The current issues with Scaling and blockchain congestion on both the Bitcoin and now ethereum blockchain shows that the problem of scaling is the most pressing issue that needs to be addressed in order for cryptocurrency is be adopted by the bigger population.
Currently 0.001% of the world has used some form of cryptocurrency ... and even with such a small portion of the public using it, they are bursting at the seams. And there seem no end to how this scaling issues can be solved, with threats of spilt chains and the chaos that will follow.
Digging deeper, I have found that actually there are 2 important issues at hand :
- Scalability
- Instant Transactions.
Looking at alternatives to the Top 2, I have found that NEM (XEM) and Ripple (XRP) both have solved the problems of scaling and speed. Whilst Ripple is aimed at serving the banks, NEM is both for public and private use.
NEM's coin is XEM, is currently in the Top 10 capitalisation list. It offers all that ethereum has to offer, such as smart contracts, namespace (same as ethnames), multi-sg. The most important is that it can scale and handle a few thousand transactions per second. This means that it is able to cope with peak traffic during ICO launches as well as integration with payment card etc which require instant transactions. With this, complex sidechains or offchains need not be used to further complicate matters.
It is ashamed that all the hype at ethereum has overshadowed this wonderful Gem. It could be the next big thing ... currently flying under the radar. But once the scaling issue comes more and more to the forth, NEM and its attributes will soon be discovered by more. So Let watch this space closely.