Zilliqa is a smart contract platform that went live recently. The platform is similar to Ethereum and it has just launched its mainnet. The reports from the development team is that this platform has successfully implemented the sharding protocol. This was allegedly done via a combination of a hybrid consensus algorithm, Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance, and sharding. This increased the transaction speed to 2,500 transactions per second. Unlike the Ethereum developers, Zilliqa developers do not intend to migrate to the proof-of-stake consensus algorithm. They are looking for a faster way to reach scalability.
Sharding Proof-of-work And Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance
Sharding is the next big thing in blockchain scalability. The sharding protocol distributes the workload throughout the network rather than letting the blockchain process every transaction on all its nodes at the same time. This method increases the number of transactions processed per second. In this case, the number of transactions processed per second is 2,500.
The blog post from Zilliqa, last year, stated that it is possible for the blockchain to be broken down and distributed. This allows for the distribution of sufficiently large subsets of the hashrate and nodes. This, in turn, keeps the network secure while the load is being distributed.
The Zilliqa chain is an elaboration of the word silica. It is the central component in circuit boards. It makes use of the proof-of-work consensus mechanism to prevent Sybil attacks while the general consensus is performed by the Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance consensus mechanism. This makes it a hybrid consensus protocol.
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The Zilliqa team believe that this hybrid protocol is more beneficial because the proof-of-work period on the network would last for about one minute in every two to three hours. So, the energy footprint of mining will be smaller compared to other blockchains that use only the proof-of-work consensus mechanism on every block.
Zilliqa Mainnet Will Be In The Bootstrap Phase
The team announced that the mainnet will be in the bootstrap phase until match 2019. During this period, the miners will not process any transaction but they will be rewarded for their computational power as usual. The goal is to ensure that the network is fully protected from bad actors during the initial launch period when the computational power is still relatively low.
Zilliqa (ZIL) Price Today – ZIL / USD
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Recently, there were some rumors about Zilliqa making plans to supply Facebook with its blockchain technology. Yesterday, during an ask-me-anything engagement segment with the Twitter cryptocurrency community, the company quashed the rumors. During a segment a user asked:
“Do you guys have/had any collaboration with Facebook?”
In reply, Xishu Dong answered
“Apart from the fact that Evan is our advisor, no. We do not.”
What Does Zilliqa’s Implementation Of Sharding Mean For Ethereum?
Ethereum has been advertising its sharding protocol, Serinity, for a long time now. Unfortunately, it has been unable to implement it. This has given Zilliqa the opportunity to become the first blockchain to implement sharding. While this may not necessarily be a big deal, it isn’t exactly in favor of Ethereum, a blockchain that is currently struggling to maintain its position as the world’s best decentralized computer.
Do you think Zilliqa’s implementation of its own sharding protocol will make it a competition for Ethereum?
