We had seen about GoChain sometime back and the benefits it brings to the crypto-world. A detailed review can be read here.
When we had written last, GoChain was going through the ICO process and now the MainNet is LIVE. GoChain is no more a concept but a real-life solution available to users. Barring that fact, nothing much has changed in the crypto – world, though.
Ethereum blockchain, no doubt, continues to be one of the most versatile solutions bringing in the concept of Smart Contracts; this is corroborated by the fact that almost all ICOs in the recent past has been built with Ethereum as a base. But Ethereum still is slow and is able to process only about 13 transactions per second, smart contracts are still rigid with no changes possible to it as in the real world, and energy consumption hitting roof high and consequently mining moving to few countries, making decentralization of a blockchain nothing but a pipe dream.
Well, GoChain attempts to solve exactly these problems, which are not really simple, and yet making the entire solution 100% compatible with Ethereum. Which means lifting and shifting a solution from Ethereum to GoChain will still work but way better than the way it worked in the past. How’s that for a better solution with easy adaptability!!
We will look at all of the above points in a bit more detail shortly.
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GoChain had a fairly aggressive timeline the last time we saw. Let’s look at it once again.
The good part is that GoChain has met the timelines so far and that is how we are looking at the MainNet being LIVE.
In the introduction section we had seen that GoChain attempts to solve some of the problems with Ethereum right now and that is what makes it a better solution too. GoChain is still built with Ethereum as a base and improves on the base which eventually would translate to better adoption in the long run. Let’s look at few points that we had spoken about.
Mining of blocks, as we understand, becomes more complex with the progression of the chain. The concept of Proof of Work (PoW), which is the current way of block validation, brings in the aspect of competition. These two points mean that the blockchain mining will be energy intensive. So, it is obvious that the mining moves to a country with lower power cost; such a country, in this case, is China. 70% of mining today happens in China and that is opposing the concept of decentralization. The government takeover of such a network is ever-so-possible here.
GoChain attempts to solve this by bringing in the concept of Proof of Reputation (POR). That is, 50 reputed companies from 50 different countries, are chosen as validators to validate the block. This not only brings in assurance against wrongdoing because of reputed companies becoming the validators but also forced decentralization. That means 50 countries are responsible for the network and hence take over by any single country is impossible. That’s 10 times more decentralization.
The Ethereum network is capable of a speed of 13 transactions per second. This is way below what Visa handles which is about 56,000 transactions per second. So, the crypto-world is way slower than the real world financial solutions. Not only that, Ethereum is the preferred choice to build on for many new ICOs which means more transactions expected in future with no visible improvement in transaction speed. The only thing that is obvious therefore is that the network is not sustainable at this pace.
GoChain attempts to solve this issue of speed and scalability with immediacy. GoChain platform is capable of 1,300 transactions per second making it 100 times faster than Ethereum. Not only that but with it being 100% compatible with Ethereum and being built on Ethereum, it makes sense to look at GoChain as an alternative platform to grow on than the base Ethereum platform.
We had already discussed that with Proof of Work (POW) concept the energy requirement grows exponentially. Today power required to run Ethereum network is 14 TWh and rising whereas it would be just 197.1 MWh for GoChain, considering the 50 node cluster consuming about 450 W each. That is 1000 times lesser energy than Ethereum network.
In summary, GoChain is 10 times more decentralized, 100% Ethereum compatible, 100 times faster than Ethereum and 1000 times more greener than Ethereum. Not only that but by 2019 the GoChain network plans to operate at 13,000 transactions per second or 1000 times faster than Ethereum.
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GoChain, as already explained, is 100% compatible with Ethereum. All Ethereum wallets and development tools will be compatible with GoChain. Also, there is absolutely no code change that users have to do to move their solution from Ethereum to GoChain. That does inspire confidence in shifting to GoChain.
GoChain intends to allow Smart Contracts to be modified or changed as desired by businesses. This, however, puts it at odds with Ethereum which does not allow Smart Contracts to be changed. So, to allow and continue compatibility, GoChain will maintain default contracts to be immutable. Whatever changes have to happen will be over and above the base contract. GoChain will add additional security features like whitelist, controlled access, etc. to allow or disallow a set of users to access the smart contract to make changes and therefore, avoid security risks.
So, migration will be easy for users intending to take the benefits of faster speed, lesser power requirement and therefore, lesser cost on the GoChain network. In fact, these would be the first set of users who would initiate usage of GoChain network because of commonalities between Ethereum and GoChain.
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While all of the above points that we discussed so far makes the GoChain network a better solution in the crypto – world but what about the real world. The real world is more dynamic and it does require changes at times depending on changing realities. Crypto-world, on the contrary, is rigid and still has to become dynamic for real-world to embrace it. So, how do we achieve that?
Well, the answer is with GoChain as a solution. The ‘Smart Contracts’ in Ethereum is one of the best solution bringing the crypto world closer to the real world. However, disallowing real-world changes to the Smart Contracts is what prevents the real world to migrate to the crypto-world. This is where GoChain comes to the fore. The GoChain solution allows Smart Contracts to be modified or changed as per the needs of businesses. Not only that, a consensus mechanism can be built in to resemble business reality. What I mean is, not only can the smart contracts be changed but also if there is a requirement that 5 out of 10 board of directors have to approve the change, then the same can be built in as well.
