would be one of the biggest threats to the Bitcoin project that was not cryptographic in nature.

This is because it made 51% attacks a reality. As long as one user can influence and amass more than 50% of the hashing power, they have complete control over the network.

As such, the operation of the Bitcoin network was effectively inefficient, both environmentally and economically.

Besides, as the network kept growing, there would be an insane spending on electricity, which beats the purpose of coming up with a revolutionary project in the 21st Century.

We live in a time when electricity costs are at an all-time high, and a revolutionary project should have addressed these, among other fundamental concerns.

Since the consumption of power on Bitcoin was estimated to be in the tens of millions of dollars each month, this beat the concept of sustainability. Therefore, Bitcoin would be its own enemy, killing itself from within, crashing under its own weight as more people joined the network.

Centralizing a decentralized network

Proof of Stake algorithms have managed to address the risk of 51% attacks. However, one thing that they have been unable to do so well is deal with centralization.

According to experts, PoS networks are actually more susceptible to centralization than the PoW networks.

In PoS, voter power is determined by the size of the user’s holdings in terms of the currency in question. This also means their influence on the technical changes that are expected on the network. Regardless of their processing ability, such participants are also able to mine a specific portion.

In so doing, this increases barriers to instigating a 51% attack on the project. The reason is that it would generally cost more to acquire coins on the open market than the financial gain from attacking the network. Therefore, initiating an attack would be pointless.

Besides, if an attacker were to successfully become the main shareholder on a network, they would be the worst hit from the attack they instigate, considering the subsequent market response and stability concerns on the network once news of an attack goes out.

In order to prevent such attacks, PoS has simply created an impulse similar to PoW that centralizes the network.

Majority shareholders on the network have the power to make any changes on the network without considering the influence of the miners, businesses, community, and developers on the project.

This centralizes voting power, shifting the control of power and the network to a few individuals, which goes against the basic requirements of a ledger-based crypto project.

How does Skycoin Solve the problem?      

In light of the challenges that have been addressed above, Skycoin introduced Obelisk.

Obelisk is a distributed consensus solution. It distributes influence on the network in a web of trust approach. This means that there is no mining in Skycoin. Instead of mining, nodes are created on the project.

Nodes include things like Skyminers and computers. Every node can subscribe to a number of trusted nodes. In this way, influence on the network is determined by the number of subscribers that are available on the specific node.

The following are the in-depth solutions that Obelisk brings to the Skycoin project, and helps to deal with the risks that are associated with traditional blockchain projects:

  • Low energy consumption and high scalability

Computationally, this project was built to be one of the most affordable alternatives to PoW, hence a scalable algorithm was mandatory. Block making and the algorithm are designed to work on simple, budget hardware. The idea here is that the more access people have to the network, the harder it is to centralize it.

  • Robust defense system

One of the benefits of using Obelisk on the Skycoin network is that by design, this consensus algorithm was built to withstand even the most organized attacks in the form of malicious nodes. The algorithm can converge so fast and is not iterative. This makes it easier to run it on a mesh network.

  • Protection against 51% attacks

The Web-of-Trust consensus is one of the reasons why it is possible to avoid 51% attacks on Skycoin.

The consensus makes it impossible for any individual to amass the required power through centralization. There is no mining of incentives on Skycoin, so it is not vulnerable to the challenges that PoW and PoS networks experience.

In the unlikely event that attackers manage to pool resources and cause a disruption on the network, there will be a minute effect on all the other users. This is because they would need to have a private key for any of the users in a transaction to effect the damage.

  • Concealed IP addresses

All nodes are addressed through the cryptographic public keys. The IP address, therefore, is only accessible and read by the nodes that are connected directly to the node in question.

  • Independent clock synchrony

The calendar date/time method does not work in this algorithm. Instead of using the wall clock, Skycoin uses block sequence numbers. These numbers are validated and extracted from validated consensus and blockchain messages. This is how the internal time in the nodes is calculated.

What makes Skycoin better than the competitors?         

One of the advantages that the Skycoin project enjoys over most of the competing projects on the blockchain at the moment is that they have been around much longer.

This is actually one of the oldest projects on the blockchain at the moment, meaning that they have had a lot of time to fine tune through so many challenges.

