What is Zcash?

As the official Zcash website states:

Zcash is a privacy-protecting, digital currency built on strong science.

As the necessity for solitude enhanced as big data became easily accessible, cryptocurrency users started searching other digital monies that may fill the privacy gap which Bitcoin might not.
Digital monies like Dash and Monero provide complex anonymization techniques that obscure trades in addition to the parties involved with these trades.

Another digital currency, ZCash, seems to provide a far larger level of fungibility by allowing its users to remain completely anonymous.

The Zerocoin protocol has been improved and transformed into the Zerocash platform, which was then developed into the Zcash cryptocurrency in 2016.

According to the Zcash whitepaper:

Zerocoin: a decentralized mix. Miers et al. [MGGR13] proposed Zerocoin, which extends Bitcoin to provide strong anonymity guarantees. Like many e-cash protocols (e.g., [CHL05]), Zerocoin employs zero-knowledge proofs to prevent transaction graph analyses. Unlike earlier practical e-cash protocols, however, Zerocoin does not rely on digital signatures to validate coins, nor does it require a central bank to prevent double spending. Instead, Zerocoin authenticates coins by proving, in zero-knowledge, that they belong to a public list of valid coins (which can be maintained on the blockchain). Yet rather than a full-fledged anonymous currency, Zerocoin is a decentralized mix, where users may periodically “wash” their bitcoins via the Zerocoin protocol.

Development of protocol enhancements and also the reference implementation is directed from the Zerocoin Electric Coin Company, known as Zcash Company.

The founder and CEO of Zcash Company is Zooko Wilcox-O’Hearn. The cryptographer Matthew D. Green in Johns Hopkins University can be a part of the founding group. Roger Ver was among Zcash Company’s initial shareholders.

Zcash Technical details

Development
Initial release	28 October 2016
Code repository	https://github.com/zcash/zcash
Development status	Active
Website	https://z.cash
Ledger
Hash function	zk-SNARKs
Block explorer	https://explorer.zcha.in/

How was Zcash founded?

Zooko Wilcox-O’Hearn set the basis of Zcash in October 2016 in a bid to tackle an open monetary system together with all the privacy feature that net users desired.

Bitcoin is a pioneer in the open monetary system, also ZCash attempts to keep the exact same structure but with solitude and fungibility included. Fungibility is the simplicity at which a commodity could be substituted for a second, which can be important in the crypto world since it ensures that a single consumer’s coin is like another.

It follows that while all transactions are listed on a blockchain, the transactions are encrypted and may only be seen by users which were granted access to them.

Most electronic currencies which provide anonymity like Monero, rely on personal keys that are constructed with alphanumeric characters. Users from the crypto world are also provided with a unique public address that functions exactly like an IP address.

The general public address must receive funds from a different user, meaning the sender needs to receive the speech so as to ease the transfer.

But with sufficient trades made over time, public addresses could be connected to those trades, which makes it simpler for inquirers to spot the public address holder. Additionally, this is where the amount of fungibility comes to play.

Why is Zcash different than Bitcoin?

If a vendor of a product can monitor a purchaser’s previous transactions dependent on the public address given to the seller from the purchaser, the seller might feel inclined to refuse payment from your purchaser when the disclosed purchase history of their purchaser doesn’t align with the seller’s faith or ethical stance.

ZCash uses a cryptographic instrument named Zero-Knowledge Proof that allows two users to participate in trades without either party showing their address.

Zero-Knowledge Proof makes ZCash transactions untraceable on its own blockchain by obfuscating the addresses of both parties, in addition to the amount required in every transaction.

Since the addresses listed on the blockchain are behaving like protection and aren’t the true user’s payment speech, it is near impossible to follow the route of any funds to its sender or recipient. That is similar to Bitcoin and several different blockchains which reveal the sum moved from one’s real public address to another.

Zero-Knowledge Proof gives a high degree of fungibility given that a party involved in a trade isn’t privy to another party’s individuality and consequently, payment history and thus can’t deny his coin repayment.

ZCash along with other exceptionally anonymized cryptocurrencies like Monero are usually criticized for possibly giving a safe harbour for untraceable transactions linked to illegal activity.

Why do we need a higher degree of privacy using cryptocurrency?

The usage of ZCash isn’t only for cybercriminals who take part in prohibited trades in the darknet. There are a lot of valid reasons why an individual could opt for anonymous cryptocurrencies like ZCash.

• Someone having a chronic medical condition who’d like to buy his tablets online anonymously;
• An organization who’d like to protect its trade secrets or supply chain information from rivals;
• Someone who’d enjoy legal solutions for a personal matter for example insolvency;
• people looking for anonymity for privacy reasons.

ZCash executed its first hard fork in June 2018, which had long been planned for the day that block 347500 had been successfully mined, and has scheduled a much larger hard fork for October of the same year.

In June 2018 took place the first hard fork of ZCash, which had been adjusted to match the mining of the 347500 blocks. In October 2018, a second and larger fork was scheduled.

What is Tezos?

According to Tezos official website:

Tezos is a new platform for smart contracts and decentralized applications.

Tezos’ is a blockchain project that aims to offer “the world’s first ‘self-amending’ cryptocurrency”.

Its 2017 first coin offering increased $232 million, which has been the biggest for this kind of offering to this date. The project experienced a control controversy over the use of raised funds which was clarified by a July 2018 Wired cover story because”the crypto world’s largest scandal” following its settlement.

