The internet as we know keeps getting better every other passing year; with better features each new year and getting more user friendly.
But in 2008, the internet was revolutionized. Pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto birthed Bitcoin and the Blockchain 1.0 ; with the blockchain being the most fascinating aspect of this innovation, it came to actualization as a result of the combination of prior existing technologies ,integrated in an original way. the components of the blockchain: Merkel, concatenated hashes, public key encryption long existed before Nakamoto released the bitcoin whitepaper in 2009.
Since then, blockchain technology has developed progressively as time goes on(from blockchain 1.0, now we have blockchain 3.0) and is being utilized in different sectors worldwide; ranging from finance, e-commerce, healthcare, and even sports. Currently we have over 2000 cryptocurrencies or digital currencies in the world today and each of them, in one way or the other is directly or indirectly connected to a blockchain. With many blockchains still under development ,some have gotten a lot of adoption already.
AS useful and important the blockchain is, it still faces some problems . The blockchain ecosystem is complex and fragmented and have a lot of variations. Blockchains we have today lacks interoperability (ie the ability for a blockchain to seamlessly exchange information with another blockchain and other off-chain systems) and this can prove very risky for businesses that adopt this tech and this will result in reduced adoption and application of this stellar technology in various sectors where it could prove very useful.
Decentralized applications(dApps) have also been built on various blockchains. But they can only work on the respective blockchain they were built on. They won't function as expected on other blockchains.
The lack of interoperability we talked about.
The sooner these draw backs facing the blockchain technology are attended to,the sooner we get more useful decentralized applications for solving problems, and the sooner this tech goes main stream.
Quant Network has proposed an application that will increase interoperability amongst blockchains. We all know that when building a dAPP, its best you create your own blockchain and configure it to siut your proposed dApp. But creating a blockchain of your own requires a lot of money and time. Alternatively, you can create on an existing blockchain; which if you chose to do so, you have to live with the underlying features whether good or bad.
What if you can create a dApp on various blockchains , neglecting the cons and utilizing just the pros of the various selected blockchains.
This is where Quant network comes into play. Quant network will use a protocol called OVERLEDGER that provides an interconnection between various existing blockchains. Overledger will solve the problem of single-ledger dependency by increasing communicability amongst different distributed ledgers (DLTs) thereby allowing general purpose applications to run on top of different blockchains. With overledger, developers can create dApps without building its components from scratch.In the near future when decentralized applications will acquire mass adoption, it will be mandatory to allow apps to communicate , exchange and replicate data across multiple blockchains and Quant Network will be a pioneer in this frontier.
Instead of the idea of designing smarter and better blockchains, Overledger offers a more full-proof solution to the problems of interoperability that existing blockchains today face. Although Overledger uses similar technical features as existing blockchains today,the solutions offered are quite different.
To solve the above problems, Overledger presents the following solutions:
The forementioned features are what the Overledger protocol will utilize to solve the problem of interoperability.
OVERLEDGER is a blockchain protocol that will remedy the limitations of modern day blockchains; 'The inability of blockchains to communicate, transfer , and replicate data with one another.
For example, why cant a smart contract built on Ethereum be recognized by the steem blockchain?
Overledger will develop an interface to connect dApps to multiple blockchains seamlessly. The overledger protocol has 4 different layers in its architecture:
Transaction Layer
this layer holds transactions that are validated on the ledgers technology. Overledger simplifies the components of all operations needed to reach consensus in different blockchain domains by putting all those operations in only one layer. Transactions executed in a specific blockchain can not be validated in other ledgers.
Filtering and Ordering Layer
This layer is responsible for filtering and ordering messages extracted and built from transaction information. the layer is responsible for establishing connections among different messages that were built in the Messaging Layer. Applications that may require a transaction to be carried out to function(eg transactions from/to a specific address), will just require only a valid message that confirms a transaction was carried out.
Application Layer
Valid messages that respect the requested format and that have required signatures form the list of the application's messages. these messages can update the state of their app. Different applications can use the same messages or can refer to messages of another application.
Messaging Layer
this is perhaps the most important layer. Because it os the layer that stores all relevant information retrieved from the ledgers. Information can be transaction data , smart contracts or metadata. this layer stores all transaction information and the message's digest of different applications.
Overledger can prove very useful as we discussed earlier. This is not just useful for creating dApps alone but can be very useful in various worldwide sectors. Here are some sectors it could revolutionize;
Overledger compared to some other projects that plan to solve interoperability problems facing existing blockchains.
In a nutshell, Quant network is packed with a unique use case and it will stand as a pioneer for others to learn from. Part of their development code will be made open source and this will make Quant network popular amongst developers.
Part of the code has already been published on github and i find it interesting.
They have various milestones to achieve as shown in their roadmap and I must say, after they complete all milestones, Quant Network will be among the leading blockchain projects in the industry.
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Bounty0x username: gates01
