Authored by: @hetty-rowan
Last week I wrote about DeFi Kingdoms, and since that project runs on the Harmony (ONE) blockchain, I just wanted to throw in a quick explanation about the Harmony (One) project today as well.
So here we go!
Harmony (ONE) has been one of the most popular IEOs on Binance. This was so incredibly popular that it had to be determined via a lottery whether you could invest at all. How could this happen? Very simple to explain. Due to the way in which this blockchain has been developed, Harmony can compete with the best and fastest blockchains. And that has of course not gone unnoticed by the people who keep an eye on crypto and all developments on a daily basis.
Harmony has taken on the competition with Zilliqa, and by assembling a team of talented crypto enthusiasts, they have come a long way to date.
Scalability
We've heard it so many times by now, it even makes me a bit simplistic to write it again, but almost every crypto has a scalability problem. Bitcoin and Ethereum as the most famous of course. And every time a new project comes along that proclaims that they have THE solution to this big problem, the dilemma… in short, the Trilemma.
That this problem exists should be clear! You see it every time Bitcoin or Ethereum has to process more transactions as a 'normal' day. The costs (gas fees) fly through the roof, and the time you wait for your transaction to go through runs from minutes to hours, unless you pay considerably more gas.
Here comes Harmony with a claim that they will fix this once and for all. Now, I have to say that this makes me a bit simple to read and write, because I don't think Harmony is the only one who can do this. Just look at Polygon for this. The transactions here cost next to nothing, and I can't say I've ever had to wait really long for a transaction to go through. I dare not say that this is unique, nor do I dare to say that the same number of transactions happens on Polygon as on the Bitcoin or Ethereum blockchain. But the fact is that Polygon transactions cost next to nothing.
All right, Harmony again. So they are certainly not the only ones trying to tackle and solve the scalability. I said it before, they are in direct competition with Zilliqa. And thus also use Sharding as their solution to the scalability problem.
Other solutions that have been tried or are still in development include;
- Side chains
- Channels
- DPoS
- holochain
- Hashgraph
These are just a few examples. What gives Harmony such popularity that their IEO even had to get a lottery to determine if you could participate?
Harmony's solution
As already said. Harmony wants to solve the scalability problems of blockchain through sharding.
All the solutions mentioned above are that a bit of decentralization is given up to make the blockchain faster.
That is currently the eternal stumbling block for all projects trying to solve the scalability problem: the faster the blockchain, the more central it becomes.
However, sharding ensures that the blockchain remains equally decentralized, while in theory it becomes infinitely scalable.
What is sharding?
I once wrote what Sharding is, and now I don't even feel like looking for the article. Sorry folks! But here's another short explanation if you haven't read it yet!
Sharding is best explained by the term "divide and conquer". This means that all the work no longer has to be done by all participants/nodes in the network, but that this is neatly distributed. For example, a Bitcoin transaction is now checked by every node before being approved, and each node must then add this transaction to its copy of the blockchain. That's a lot of unnecessary work.
In sharding, all nodes are divided into groups (shards) and each shard checks its own transactions and does not need to check the transactions of the other shards. For example, if there are 12 nodes, they can be divided into 3 shards of 4 nodes. When 3 transactions are made, these 3 groups can simultaneously check these transactions instead of having to do this one by one. So the work is done 3 times faster!
Harmony is not the only blockchain to use sharding. So does their direct competitor Zilliqa! Now Harmony thinks they can do better than Zilliqa.
The biggest problem with Zilliqa is that they only divide the 'work' over the shards, but not the blockchain behind it. That means everyone still needs to have a copy of the coin's entire blockchain. Because of this you still need a computer with a lot of memory to be able to help as a node. Harmony wants to solve this with "state sharding". This is the most complex, yet the very best form of sharding.
And here is what made Harmony's IEO so popular.
This brings us to the token of Harmony…
ONE
The Harmony platform is powered by the native ONE token, which allows users to participate in the ecosystem and serves as a payment mechanism for various actions. By leveraging the Harmony blockchain, developers and companies are able to create alignment in the goals and requirements of different stakeholders.
The ONE token is very important to the Harmony blockchain. Namely, it is used for various and important functions. Without the token, the blockchain would therefore not be able to do its job properly. ONE is used for the following functions:
The token will be used as a bet for the DPoS consensus model, allowing holders to earn block rewards and transaction fees.
The token will pay transaction fees, gas prices and storage fees.
The token will be used in the governance of the protocol by giving token holders the right to vote for the board.
Harmony Team
The Harmony team consists of approximately 30 people with expertise ranging from programming to academic work and from marketing to entrepreneurship. In the early days, the project was built by 12 people, of which 7 programmers had already gained experience at Google, Apple and Amazon.
Conclusion
Given the active community behind the Harmony project, and the experience that the Harmony team has, many people expect the project to be very successful. The team is strong and has great expertise in many areas that are useful for this type of project.
Since the project has gone live, it has exceeded the expectations of many. There are therefore many investors who choose to invest their capital in Harmony. They have great confidence in the project and see it as a great way to increase the value of their capital. And that is not surprising, because it has already worked for many crypto investors.
However, there are also major threats to the project. That's the big competition it has. Harmony's biggest competitor is Zilliqa (ZIL). Harmony will therefore have to do everything it can to ensure that it stays ahead of the competition. Only time can tell!
Whether it is a right time to buy ONE? No one can see into the future, so as always applies to this question. Do Your Own Research! And make a well-thought-out decision before investing in anything.
Happy Monday!
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It would be interesting to know if sharding could be applied to Hive
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Well I know HIVE did a lot of optimizaton before we needed it...but I am wondering if scalability will be an issue as we grow.
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It is encouraging that so many different entities on working on solving this issue. Unfortunately, it's hard to guess which one will "win". Thanks for keeping us abreast of who the players are. The more you know....
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