Tezos established a Betanet on June 30th 2018 that became Mainnet on September 17th 2018.

Denominations
Plural	Tezies
Ticker symbol	XTZ
Development
Original author(s)	Arthur Breitman, Kathleen Breitman
White paper	“Tezos: A Self-Amending Crypto-Ledger Position Paper”
Initial release	30 June 2018
Code repository	https://gitlab.com/tezos/tezos
Development status	Active
Written in	OCaml
Operating system	Clients available for Linux, macOS, POSIX, Raspbian
License	MIT
Website	tezos.com
Ledger
Ledger start	17 September 2018 (45 days ago)
Timestamping scheme	Proof-of-stake (partial hash inversion)
Block explorer	tzscan.io

Tezos History

Some reports suggest that Tezos genesis will return to 2014. In this interval, just Bitcoin has been functional. Ethereum was in its baby years. Therefore, the debate that when Tezos was built to be a rival, then the contest was Bitcoin.

But, because of the close nature of this platform with this of Ethereum, it’s regarded as the significant Ethereum competition. Ethereum smart contract has been manufactured in Solidity. However, Tezos intelligent contract is made in OCaml usable language.

OCaml Language

OCaml is a general programming language. The speech is strong. This signifies is that the language isn’t hard to debug and maintain. Additionally, language is powerful in things expressiveness and security.

Arguments have it the speech is best utilized in a method where one mistake contributes to good wins. Also, the language boasts of a broad base of development libraries and tools.

For that reason, it is not difficult to tell why Tezos decided to choose the language.

The Ethereum ‘Problems’ solved by Tezos

• Security concerns in cryptography. The usage of Michelson from smart contracts is going to be an alternative.
• Ethereum’s proof of work system. Ethereum’s evidence of performing system. Tezos perceives the Ethereum evidence of work as to be somewhat expensive and concentrated. Tezos solves this from the delegation of this evidence of bet mechanism.
• Ethereum’s transaction language. Ethereum’s trade language. The language utilized by Ethereum lacks a fantastic deal in expressiveness. Tezos utilizes OCaml language for trades. The language is much more expressive than many others such as Solidity.
• Coordination issues that make Ethereum have the inability to innovate.

By addressing these issues, Tezos development staff believe they can think of a much better blockchain platform.

Tezos Smart Contracts

In Tezos, smart contacts are stateful accounts which specify an executable code. Each account or instead a contract includes a supervisor. The supervisor will control the accounts. The contracts have two kinds of keys; both the public key and the private key.

Public keys are used for registering cubes and mining block.

The wise contract will probably be in Michelson programming language. The language will make it possible for developers to make wise contracts and DApps which are going to be immune to third-party hindrance or censoring.

Ethereum utilizes Solidity as the wise contract language kind. Contrary to Solidity, the new clever contract speech exploited by Tezos isn’t compiled with whatever. What’s the consequence of this?

It’s more akin to the EVM bytecode just with high-frequency constructs. These high tech constructs contain; maps, lambdas, contract and sets specific functionality. This, therefore, means that the language makes life simpler for people as studying it’s easy. The language is related to discovering answers for challenges that arise from the usage of Solidity.

Tezos Proof of Stake

The stage is a peer to peer system. Each user has a node. The Tezos evidence of bet process is a mechanism where nodes will come to a consensus about the condition of this blockchain. Many other blockchain technologies possess their own Proof of Stake systems. However, unlike other PoS mechanics, the Tezos system enables anybody to take part in the PoS. Anyone who participates in the procedure to achieve a consensus about the condition of Tezos is subsequently rewarded.

Along with the simple fact that anybody can take part, the PoS mechanism in Tezos is significantly less costly. Therefore, it’s readily accessible.

Tezos Signing Block

Tezos employ the notion of registering cubes to suppress selfish mining. What signing cubes imply is that if a block has been minted, it’s delegated 16 arbitrary signing rights. The 16 stakeholders that are delegated the registering rights will detect the entire minting process and submit an application to confirm the cubes.

The registering stakeholders are subsequently incentivized. The entire procedure for registering cubes is called Tezos Baking.

Is Mining possible on Tezos?

Yes. The system allows for the mining of rolls. The mining is called baking. A stakeholder can mine a block following a moment and the next block after two minutes and the trend persists.

In scenarios where a customer sees a chance to mine a top priority block, Tezos permits for deposits. Security deposit offers you an upper hand at the mining of a top priority bet. In circumstances where there’s a security deposit, and no mining happens the machine refunds the safety deposit to the customer’s wallet.

What’s a Tezos Roll?

Rolls are a set of tokens whose monitor is stored on the Tezos ledger. The tokens are utilized to pick which delegates are chosen to bake. A roster has 10000 tokens.

Baking is pretty simple to work. But, there are a few requirements required for baking.

The blockchain actions a baker with the duty to produce the cubes they’re baking. After creating the cubes, they will have to validate the cubes. This may take up ample storage bandwidth and space. Anyway, a secure and secure online connection is crucial for the baker.

Next, they want security for those cubes they’re baking. The Tezos platform provides bakers incentives for procured blocks. There are 3 big ways whereby the bakers will secure their surgeries.

Primarily, preventing and mitigating intrusion that’s ensuring that no distant shell may obtain access into the baking procedure. Second, DDOS immunity, a manner where clever bakers will inject their own cubes from over just one IP address. Finally, for safety, the baker needs to safeguard the personal key.

