Gooooood day InLeo welcome to another wonderful year in the decentralised world, after a relatively quite 2024 there appears to be a renewed focus on Cryptocurrency and the launch of many new Blockchains and today' we're taking a look at the latest to come out the ranks, ALEO.
Aleo has emerged as a pioneering project focused on privacy and security. Originating from an academic paper in 2018 authored by Zcash co-founders. Aleo expands the concept of private transactions into smart contracts. Their blockchain aims to provide a more secure internet by leveraging zero knowledge proofs to ensure user confidentiality.
Here's everything you need to know about Aleo and how it’s reshaping the blockchain technology.
Aleo focuses on the belief that privacy is essential for blockchain technology to be practical and useful. Unlike traditional blockchains like Ethereum which publicly share transaction data, Aleo uses zero-knowledge proofs to ensure that the sender, receiver and transaction details remain hidden unless explicitly shared. This makes Aleo an attractive option for applications requiring confidentiality, such as payroll systems or digital identity solutions.
Howard Wu, one of the co-authors of the original academic paper, founded Aleo to address the lack of privacy in existing blockchain systems. As former Aleo CEO Alex Pruden believes privacy enables real world applications and addresses regulatory concerns by proving, for example that a crypto address isn’t on a blacklist before transferring funds.
Alep does this through 3 ways:
Proof Generation Offline: Users generate proofs for their transactions offline, reducing the computational burden on the blockchain. This ensures transactions are private by default.
Proof Submission: These proofs are submitted to the blockchain, enabling validation without exposing the underlying data.
Layer-2 Rollups: Aleo’s architecture supports zero-knowledge rollups, enhancing scalability and security. Each transaction effectively acts as a rollup, validating its authenticity without revealing details.
This enables Developers to build decentralized applications (dApps) on Aleo that maintain data confidentiality while providing proof of accuracy and brings it more in line with web 2 security.
Aleo’s ecosystem is composed of stakers, provers, and validators, each playing a critical role in maintaining network integrity:
Stakers
Stakers contribute to the network’s security by locking up Aleo Tokens for a specific period. This process, known as staking, involves delegating tokens to validators to participate in consensus. With a minimum requirement of 10,000 Aleo Tokens, stakers earn inflationary rewards proportional to their stake.
Provers
Provers, also called ZK miners, generate SNARK (Succinct Non-interactive Arguments of Knowledge) proofs to solve Proof of Succinct Work (PoSW) puzzles. These puzzles validate transactions, ensuring network security. Provers can earn rewards based on the number of valid solutions they submit, with specialized hardware increasing their efficiency.
Validators
Validators are responsible for verifying blocks of transactions and securing the network through Aleo’s Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism, AleoBFT. They incorporate proofs from provers and ensure the blockchain operates seamlessly.
Staking and Proving Rewards
Both staking and proving offer lucrative opportunities for participants. Initially, stakers can expect yields of 15-20% APR, while provers may earn 40-50% APR. However, these rates will decrease over time as more tokens are staked and the network matures.
To get started, participants can use tools like snarkOS software and specialized hardware for proving. Validators require a minimum of 10 million Aleo Tokens to run a node, highlighting the scalability and robustness of Aleo’s infrastructure.
Coinbase’s Incentive Program
For those looking to explore Aleo, Coinbase offers an excellent starting point. Users can earn free Aleo Tokens by completing educational tasks on the platform. This initiative not only introduces new users to Aleo’s technology but also incentivizes participation in its ecosystem.
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