Skycoin was designed to be an infrastructure project, based on the concept of decentralization. It uses a unique algorithm, Obelisk, which is all about trust. By implementing Obelisk, what Skycoin has done is to move away from the challenges that most of the blockchain projects currently experience, especially those that are running either Proof of Stake or Proof of Work. The following are some of the other features that make Skycoin stand out:

  • Speed

This is one of the fastest projects on the blockchain at the moment. Transactions are completed in as short a time as 2 seconds. There are no fees or bottlenecks that usually slow down most of the other networks, thereby making this a strong competition not just for other blockchain projects, but also for credit cards and payment systems such as Apple Pay.

  • Fees

Instead of charging people fees to use the Skycoin platform, transactions are paid for in Coin Hours. This is a unique form of currency that is only paid to Skycoin holders for every hour that they hold coins in their wallets. This is actually a good idea as it basically pays users returns for the time they keep the project alive and active.

  • Security

Skycoin is about money. Therefore, it only follows that security will always be a priority in this project. What they have done is to bring on board some of the best cryptographic security standards that are used in the blockchain realm.

This is to make sure that true to the concept of decentralization and the blockchain, transactions once commuted cannot be interfered with. In so doing, Skycoin is one of the projects that is safe from the obvious risks that other projects face like the risk of 51% attack, malleability, duplication of transactions and reversals.

  • Privacy

The structure of Skycoin is unique. It was built to adopt the CoinJoin protocol without any challenges. Having been integrated into the project, transactions from different wallets are mixed together, making sure that it becomes impossible for anyone to identify them.

This gives users on Skycoin a level of privacy that most blockchain projects can only theorize about.

  • Sustainability

One of the biggest concerns that most people have with investing in blockchain projects at the moment is whether or not they are stable. A lot of projects have been raised in the past, but flopped because they could not live up to the sustainability concern. This is not the case with Skycoin.

What Skycoin lacks is the need for unnecessary computational resources that are common in PoS and PoW systems. Therefore, Skycoin is one of the most resource-conscious projects you will come across on the blockchain. In fact, it is so simple and easy, you can run it on a 30-watt cell processor without any challenges.

  • Incentive

Another feature that sets Skycoin apart from the other projects is the way it is run. This is more than just a cryptocurrency. There is a lot of value on the Skycoin blockchain. Instead of making money from transactions, users on Skycoin earn from the provision and consumption of network resources.

  • Utility support

It is virtually impossible to tell what makes the value of certain projects rise or fall. This is because no one really knows what is backing them. Skycoin, on the other hand, is supported by bandwidth. This is the real asset that makes the project stay alive, and it is what people are incentivized to provide.

How can Skycoin be categorized?

Skycoin is one of the most advanced blockchain platforms in the world, dubbed as the new internet for the new world. The developers are people who were some of the earliest contributors to Ethereum and the Bitcoin project who are committed to making it an ISP independent, infinitely scalable and utterly secure project. Skycoin is supported by computational power, storage, and bandwidth, and is seen as the one project that is in line with the original Satoshi vision for blockchain technology.

What’s Skycoin’s vision on Security?

Skycoin has put in place several measures to make sure that the project remains safe and secure for users. One of these is to limit the influence of human interactions which usually are responsible for most attacks on PoS and PoW networks. This has been made possible through Obelisk.

Accountability of nodes to the Skycoin community and to 3rd party audits and the fact that the consensus method is a transparent one further strengthens the element of collective decision making on the Skycoin project. Other than that, this also makes this a very democratic network, and fully decentralized.

Examples of Skycoin use cases/applications

The following are some of the applications to which the Skycoin is currently being put to use, given the benefits discussed above:

Fiber

This is a launchpad for secure, scalable and decentralized applications that are operated by third parties. Since a lot of businesses are currently interested in implementing blockchain architecture for one reason or the other, this is a necessary solution.

On Fiber, every coin has its own blockchain that can be customized depending on the needs of users, while at the same time still enjoying the benefits of running Skycoin technology, such as zero transaction fees, very fast transaction time and low consumption of energy.

Spaco

This is one of the first decentralized applications that were built on Skycoin through Fiber. Spaco runs data storage and transfer through a P2P encrypted internet browser. It is built to withstand and block spam and is one of the most versatile projects, capable of building secure applications for future use.

Resources

https://coincheckup.com/coins/Skycoin

http://skycoin.net/

https://www.skycoin.net/blog/

http://skycoin.wikidot.com/faq

https://downloads.skycoin.net/whitepapers/Skycoin-Whitepaper-v1.0.pdf

 

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Shift

What is Shift?

Shift is a blockchain project aimed at bringing a solution to the challenge of censorship by defining how the technologies that are used in combating censorship are being used.