Tezos Tokens for the Baker

For a baker to serve as a delegate for baking they must at all times have at least 8.25% of the tokens delegated to them.

The State of Delegation on Tezos

Delegation is mainly the supply of baking benefits. The machine can perform the delegation mechanically. What’s the Condition of this delegation on Tezos?

There are approximately 33.33% busy Tezos tokens. From the amount, the blockchain delegates that a massive chunk up to 90% of those 33.33% busy tokens. With these particular figures, an individual can argue that the delegation process is oversaturated and oversubscribed. The oversubscription could be credited to:

• Optimism around the profits of the delegation
• Tezos public baking mechanism is easily accessible and has a relatively low barrier to entry
• A low exchange of the tokens as the token holders have decided to store.

 Potential Developments on Tezos

Since the development team always attempts to produce the system bigger and larger.  A few probable developments are:

1. Non-Interactive Zero-knowledge Proofs of Knowledge. This is going to be a fantastic attribute in maintaining the trades untraceable. On the other hand, the challenges that have to be jumped to the fruition of the NIZKPoK is going to be the foundation on CRS versions. And, lack of sufficient study and proof of the achievement of this machine in the blockchain world. The CRS version is only going to signify that the machine must return to the trusted party program. As a reliable party will be supplying the CRS model.
2. Ring signature. Well, CyptoNote developed ring puzzles to get solitude. Thus, a customer can spend his Tezos coins without exposing the customer’s address.

Tezos’ Governance

Tezos includes a governance structure where the participation of every stakeholder is essential. The stage comes with an election cycle along with a state in alterations to this protocol. This is a movement to have the customers feel involved with the advancement of the cryptocurrency since it attempts to grow. Additionally, the movement allows for tracking malicious efforts to amend the routine.

The Tezos Self-amendment concept explained

When programmers perform an update on a blockchain stage, the stage divides. We refer to this split procedure a ‘forking.’ Typically, people think of forking like a disruption of this community, community branch and also shift in the incentive programs of the customers.

What is NEM?

According to the NEM website:

Blockchain technology offers a fundamentally streamlined method of maintaining a secure ledger of transactions compared to a traditional database.

The NEM vision is stated from the beginning of their whitepaper, which is referred to as a Technical reference.

NEM is a movement that aims to empower individuals by creating a new economy based on the principles of decentralization, financial freedom, and equality of opportunity.
We would like to thank the contributors and the many people who have inspired us. . .
BloodyRookie gimre Jaguar0625 Makoto

Denominations
Subunit
0.000001	µXEM (microXEM) – smallest unit
0.001	mXEM (milliXEM) – thousandth unit
Plural	XEM
Symbol	XEM
Demographics
Date of introduction	31 March 2015
User(s)	Global
Issuance
Issuer	Fixed Decentralized peer-to-peer consensus
Website	NEM
Valuation
Genesis Block Production	Fixed 8,999,999,999 XEM total
Block time                     1 minute Technology                  Blockchain

New Economy Movement (NEM) is an enterprise-grade solution to power the impending blockchain market. Initially meant to be a branch of NXT, but the NEM community chose to go with an entirely new codebase with an alpha version published June 25, 2014, and also the initial stable release March 31, 2015.

Focus on constructing just what you require, whether that is a fintech system, monitoring logistics, an ICO, record notarization, decentralized authentication, or even a whole lot more.

The Smart Asset System

The NEM blockchain powers what they call the Smart Asset System.

This system is meant to become an open, customizable blockchain alternative for virtually any variety of use cases assembled in addition to easy, effective API calls. The blockchain is procured and trades are processed with a worldwide network of nodes operating the NEM core applications, and the system is employed as an API Gateway server.

This means developers seeking to build blockchain powered programs do not have to conduct any distinctive NEM applications as each the NEM performance can be found by obtaining API calls.

This allows for a great deal of flexibility in regards to system design and the way many apps are using this NEM network. Programs can get the NEM API directly, get into another server as well as creating NEM asks, or current servers may be adapted to use NEM in the backdrop.

 

Programmers define NEM Addresses that act as containers for resources and could be upgraded and altered over time. An Address could signify simply a pocket holding coins or something more complex like a record which needs an election that’s collecting votes.

The programmer would then produce Mosaics: indistinguishable, transferable resources which represent the signatures, coins, or votes which will live in the Addresses. This system of adaptive addresses and configurable mosaics is feasible for countless use instances, and because each one the NEM performance is obtained via the NEM API, anyone can construct any type of system that they wind up and hook it in the NEM blockchain with relative ease.

Proof-of-Importance and Harvesting

The NEM Blockchain employs a Proof-of-Importance algorithm (as opposed to Bitcoin’s Proof-of-Work or PIVX’s Proof-of-Stake) to achieve consensus through a process that incentivizes active participation in the network.

This generates a decentralized, nimble community of well-behaved nodes.

Part of the system operates by vesting coins: whenever you put coins on your pocket, they begin as unvested coins.

As time passes, your coins will start to vest or rely on the significance of your accounts.

This region of the system functions like staking coins in PoS instalments but is just 1 part of calculating your own importance.

Along with monitoring vesting, the trade chart of the NEM system is continually analyzed to give information on which nodes are leading and which aren’t. This usually means that the more trades you send to other customers and the longer you use the system generally, the more important you become. The vesting procedure and transaction metrics lead to a significance score for every node, and these scores are utilized to scale the odds of your node harvesting XEM.

