In a whitepaper we published some time ago we talked about stablecoins and how some of them are linked to physical, accountable assets to offer secure liquidity and greatly reduce their volatility. Some examples include tokens tethered to fiat currencies, to other tradable assets like gold and others decide to balance a bundle of cryptocurrencies.
Thalr is one of these projects, promising to be the first cryptocurrency to be tethered to physical silver bullion, while implementing new technologies to allow for better adoption outside the traditional sphere of crypto users.
New Generation Technologies
The team at Thalr, led by award-winning hedge fund manager Garen Ovsepyan, focused their efforts into identifying the current problems with the most popular cryptocurrencies to later come up with intelligent and innovative solutions, which they used as a foundation for their final proposal.
Of course, the main issues they covered were severe price volatility and slow transaction times. The former is mostly solved by linking the coin supply to a thoroughly audited silver bullion deposit, which takes the value storing property out of the token by making it a representation of the value of another asset, while also replicating the creation process of several fiat currencies used today (USD started as an equivalent to silver reserves). On the other hand, the transaction time issue requires a deeper take.
Thalr developed a new PoW protocol based on node grouping, that can also be run in a plethora of different devices in order to maximize transaction processing while also eliminating the requirement of high-performance computers to enter the farming landscape. During their Proof of Concept, they tested several combinations of CPUs, GPUs, operational systems and physical and virtual machines, in order to find the higher limits of the protocol in a single node. Using this, they later tested in different node layouts (separated in Worker nodes, Broker nodes and Super-Broker nodes), which resulted in extremely high transactions per second in comparison to current protocols.
Breaking New Grounds
Their protocol is the basis of the most innovative part of the project: Mobile Mining. Given that the protocol can be run in many different devices, they plan to implement a way for users m to mine THALR from the same mobile application they would use as a wallet and conversion platform. Of course, using a mobile device as a mining node could lead to unwanted security complications, but Thalr will make use of 2FA mechanisms and biometrics (which are currently used in the mobile environment) to enhance the security of their platform.
In order to maintain the platform, Thalr charges every transaction with a 1% fee they named Reserve Premium, and the total of the collected RP is then distributed among the operational needs: 78-86% will be used to purchase additional silver, 4-12% is saved for miners rewards, and 10% will be used for advances in R&D and to pay storage and insurance fees. This will allow for the establishment of a self-sufficient platform that can ensure instant and secure liquidity for each user, while also encouraging every one of them of taking part in the mining process, meaning more transactions per second.
Overall, the Thalr platform is proposed as an updated take on cryptocurrency, focusing on problems first to create solutions than on idealized concepts that can generate further complications. Not only do they have a solid plan to fight volatility, but their node distribution model and farming incentives are attractive enough for potential users to give it a try. They are set to launch the Thalr Mainnet in Q1 2020, along with purchasing silver, so there is just enough time to take a decision on joining.