For the longest time, censorship has always been one of the biggest threats to democracy. Through the development of blockchain technology and systems, the internet populace has experienced a revolution that is bound to change the way things are done, especially when it comes to accessing information online. On the blockchain, one of the most difficult things to do will be censorship. This is because of the concept of decentralization.

There are several procedures that have been put in place to make sure that end users are empowered and they can operate without having to worry about censorship whenever they are online. This is what the Shift project is all about. Shift brings forth a solution to the challenge of censorship by defining how the technologies that are used in combating censorship are put to use, and provide a solution to the problem that lies ahead.

What is the problem that Shift Solves?

The biggest threat to information freedom is not just censorship, but the very institutions that are tasked with making sure that people can interact and connect with one another.

The ISPs are at the heart of the censorship debacle. Other than the ISPs, we also have the government and server hosts.

These are three parties who make sure that information freedom will forever become a mirage, even if they pretend to insist on the contrary.

Through their overbearing actions, either of these parties can get rid of content from the internet, content that they feel is not according to their community guidelines.

While in some cases this is usually for the good of the internet community as a whole, there comes a time when the suppression of access to information becomes a challenge and interferes with certain freedoms that people are supposed to enjoy by virtue of their citizenry in a certain jurisdiction.

There have been cases where end users are targeted, prevented from accessing certain types of information, even if the information in question is actually free to access and available in the public domain.

There are hosts who have even gone ahead and done this to paying customers, barring them from accessing the very content that they pay to access. This is a pure violation of the concept of Net Neutrality.

In Net Neutrality, people should be free to access content and applications on the internet no matter the source of the content. This is an unwritten code of conduct that has been around since the beginning of the internet but has been flouted by entities for a very long time.

Freedom of information is supposed to be the key to advancing not just technology, but humanity.

One of the biggest risks to Net Neutrality is the action of ISPs who have the ability to block, slow down the connection speeds or impose certain limits to an individual’s ability to access content on whichever platform they are using.

There are also ISPs who chose the option of charging a premium rate for the services that they are offering. It is almost impossible to bypass some of the restrictions that are put in place by these vendors, and in cases where it is even possible, the process is tedious and tiresome, and most people simply chose not to bother.

How does Shift Solve the problem?

In order to make things better, it is important that a solution is made available, to deal with the concern of centralization and censorship. What we need is a software layer or a system in place that will be able to identify, mitigate and remove the failure points from a network. In a normal website, there are so many possible points of failure. These include the DNS, server hosts, and internet connectivity.

Shift has introduced a project, Phantom, which should address most, if not all of these concerns. Phantom is the solution to most of the web censorship concerns that we have at the moment.

Even by virtue of the name, any service that is hosted on Phantom is safe in the sense that even if they are removed from a given host, anything that is on the blockchain will always remain there.

Information that is written on the blockchain cannot be removed. What Phantom implements is an IPFS backbone that creates an additional layer of storage on the Shift blockchain.

As an end user, you are free to submit files to the storage service through a blockchain-based space leasing system. For webmasters and operators, you can now manage all functionalities of your website from the Shift blockchain in the storage cluster.

All web services can be rendered through Hydra. This helps in managing resources and making sure that all the content is left running live. To keep content live, Shift uses Jenga.

Jenga periodically monitors data and updates the resources automatically for discovery whenever they are censored. Therefore, Shift has been able to create an end-user experience that virtually, cannot be censored.

The Phantom sidechain is one of the key reasons why Shift is a success in the fight against internet censorship.  A sidechain is a blockchain, but instead of existing in isolation, it has to run alongside a parent blockchain.

Phantom is, therefore, pegged on the Shift mainchain, which provides the backbone for all the services that Phantom has to run.

Since Phantom is basically a blockchain on its own, it has a unique ledger of its own that keeps a record of all the tasks and transactions that users conduct and their token balances.

Through the tokens, the users are able to either unpin or pin content in the IPFS cluster. They are also able to have files stored on the platform for a long time, in exchange for some tokens.

What makes Shift better than the competitors?   

There are currently so many projects that are fighting censorship online. Shift is just but one of the ones that have managed to do this successfully.

With blockchain services, there is always the risk that some of the projects that are proposed as decentralized projects are not really decentralized. The following are some of the reasons why Shift has managed to stay ahead of the pack:

Data Privacy

Security of the content shared on the Shift project is just as important as securing the blockchain. Each user has the option of encrypting their data before they submit it on the blockchain.