Since PoI isn’t hardware intensive, so it permits full nodes to be run on just about any machine irrespective of electricity, preventing centralization of harvesting to people with the largest machines.

As it takes a time commitment via the vesting procedure, it prevents the”rich get richer” effect of numerous staking systems wherein individuals with the most cash instantly turn into the largest earners and cannot be outpaced.

In certain systems such as Bitcoin, mining cubes and directing a community node are different. From the NEM system, running a node to guarantee the system and reaping coins is accomplished by precisely the exact same applications, incentivizing conducting a complete node and contributing to more decentralization over time since harvesting becomes more rewarding.

The PoI process is exceptional and can be an alternative to conventional consensus methods that come with their share of advantages and flaws.

NEM Blockchain Features

NEM employs a customized version of the Eigentrust++ algorithm which implements a”reputation system” for nodes on the community. Fundamentally, every node keeps track of the data that it receives from other nodes (fresh cubes, trades, etc.) and subsequently confirms this information.

If the information shows valid, the standing of the supplying node increases, and when it is bad information the standing will decrease. The reputations of nodes are passed across the community and updated inside each node. This allows for automatic load balancing and eliminating bad nodes in the community, keeping the system running as easily and fast as possible.

Additional Features:

• Constructed spam filters Which prevent Junk transactions from Flood the System and clogging up the Functions
• A P2P time synchronization system Which Allows the System to Keep accurate timestamps without relying upon any External servers for Assessing time
• Encrypted messaging onto the blockchain without Breaking Trade fields to Transmit Info like other coins
• Multisignature addresses Enable Programmers to Specify shared addresses and multiparty control over Resources and containers

Information on the technology described here and can be found on the NEM technology page and in more technical detail in their technical reference.

Public vs. Private

Everyone may use the people NEM blockchain by taking advantage of their API calls, but also for programs that need more privacy or want to store things in house, a personal version of the NEM blockchain may be provisioned to operate on servers that are internal and just take advantage of predefined nodes of their consumers’ choosing. On such trusted, personal node networks, a few characteristics of this public network which are in place to stop bad nodes from inducing difficulties can be eliminated or reused in extent, allowing for much quicker transactions (to the thousands/second) at a closed box installation.

 

These personal blockchain deployments may be used to power anything from loyalty points plans to transport fleet logistics, without exposing the trade information and supplying unparalleled speed and safety. This creates a good deal of sense for businesses which are looking to utilize the blockchain to power their present internal tools and also do not require the additional performance of their general public series. Use cases for the NEM system private and public are researched on their site at http://nem.io/enterprise/.

What is Etherium Classic?

According to the Etherium Classic website:

Ethereum Classic (ETC) is a smarter blockchain, it is a network, a community, and a cryptocurrency that takes digital assets further. In addition to allowing people to send value to each other, ETC allows for complex contracts that operate autonomously and cannot be modified or censored.

Ethereum Classic facilitates smart contracts by providing the advantage of decentralized governance. There’s not any necessity or chance of any outside disturbance, tracking, manipulation, or censoring the functioning of these programs.

Ethereum Classic appeared as a fork version of the Ethereum‘s Blockchain. The fork happened following a hack Ethereum in June 2016, which resulted in a $50 million worth of capital stolen.

Development
Initial release	July 30, 2015; 3 years ago
Code repository	https://github.com/ethereumproject
Development status	Active
Forked from	Ethereum
Written in	C++, Go, Rust, Scala
Operating system	Clients available for Linux, Windows, macOS, POSIX
License	Multiple open-source licenses
Website	ethereumclassic.org
Ledger
Timestamping scheme	Proof-of-work
Hash function	Ethash
Block reward	4 ETC
Block explorer	gastracker.io
Valuation
Exchange rate	11$(as of 17 September 2018)
Market cap	1.1 Billion(as of 17 September 2018)

 

How was Etherium Classic born?

The conflict involving Ethereum and Ethereum Classic is both a moral and ethical one. Before we begin explaining the simple difference between both let us dig a little into the background.

The Formation of The DAO

The entire ecosystem of Ethereum works on the basis of smart contracts.

Smart contracts are essentially the way that things get done on the Ethereum eco-system.

The DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) was an intricate smart contract that was going to reevaluate Ethereum forever. It was essentially going to become a decentralized venture capital fund that was going to finance all future DAPPS produced in the eco-system.

In the event that you wished to have any say in the management DAPPS that could get financed, then you may need to purchase “DAO Tokens” in exchange for Ether. The DAO tokens were an indication that you’re now formally a part of this DAO system.

How were DAPPS likely to be established and a method y which they would be approved? Primarily they will need to be whitelisted by curators, who’ve essentially known figureheads from the Ethereum world. If the proposal receives a 20% acceptance from the vote, then they are going to find the funds to start.

The possibility of DAO and its versatility, the control and total transparency which it provided was unprecedented; folks jumped into receiving their share of this pie. Within 28 days of its creation, it gathered around $150 million worth of ether at a crowdsale. At that moment, it had 14% of ether tokens issued thus far.

That is all great but how can one get out from this DAO? Imagine if some DAPP becomes accepted that you’re not a massive fan of, just how can you get out of this DAO then?

With this function, you’d return the ether you’ve spent and, in the event that you so wanted, you might even make your personal “Child DAO.” In reality, you can split off with numerous DAO token holders and make your Child DAO and begin accepting proposals.

