RaiBlocks
I've been seeing and reading a lot about RaiBlocks lately. And for good reason. So what is it? Well it's a digital currency of course! I know ... not very exciting, there's dozens of them. So what makes this one different? RaiBlocks uses a block lattice structure instead of a blockchain structure. From the RaiBlock github page, https://github.com/clemahieu/raiblocks/wiki/Block-lattice, this means:
"Raiblocks has one block chain for each account which is controlled by the account's private key and each block chain is replicated to all peers in the network, we call this arrangement a block lattice.
Balances are transferred between block chains through send and receive blocks. Send blocks reduce the balance of an account and marks the delta as receivable by an account number. At a later time the receiving account creates a receive block which increases the balance of their account by the delta.
Distributed agreements like proof of work or proof of stake are unnecessary since the account owner has authoritative control over transactions."
Benefits
There isn't a need for miners because each account maintains and organizes its own blockchain. To resolve problems like double spending which will occur if two spend blocks reference the same previous block in the transaction, the RaiBlock network will vote on which one is correct. When a RaiBlock account is created a node is selected that acts as the voting proxy. The representative nodes are expected to always be online and controlled by a trusted individual. The weight of their vote is proportional to the amount of RaiBlocks in their account.
Because each vote is weighted based on the amount of RaiBlocks in the account a 51% attack would require the attacker to own 51% of all RaiBlocks. At the time of writing this that would require nearly $2 billion. Even if an attacker was able to get control of 51% of RaiBlocks they would only be able to disrupt the network by constantly switching votes and not allowing a consensus be reached. They would not be able to steal or create coins.
Since there are no miners there is no reason to incentivize miners with transaction fees and so there are NO fees. The transactions also don't need to wait for a miner to sort and verify the transactions so they move as fast as it takes to propagate through the network. Generally under a second.
Now if you read the Lisk article you'll understand there are benefits to reducing the blockchain ledger size. Each RaiBlock account blockchain contains its account balance so it's not necessary to keep a record of every transaction on the RaiBlock Ledger. It can be truncated to contain the last few blocks for each account to resolve any conflicts. To date millions of RaiBlock transactions have been processed and the Ledger size is still only 2GB, compare that to bitcoins 100GB Ledger.
To sum up. The Ledger should be much smaller, the transactions are free, they're orders of magnitude faster than bitcoin and the intention with the block lattice is to have a real scaling solution. So will the real bitcoin please stand up?
Risks
RaiBlocks is still new and the entire block lattice structure needs to be tested and vetted yet. If flaws are found we don't know what the solutions will be however the developer team seems to be very active with the community. Stop by their sub reddit some time https://www.reddit.com/r/RaiBlocks/ or check out their discord https://discordapp.com/invite/JphbBas. As I understand there is already a bounty system in place. So while it's going to really need to be put through the ringer yet, what I've seen out of the developer team has been very encouraging.
It's hard to buy. If you've seen the recent uproar about BitGrail failing to resolve bid and ask orders properly recently then you're going to cringe when I tell you that's 1 of 2 exchanges I know you can find it on currently. There's hope though! There is currently a vote on binance to have it added to their exchange and RaiBlocks is leading at the time of writing this https://www.binance.com/vote.html. Also BitGrail did take down their exchange briefly (albeit not fast enough in my opinion) to rectify the issue after it was noticed a whale was exploiting it to manipulate the price. If you want to get it before it hits a major exchange though your options are BitGrail and Metacrox.
RaiBlocks vs ...
So it's always going to be worth comparing tech and in this case cryptocurrency to others that are occupying a similar space in the crypto-verse.
RaiBlocks vs Big Daddy Bitcoin
BitCoin has first mover advantage. The End. Seriously. RaiBlocks is faster, feeless, better scaling. Their development team seems to really believe in and want to focus on their technology over marketing. They've actively discouraged users from campaigning for votes to be added to Binance saying "It's for the community to decide." I've drawn enough comparisons throughout the rest of the article here though and the same sum up can be said for almost any cryptocurrency that requires mining as a means of verifying transactions.
RaiBlocks vs IOTA
This is an interesting one. Very similar products solving the scalability problems in different ways. IOTA with their block tangle and RaiBlocks with their block lattice. IOTA has some very powerful and interesting partnerships and is already on Binance. I like both projects. IOTA does rely on proof of work for consensus which is an expense in energy ultimately in electricity by users.
I believe they can coexist though because they are competing for different markets. IOTA is focussed on becoming the prime protocol used for IoT transactions and machine to machine communication and commerce. RaiBlocks is looking to be a real p2p currency exchange, feeless, fast and scalable.
Conclusion
RaiBlocks seems like a solid solution to the increasing scaling problem from bitcoin. The team is active and appears to truly believe in their tech. The price at the time of writing this is sitting at $29.09 which is up over 10,000% this month and that's with having to wade through the murky waters of bitgrail and metacrox to get some.
It only does one thing. It's not very exciting unless you've waited over 8 hours and paid almost $30 for a bitcoin transaction. The one thing it does though, it does it well.
To buy some you'll need to first purchase some crypto currency on an exchange like https://www.coinbase.com/join/59c6c3b1c68c7d0307f398ac. Or you can wait for it to show up on https://www.binance.com/?ref=11267703.
Thanks for reading! If you found this helpful don't forget to upvote / follow. Also feel free to comment and let me know. Criticism also welcomed!
Disclosure
Full disclosure I picked some up earlier this month when I first started researching it. I'm not a financial advisor and this is not financial advice. Only invest what you can afford to lose.