However, it is important to note that any content that is encrypted can only be accessed through the key that was used to lock it. When encrypting data, therefore, it is important that users take extra precaution to keep their private keys safe.

Illegal Content

One thing that is obvious in any system is that for some reason, illegal content will always find a way of carving out a niche of its own.

The same applies to Shift. However, through Phantom, hosting illegal content is prohibited. Anyone who introduces illegal content into the blockchain does not just run the risk of having their content removed, but he or she can also lose his or her stake.

Since it is also important to protect the rights of operators, any content that is unpinned can be wiped out so fast. The only content that remains on the Shift project is content that is pinned.

How can Shift be categorized?

Shift is one of the first ever decentralized blockchain projects. By running Phantom, it offers a pioneer in decentralized storage applications, backed by blockchain technology.

Phantom is operated both as a decentralized application and as a sidechain. It is through Hydra, Jenga and IPFS clustering that this project manages to resist censorship for content delivery and web hosting.

What’s Shift’s vision on Security?

Content security is one of the biggest and most important concerns of any decentralized system.

Whenever data is shared on a platform, it should reach the intended users without any compromise whatsoever. At the same time, users need to access the data without worrying about the authenticity of the same.

By implementing Phantom, the Shift blockchain project is designed to ensure that it stays immutable, maintains an element of truth.

Since the ledger cannot be tampered with, trust concerns should not arise when using Shift.

The following are some of the security protocols that Shift has implemented, making it one of the best options in the fight against censorship on the internet:

Deployment for External Interactions

Phantom is run on Shift through the mainchain interface. For an operator to deploy Phantom and use it for their own reasons, they must have a copy of Shift.

Other than that, operators must also use the Phantom interface if they want to work with any suite of the APIs and create new content, or even if they need to upload some files online. Therefore, users do not need to worry about self-deployment of Phantom for any end user to interact with the Shift ecosystem.

Delegated Proof of Stake

Shift is a decentralized blockchain project that is secured by the Delegated Proof of Stake algorithm. In this protocol, there are delegates who act as custodians of the Shift project.

There are more than 100 delegates. It is the role of the delegates to ensure that everything is running accordingly.

Delegates generate blocks in their respective slots after every 27 seconds. This is the block time. It is also the role of the delegates to provide finality in all the transactions that go on in the web hosting platform on Shift. Other than tracking the account balances and the state of registration, they also provide a cryptographic link between public and private keys.

Any user on the Shift blockchain can have as many private keys as they need. It is these keys that are used as proof of ownership of tokens that are used in the Shift project.

This is particularly an important aspect as it allows the users to send tokens to the Phantom sidechain from the Shift blockchain.

Multiple Authentication Layers

In any system, security is one of the key factors that must be taken into consideration.

In a decentralized system, security is of utmost importance as it is needed not just for the sake of building trust in the operation, but also to establish and maintain an element of stability.

Shift has shift cluster security. This cluster is vital in the operation of Phantom. Inside this cluster, there are several methods of authentication for hosts. These methods are put in place to make sure that the cluster is always protected from attacks or any other threats that might arise.

The first level of authentication happens at the blockchain level. Users must register their details on the blockchain. To do this, they must send the Type 12 transaction that registers the storage amount that they are committing to the blockchain. As soon as this is done, they can then proceed to register as a cluster participant in Phantom.

The second layer of authentication requires users to launch the application through the private keys that they used to register on the blockchain and the encryption key that they have in their storage cluster.

After doing that, the application searches the blockchain for any committed storage based on the details provided, then confirms whether it is valid or not.

Once the validity has been ascertained, the application can then decrypt the keys that were issued and registered with Phantom, and from there, the user can then join the cluster.

Examples of Shift use cases/applications

Phantom

Phantom was the first decentralized app that was introduced to Shift. It is a user interface that allows file management over an IPFS network. Shift users can then pin data on Phantom, which makes them available permanently on the cluster.

Sidechains

Shift also created sidechains which support Phantom. The sidechain is built with unique transaction types and rules, which allow users a whole world of opportunities.

File Transfers

Shift users will also be able to send files for free across clusters. They can share files with any peer that is connected to the cluster that they belong to but are not members of the said cluster.

Resources

https://coincheckup.com/coins/Shift

https://www.shiftnrg.org/

https://www.shiftnrg.org/news

https://www.shiftnrg.org/faq

https://www.shiftnrg.org/download/shift-introductory-paper.pdf