But, if you decided to get out of the Dau, you would have to keep your Ether for 28days before you could use them. This was the condition of the contract. But there was just one small issue. A good deal of folks saw this potential loophole and pointed out it. The DAO founders promised this wasn’t likely to be a matter. The only issue is that it has been, which generated the whole storm which divides Ethereum to Ethereum and Ethereum Classic.

The DAO Attack

On 17th June 2016, a person exploited this loophole from the DAO and derailed 30% of the DAO’s funds. That is roughly $50 million bucks. The loophole the hacker(s) found was fairly straightforward.

 

If you wanted to get out of the DAO, then you could do this by sending a petition. The dividing function will then follow the next two steps:

• Give the user back his/her Ether in exchange for their DAO tokens.
• Register the transaction in the ledger and update the internal token balance.

What the hacker did was that they left a recursive function from the petition, so this is how the dividing purpose went:

• Take the DAO tokens from the user and give them the Ether requested.
• Before they could register the transaction, the recursive function made the code go back and transfer even more Ether for the same DAO tokens.

This went on until $50 million value of Ether were removed and stored at a Child DAO as you’d expect, pandemonium went throughout the total Ethereum community.

Note: The hack occurred due to an issue from the DAO not due to any problems from the Ethereum itself. Ethereum runs in the background whereas DAO runs onto it.

As Gavin Wood, the co-founder of Ethereum puts it, blaming Ethereum for the DAO hack is like saying “The Internet is broken” every time a website goes down.

The aftermath of the DAO Attack

While Ethereum is in no form or shape to blame for what occurred with the DAO, the episode shattered the people’s beliefs in cryptocurrency.

Though the hacker did eliminate $50 million in value on Ether, it was sitting at the child DAO, and he could not yet access them since the DAO intelligent contract specifically said that any of those spent ether taken from the DAO would not be available for 28 days. With this in mind that the Ethereum team and community chose to do it and three possible answers were pointed out:

• Nobody Does Anything.
• Soft Fork.
• Hard Fork.

Nobody Does Anything

Some people contended that making any modifications will go contrary to the nature and underlying doctrine of Ethereum itself.

Many people were not pleased with this, but so the bulk voted to go with a soft Fork.

What’s a Soft Fork?

Each time a string has to be upgraded there are two means of doing this: a gentle fork or a tough fork. Think of fork as an upgrade in the program that’s backwards compatible.

What exactly does that mean? Suppose you’re in charge of MS Excel 2005 in your notebook and you wish to start a spreadsheet constructed in MS Excel 2015, you’re still able to open it as MS Excel 2015 is backwards compatible.

 

Image credit: Vitalik Buterin

BUT, having said that there’s a difference. Each of the upgrades which you could enjoy from the more recent version will not be visible to you in the old version. Going back into our MS Excel analogy, assume there’s a feature that allows installing GIFs from the dictionary from the 2015 variant, you will not find those GIFs from the 2005 version. So essentially, you will observe all of the text but will not find the GIF.

That’s what Ethereum intended to perform with their blockchain, a soft fork wherein it is your choice whether you would like to update or maybe not, but no matter the updated users as well as also the non-updated users might still interact with one another. The thought was to lock the ether which was stolen from the hacker by dismissing and segregating any cubes which have a transaction that will assist the hacker move round their stolen ether.

This looked like a fantastic strategy and vast majority of those Ethereum community had been on board, but a problem surfaced, a difficulty that brought the whole community into a different dilemma. Implementing a soft fork would result in a “Denial Of Service” (DoS) attack vector.

Understanding The Soft Fork DoS.

Any and all mining activities are rewarded by “Gas” in the Ethereum ecosystem. That’s the primary way by which miners are protected from DoS attacks.

Suppose someone makes the decision to flood the Ethereum network with transactions which require difficult computations. The miners could sit down and apply those computations in addition to though they do not finish them they will locate a gas score that’s equivalent to numerous computations they’ve done. So longer intensive and challenging the computation, the additional gasoline they collect, and at the specific same period, the Attacker may want to devote a great deal of the money to make these strikes.

But what occurs is the moment this fork becomes implemented the attacker will stumble upon a run throughout this specific system. The attacker can flood the neighbourhood with transactions that interact with the DAO and make the miners do boundless complex computations for little to no gasoline price and at no monetary cost to the attacker.

This meant there was only 1 way for the Ethereum community, and it was the “Hard Fork.”

What Is A Hard Fork?

The primary difference between a soft fork and a hard fork is that it is not backwards compatible. Once it is utilized, there is absolutely no going back whatsoever.

If You Don’t update to the new blockchain, then You Don’t get access to all of the newest upgrades or interact with consumers of this new system whatsoever.

How the hard fork in Ethereum is likely to function? It’s a branch which separates from the primary block series at a specific stage (in this instance before the DAO assault ). Up till that point  (block 1,920,000) the older series and also the new chain is exactly the same, but immediately following the hard fork, the 2 chains become very different entities.

This tricky fork was mostly made to repay all of the money that’s been taken from everybody by the DAO via a refund contract that had the sole purpose of “withdraw”. This suggestion caused a massive controversy in the area, and also there was a separation. The ones who had been “Anti-Hard Fork” refused to switch to the brand new blockchain and opted to stay at the older blockchain naming it “Ethereum Classic” or “ETC”.

And that is where we arrive at the battle that’s raging on in the Ethereum community because we talk, the struggle between ETC and ETH.