The other point is that if there are too many changes that an organization has to do to adopt blockchain technology then it might as well continue doing what it is doing currently. Blockchain would be limited to an R&D project which may take years to fructify. GoChain allows businesses to make changes in their code like in normal operations, to fix bugs and issues. Failing which it would be akin to a hardfork for making changes which businesses can least afford. Allowing businesses to use their current way of working is what GoChain brings to the table and hence organizations can migrate to the blockchain and reap benefits almost immediately.
One other aspect is speed. We already discussed how Visa’s transaction speed of 56,000 per second is way more than Ethereum’s 13 per second, making the crypto-world too slow for real-world operations. However, GoChain’s solution is envisaged to hit 13,000 transaction per second in 2019 taking it quite close to real life operations. We are not even speaking about off-chain solutions like Plasma and Raiden working over GoChain and making the network even faster.
Most important aspect is cost. If we are talking about businesses then we are talking about cost, revenue and profits. Increasing revenue and decreasing cost are a constant endeavor for organizations. After all, that is how profits will increase. Now, in case of GoChain, the cost of operation comes down as compared to Ethereum network. The transaction volume increases in the GoChain Network due to faster speed of transaction, however, as it requires only about 50 nodes to validate the blocks, it reduces network traffic and storage requirements. This is against Ethereum's requirement of operations across 23,000 nodes. So, the cost of operations, in terms of storage, also comes down for an organization.
So, speed of operations, mimicking real world scenarios in the crypto – world, allowing code changes as required, and reduced cost of operation, will allow the fence sitters to also enter the game and therefore, improve adoption.
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XYZ has started a blockchain exchange solution on Ethereum bypassing the need for users to go to an exchange for buying or selling cryptocurrencies. The solution rings a bell with users as it is managed by smart contracts and more importantly, allows exchange of FIAT as well. In addition, almost all cryptocurrencies are listed for exchange between buyers and sellers. The solution is so good that adoption by users is in scores and every day the transactions are increasing exponentially.
That’s where the good news ends. The transaction speed is not good enough to sustain the massive growth in transactions. XYZ wants to look at alternatives.
In comes, GoChain and shows XYZ, how their platform can allow XYZ 100 times more speed than the Ethereum platform and in just about half a year, the transaction speed can increase up to 1000 times that of Ethereum. In addition, modifiable smart contracts are also available. That did it for XYZ and they did not have to be convinced of anything anymore and they migrate to GoChain. The best part though is that they experience a lower cost of operation and reduced network congestion as an add-on to the faster transaction speed.
Company ABC is the leader in photocopier solution. It has the largest network of Vendors who supply parts at different points in the assembly. Not only is the vendor base extensive but also they come into play at different points of assembly of the product. There could be 5 vendors supplying during the primary assembly, 2000 vendors during the secondary assembly and another 5000 vendors before final assembly. Now, each vendor has multiple iterations in supply based on quality before supplying just one part. Now, imagine the complexity when 7005 vendors supplying nearly 20,000 parts and iterating each time before the final acceptance.
ABC is not even able to make an end-to-end map because of this complexity. It did learn about blockchain and smart contract but because of the rigidness of the current smart contracts, ABC cannot easily take advantage of the blockchain.
GoChain comes to know of ABC’s predicament and approaches them with the modifiable Smart Contract solution, integration of their platform with ABC’s systems and that immediately gets ABC's attention.
ABC utilizes GoChain platform and is able to have a holistic view of its vendor transactions, which was not possible directly in the real world. All information remains immutable, except the smart contract and what’s more, ABC can build consensus logic to decide who from the Vendor Management Team can amend the contract. This gives them all the benefit of the blockchain and as an unforeseen benefit, improves the vendor management process. They are able to rationalize the vendor base, avoid duplication of parts procurement, and decide geography for procurement based on cost, proximity, risks and other parameters. All because of the GoChain network!
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GoChain is a sound concept which not only tries to bring the crypto-world closer to the real-world but also manages to engage businesses to adopt blockchain. The proof of the pudding is in the success that they achieve. Although we might believe that a platform like GoChain would need some time to get going in full swing, we could not be any farther from the truth. The truth is that it is already being acknowledged by participants around.
KuCoin, an asset exchange blockchain solution, is hosting a node on the GoChain network. If readers remember the POR concept where we said only reputed organization can manage a node, then this is the best example to showcase what GoChain said. There would not be much arguments about KuCoin’s reputation and those that have doubt can read a bit more about KuCoin starting with this news right here.
Also, Blockfolio, a cryptocurrency portfolio management app, now supports GoChain token. Blockfolio enjoys a near perfect 5 star rating and has about a million downloads and increasing. These are but few examples of the progress that GoChain has achieved. I am sure any more lingering doubts will be put to rest with the progress that GoChain makes from hereon.
It would be an awesome solution bringing in the much needed push to the almost stagnant adoption rate towards the blockchain.
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It is also recommended that readers understand more about GoChain through any of the following informative resources.
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This article is written in response to originalworks’ call on authors’ thoughts on GoChain. It can be read here.
Image Courtesy: GoChain Resources and Oivas
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