For today’s special feature, where we talk about the best performing token of last week, we will cover TomoChain, an ambitious project looking to improve on the traditional Proof-of-Stake model to not only improve in terms of confirmation time, which increases the transactions per second it can support, but to also develop a platform that is nearly free to use and easy to access.
Innovation to Improve
Since the release of the Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm in 2012, initially as an alternative to the issues generated by cryptocurrency farming, and the later release of Ethereum, which opened a new range of possibilities to less expert users, blockchain has entered a cycle of fast evolution to cater to the needs of certain populations. From systems to allow for interchain communication to specific features that facilitate the disruption of blockchain into new economic sectors, this process has been one of the big highlights of this decade.
But there are still underlying problems with these systems that require much more than a little fine tuning to fix, since some of these only get worse as the number of people using the available chains increases constantly. Aspects like transaction processing speed and availability of channels to process simultaneous transactions are the first ones to be hindered as the population grows, and that’s exactly what TomoChain, among others, wants to solve.
Building on top of the traditional PoS, they developed a new consensus mechanism, the Proof-of-Stake Voting (PoSV), which enhances the first model where each node has a greater voice within the decision making depending on how much tokens they stake during the postulation process by converting it into a hybrid: besides a voting process with a double validation that smoothens the block creation process, the protocol selects the longest branch of a possible fork point by using Proof-of-Work to discard the remaining ones. This hybridization creates a faster, more stable way to create a solid blockchain, reducing the risk of malicious results and allowing for more transactions to be processed per second.
An Unlocked Potential
With a robust consensus mechanism designed and implemented with speed and stability in their sights, the amount of applications the TomoChain team can create grows wider. As of the time of writing, they are currently in process of filling their quota of 150 Masternodes, which are the nodes that carry the heavy workload of the process while being part of the highest tier of rewards in their program (reaching revenues of over 30% from the staked Tomo tokens, compared to the 10% a user can earn by simply staking). Of course, becoming a Masternode implies the fulfillment of specific hardware and software requirements, along with full-time availability and an initial number of available tokens to stake.
Besides this, the team also developed their own wallet system, the Tomo Wallet (available for web and mobile devices) and Tomo Scan, a platform where each user can take advantage of the transparency of the company to check information on blocks, transactions, smart contracts, tokens, DApps, technical visualization and other statistics. They have also revealed the existence of plans to implement sharding into the chain, if it becomes necessary in the near future.
Whether this innovative consensus mechanism is enough to bring out the full potential of TomoChain, time will tell, but these kinds of new ideas are always welcome to keep the wheels turning, the blockchains evolving and the competition healthy, which is always necessary in the technology sphere to prevent stagnation.