This conflict is intriguing since it is an ethical and ideological one. This is the moment that Gavin Wood, the co-founder of all Ethereum, has predicted “the single most important moment in cryptocurrency history since the birth of Bitcoin.”

What is Ethereum Classic? Ethereum vs Ethereum Classic

People who were opposed to the hard fork decided to stick with the original chain calling it “Ethereum Classic.” As of writing Ethereum Classic stands at $8.96 per coin (according to CoinMaketCap).

Why did people stick with an old chain when all the Ethereum heavy hitters, including founders Vitalik Buterin and Gavin Wood, moved onto the new chain?

The reply to this is a philosophical one. After Ethereum, and cryptocurrency, generally, premiered, it had been assumed to become a stance against corruption. The main reason the blockchain was created immutable was that they needed the machine to be resilient from individual whims.

This is the reason why, to numerous ETC sympathizers, the hard fork is also a handy cop-out, if you’re changing the whole series by a single hack then completely defeats the purpose of Ethereum at the first location. You’re demonstrating the blockchain may be impacted by individual whims.

And this has resonated with a lot of “crypto-idealists.” Some pretty big hitters like Barry Silbert, the CEO of Grayscale, have gotten behind ETC.

Today, all that seems good and well, however, there are a number of issues using Ethereum Classic which only can’t be ignored.

The Problems with Ethereum Classic 

The main problem with the ETC is the lack of backward compatibility with the Ethereum Hard Fork. All the heavyweights of the Ethereum community have moved on to the new chain, which means that anyone who is part of the ETC won’t be able to access any of the updates done by the ETH.

The perfect example is ETH’s move from Proof Of Work (PoW) To Proof of Stake (PoS). ETC won’t be able to implement that because their software simply doesn’t allow the use of updates.

But more that’s not the end of it; there are far more nefarious problems with ETC some of which borders on conspiracy. Many consider ETC to be an attack against Ethereum itself. What does that mean?

Post hard fork when the community was split and vulnerable, many say that the anti-Ethereum camp openly supported ETC, just to cause disruption in the community. Even more, prominent bloggers like David Seaman have reported that:

Classic is an insecure orphan chain being promoted in a way that would be illegal if Ethereum were a publicly traded company, which it could eventually be.

Ethereum Hard Fork (ETH)

ETH is the result of the hard fork and what is now considered the “new Ethereum.” As of writing, ETH stands at $197.42 (according to CoinMarketCap).

 

The market cap for ETH currently stands at a staggering $20 billion and is currently the 2^nd most expensive cryptocurrency in the world behind bitcoin.

ETH is the new form of Ethereum. The original heavy hitters are all part of the system, and ETH also happens to be the one going through the most revolutionary changes (like the aforementioned switch from POW to POS).

ETH was formed for one reason and one reason alone – to return the funds stolen by “the DAO attacker” back to the rightful owners.

ETH represents so much more than what it appears to be on the surface; it represents a victory for the Ethereum community. They came together after facing the worst hack in cryptocurrency history, stuck together and made something that is stronger than its predecessor.

But having said that, as we have mentioned before, there is one problem with ETH, and according to Pro-ETC fans, it is an ideological one.

Problems with ETH

The formation of ETH goes against the idea of the immutability of the blockchain and the philosophy of “code being law.” In the eyes of anti-ETH folks, the hard fork was a cop out from Ethereum, and they should have accepted the main blockchain for what it was.

Another issue that was raised was how was anyone going to know for sure that no more hard forks were going to take place in the future subject to human whims? What if there are multiple hard forks creating different versions of Ethereum? What if there are hundreds of different versions of Ethereum running at the same time? Won’t that greatly devalue it and cryptocurrency in general? (Even though a majority vote of the Ethereum community would be required to make such monumental changes).

PROs and CONs of both Ethereum Classic & Ethereum

Ethereum Classic

Pros

• Stays true with the philosophy of the immutability of the blockchain.
• Has recently got the backing of a few big players

Cons

• Doesn’t get access to all the new updates made in the ETH chain (e.g. The move from POW to POS).
• All the heavyweights of the Ethereum have moved on to ETH.
• Considered an insult and an attack on the Ethereum community.
• Is know to be full of scammers.

Ethereum

Pros

• Is growing at an exponential pace.
• Has the majority of the original founders who have created Ethereum in its corner.
• Has reversed the DAO hack and given back the stolen money to its rightful owners (the DAO token holders).
• Is being constantly updated with the latest changes.
• Has a higher hash-rate than ETC.
• A powerful example of what the Ethereum community is capable of when it comes together to solve a problem.
• ETH is backed by a powerful group of over 200 corporations called the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) which aims to use the blockchain technology to run smart contracts at Fortune 500 companies. Members include: Microsoft, JP Morgan, Toyota, ING, etc.

Cons

• Goes against the policy of immutability.

Conclusions on Ethereum vs Ethereum Classic

Ethereum has made a spectacular comeback from an absolute disaster, and it looks like it’s going to fulfil all the expectations that people had had in it when it started. More than anything, the true power of Ethereum lies in its full scope. It is not just a currency; it is a platform on which people can build projects which will dictate the future. If decentralization is indeed the future, then Ethereum is going to be in the front and centre of it.

Now, this begs the question: What does this mean for ETH and ETC? ETH has all the lead developers on its side and is going to grow from strength to strength. Now with the backing of the EEA, it is only going to get better. The value of any currency comes from the trust that people has on it, and because of all these factors, the trust in ETH is only going to grow. A lot of experts are predicting that ETH will be the first cryptocurrency since Bitcoin to break the $1000 barrier.

For ETC, unfortunately, the same can’t be said. In the eyes of the people, ETC is always going to be black sheep of the Ethereum family. As of right now, ETH is nearly 15 times more valuable than ETC, and it really isn’t going to get any better.

NEO is a platform, similar to the Ethereum, with its own cryptocurrency, and fee token, having an open-source code, for its community to use to create decentralized applications. NEO strives to be part of and optimise the future world. So, more specifically, What is NEO and how does it work?

What is NEO? How does the NEO platform work?

As the NEO official website states:

Neo is a “non-profit community-based blockchain project that utilizes blockchain technology and digital identity to digitize assets, to automate the management of digital assets using smart contracts, and to realize a “smart economy” with a distributed network.”

Digital Assets + Digital Identity + Smart Contract = Smart Economy.

Read more on Digital Assets. 

Development
Original authors	Da Hongfei, Erik Zhang
White paper	http://docs.neo.org/en-us/whitepaper.html
Initial release	February 2014; as AntShares
Code repository	NEO Github
Written in	C#
License	MIT
Website	neo.org
Ledger
Block time	15-25 seconds
Block explorer	neotracker.io neoscan.io
Circulating supply	c. 65.0 million (as of 6 March 2018)
Supply limit	100 million

When was the NEO platform born?

The project was launched in 2014 and it was known as AntShares. The development programs were provided by founder Da Hongfei and Erik Zhang. They also set Onchain to provide blockchain consulting suppliers. In 2016, Onchain was listed in the Very Best 50 Fintech Company in China by KPMG. In June 2017, the organization was rebranded as NEO.

Back in March 2018, parent company Onchain dispersed 1 ontology (ONT) token for every 5 NEO held in a wallet that’s used to vote system upgrades, identity verification, and other governance issues within the NEO platform.

The Neo Project has been funded by two crowdsales. In the next crowdsale, the remaining 22.5 million NEO tokens were provided for about $ 4.5 million.

NEO Blockchain and Digital Assets

What is a digital asset? A digital asset is anything which exists in binary format which has the right to be utilized, transferred, exchanged or sold.

It’s crucial for a digital asset to have this “right to use”, because that’s what it classifies it as a digital asset, among other electronic entities.

Having a blockchain in place, it has become much safer to possess digital assets. The blockchain technology makes these digital assets decentralized, secure, reliable, and totally free of a third party.

There are two forms of digital assets that one can use in NEO:

• Global Assets.
• Contract Assets.

Global assets are understood by the entire system and could be recognized by most smart contracts and customers.

Contract assets are resources which are only recognized within their particular contracts and cannot be utilized in other contracts. Eg. GNT that the golem token may be utilised in Golem but it can’t be utilized in Bancor.

NEO Blockchain and Digital Identity

This is how Wikipedia defines Digital Identity:

A digital identity is information on an entity used by computer systems to represent an external agent. That agent may be a person, organisation, application, or device. ISO/IEC 24760-1 defines identity as “set of attributes related to an entity.”

For the digitization of resources to operate, it’s essential to own reliable digital identities.

The NEO platforms utilize the X.509 digital identity standard, the most frequently accepted digital certificate issuance model, based on Public Key Infrastructure. Together with all the X.509 standard, the Web of Trust point-to-point certificate issuance way, is encouraged too.

Identity confirmation in NEO will likely be performed by:

• Voice
• Facial features
• Fingerprints
• SMS
• Other multi-factor methods.

Smart Contract on the NEO platform

Smart contracts are automatic contracts. They’re self-executing with particular instructions written on its own code that gets executed when specific conditions are created.

We spoke about smart contracts at the Ethereum article.

What are the desired properties that we need within our smart contract?

Whatever runs on a blockchain has to be immutable and has to be able to operate through various nodes without compromising on its own integrity. Because of that, smart contract performance needs to be:

• Deterministic
• Terminable
• Isolated

Smart Contracts Feature #1: Deterministic

A program is deterministic if it provides the specific same output into a predetermined input each and every minute. So each time an app provides precisely the specific same output into the specific same set of inputs from a variety of computers, the program is called deterministic.

There are various moments when a program can act in an un-deterministic manner:

• Calling un-deterministic program works: When a developer requires an un-deterministic function within their own program.
• Un-deterministic data sources: When a program acquires information during runtime and data origin is un-deterministic then the app gets un-deterministic. Eg. Guess a program that gets the top 10 google searches of a specific query. The list might keep changing.
• Dynamic Calls: When a program calls a second program it’s called dynamic calling. Considering that the call target is decided only during execution, it’s un-deterministic in nature.

Smart Contracts Feature #2: Terminable

Considering that the phone target is determined only during execution, it is un-deterministic in personality.
In mathematical logic, we have got a mistake known as “halting problem”. Basically, it states that there is an inability to find out whether a specified program can perform its function within a time limit. In 1936, Alan Turing cautioned, together with Cantor’s Diagonal Problem, there is no way to know whether a given program may finish in a time limit or not.

That’s an issue with smart contracts because, contracts definition, should be able to complete in a specific time limit. There are some actions required to be certain that there’s a method to “kill” the contract rather than to enter into an infinite loop.

Hence they cannot enter an infinite loop.

• Turing Incompleteness: A Turing Incomplete blockchain may have limited performance and not be capable of making jumps and/or loops. Hence they can’t enter an endless loop.
• Measure and Fee Meter: A program can merely keep an eye on the amount”measures” it’s obtained, i.e. how many directions it’s implemented, then terminate after a specific measure count was implemented. Another process is the charge meter. Here the contracts have been implemented with a prepaid fee. Every instruction execution demands a specific quantity of fee. In case the fee spent surpasses the prepaid fee then the contract has been terminated.
• Timer: A predetermined timer is stored. If the contract implementation exceeds the time-limit, then it’s externally aborted.

Smart Contracts Feature #3: Isolated

In a blockchain, anyone and everyone is able to upload a smart contract. But due to this, the contracts can, knowingly and unknowingly contain bugs and virus. In the event the contract isn’t isolated, then this can hamper the entire system. Consequently, it’s crucial for a contract to be kept isolated in a sandbox to conserve the whole ecosystem out of any unwanted outcomes.

Now that we’ve seen these attributes, it’s crucial that you understand how they’re implemented. Normally, the smart contracts are conducted with one of those two systems:

• Docker: Fabric utilizes this.
• Virtual Machines: Ethereum and Neo use this

Let us compare both of these and determine which one would be a better ecosystem. To make it simpler, we will compare Ethereum (Virtual Machine) to Fabric (Docker).

Virtual Machines supply better Deterministic, terminable and isolated surroundings for the intelligent contracts. But, dockers have one distinct advantage. They supply programming language flexibility.

At a Virtual Machine (VM) such as Ethereum, one ought to learn a completely new terminology (solidity) to make smart contracts.

What the Neo programmers aimed to do, would be to make a Virtual Machine that can give all of the benefits of a VM and give the code-flexibility of a docker.

Neo’s alternative was Smart Contract 2.0 system that makes it incredibly alluring and in-demand.

The similarities between NEO and Ethereum

How are NEO and Ethereum similar?

• Both of these offer a platform for programmers to make dAPPS and assorted ICOs on a blockchain.
• Everything in the blockchain runs through the market of a crypto-asset. Ether in the case of Ethereum and GAS in Neo’s case. A machine which can “compute anything” given there’s infinite memory space available is known as “Turing Complete”. So essentially the machine which drives these two jobs EVM and NeoVM could address any problem since it’s sufficient memory space.
  When there is no doubt, what makes Neo intriguing are its attributes which make it distinct from Ethereum.
• Both are Turing complete. A machine which can “calculate anything” given there is infinite memory space available is known as “Turing Complete”. So basically the machine which drives both these jobs EVM and NeoVM can address any problem given it’s enough memory space.

Without a doubt, NEO’s attributes are what differentiates it from the Ethereum platform.

The NEO platform has two tokens: NEO vs GAS

The Neo ecosystem has two tokens:

• NEO – formerly known as Antshares (ANS).
• GAS – formerly known as Antcoins (ANC).

NEO includes a total of 100 million tokens.

Ownership of NEO provides the holder rights to manage and make decisions for your own community. These rights include accounting, NEO system parameter modifications etc.

The NEO token cannot be subdivided into decimals

The first part of 50 million tokens was dispersed throughout their ICO.

The other 50 million have been locked up for a year (until October 16, 2017) and will be utilized for the long-term rise of NEO jobs and for its long term improvement, performance, and upkeep of the NEO ecosystem. The strategies for these 50 million tokens is provided below:

• 10 million tokens will be employed to inspire NEO programmers and members of their NEO Council
• 10 million exemptions will be employed to inspire developers in the NEO ecosystem]
• 15 million exemptions will be employed to cross-invest in additional blockchain jobs, which can be possessed by the NEO Council and are utilized just for NEO jobs
• 15 million will be retained as a contingency
  The yearly usage of NEO in principle will not exceed 15 million exemptions.
• NEO has a total of 100 million tokens.

It’s, as the title says the fuel of this system. GAS is exactly what will be traded as money within the ecosystem and it’s going to efficiently incentivize the many different projects happening within it.

Quite like NEO, it’s an entire limit of 100 million tokens, but unlike NEO, it’s divisible.

There’s another significant point of difference between them both.

The 100 million GAS hasn’t yet been created. They’ll be created corresponding to the 100 million NEO by means of a rust algorithm in roughly 22 years’ period into the speech holding the NEO.

2 million cubes will be generated annually using a downtime of approximately 15-20 minutes between successive blocks. The first GAS production will be 8 GAS per cube which will decrease by 1 GAS annually or one GAS per two million cubes till just 1 GAS is created each cube. In the 44 millionth block, the entire GAS created will hit 100 million and after that no more GAS will be created.

Based on this algorithm:

• 16% of the GAS is going to be generated from the very first year.
• 52% is going to be generated in the first four years.
• 80% of GAS is going to be generated in the first 12 years.

The GAS is going to be published proportionally in compliance with the NEO holding ratio into the corresponding addresses. If you’d like a tool that will compute how much GAS you’re qualified to in accordance with the sum of NEO you hold then it is possible to take advantage of this.

To be able to make a better consumer experience, the NEO system will vote and specify a threshold to exempt GAS by a particular quantity of transfer trades and smart contract operations.

If a high number of junk trades does happen, users with NeoID can obtain their trades and smart contract prioritized on others. If, however, you do not have a NeoID, then it is possible to prioritize your trades by paying additional GAS.