Introduction
In the new world of decentralization, the blockchain technology is best seen like the "800-pound gorilla in the room" and this is not totally untrue if we look at how far it had come in a short space of time and yet many are unwilling to participate due to the obvious loopholes present in the system, a decade after it was launched. Although, the technology succesfully solved the problem of double-spending in traditional payment system, it is not close in terms of overall performance in competing with this legacy payment system apart from the fact that it is more secure and decentralized.
Most existing systems can be classified into two major groups; centralised or decentralised, each has its own pros and cons and therefore it seems every available framework or solution is built with a huge compromise in mind; security and ownership is compromised for centralised systems while speed and availability is compromised for decentralized networks.
In short, Lightning Networks e.g Raiden and sharded network eg zilliqa to name a few are some of the recent solutions to have made some improvements to blockchain payment networks via the introduction of Payment Channels and shards respectively. And they have come at length to solve some of the speed-related issues of the blockchain, however, the implementation has brought up new issues of network cost, routing complexity and security; with the latter stemming from partial decentralization; of which without fail deserve full attention if the performance of the blockchain is to be improved upon considerably and made ready for mass adoption by businesses, enterprise and institutional investors.
Thus far, the inability of existing blockchain options such as Zilliqa, Multivac, to name a few, to curtail partial decentralization and its effect is one of the major reasons why their solutions have not proved quite efficient and effective enough to drive wide blockchain and cryptocurrency adoption.
Therefore, in this article we shall look at an interesting project, Harmony that is looking to change the course of history for this "800-pound gorilla" technology called blockchain!
Harmony Blockchain in the Spotlight
In simple terms, Harmony is a fully scalable, provably secure and energy efficient blockchain based on sharding technology. Harmony is a PoS-based blockchain that is capable of linear scaling, enabling unprecedented transactions per second with the ability to easily scale as the network becomes heavily utilized.
Harmony addresses the issue of costs and complex routing associated with existing 2nd-Layer blockchain solutions (e.g sharding technology); improving the overall scalability of the underlying blockchain infrastructure and maintaining a fully-decentralized economy to ensure user's security and control of own asset.
How Harmony Solves Scalability, Cost And Decentralization related issues
Inorder to fully understand their approach, lets run quickly through the internal workings of existing sharding based blockchain options such as Zilliqa
How Sharded Blockchain works?
Sharding is the process of dividing a database’s computational responsibilities into smaller segments (called shards) which individually carry out their tasks, making the total burden of computation smaller. This concept is introduced to recent blockchain options to solve speed, network cost and scalability issues associated with blockchain technology.
However, Zilliqa's
sharding approach for instance falls short in two ways. First, it does not divide the storage of blockchain data
(state sharding). This prevents machines with limited resources from participating in the network,
thus curtailing decentralization. Second, Zilliqa’s sharding process is susceptible to a single-shard takeover attack due to its reliance on PoW as its randomness generation mechanism.
Harmony Blockchain improvement to existing solutions
In the existing solutions, the issues of costs and time arise because every node within the network has to listen to each other before consensus can be reached , therefore Harmony via their adaptive state sharding Protocol will allow each node to keep a state of its transaction history which can then be better managed by effective shard management by combining the advanced FBFT - Full Byzantine Fault Tolerance via BLS (Boneh-Lynn-Shacham) multi-signatures and DRG protocol to drastically improve communication complexity and consensus fairness respectively.
Implementing a adaptive- threshold PoS based consensus ensures better node participation which helps to drive the idea of true decentralization for the overall network ensuring security is not compromised in every sense of it unlike other sharded blockchain options.
Further more, the effect of these concepts on the overall Harmony blockchain vs other blockchain options is summarised in this chart below
However, we shall examine how this solutions will impact blockchain mass adoption in the subsequent header.
How Harmony improves blockchain-related issues
The introduction of the revolutionary technology state sharding, DRG protocol and Kamdelia-based routing protocol will have great impact on the performance of the underlying blockchain in the following ways
- Better Transaction Per Seconds(TPS)
TPS is the unit of measurement to determine the speed of the transaction and present blockchain lags behind in this area as the chart above reveals when compared with other conventional payment options. However, since transactions only needs to be managed by few nodes within the network, the makes the whole transaction process becomes fast and efficient. And this is better improved by the Kamdelia based routing which simplifies cross-sharding communication linearly by maintaining direct shard communication. Thereby, improving the overall scalability of the network as more nodes get added.
- Reduced Transaction Cost
As mentioned earlier, One of the loophole of the present solutions is poor node management which means that every participating node contributes to the overall network cost. Harmony removes the need for that via its shard enabled consensus mechanism which ensures only relevant nodes gets to participate in the network to keep the network cost as low as possible. Hence, Harmony blockchain encourage micropayment transaction on the network
- Highly Scalable For different users
Harmony blockchain is driving blockchain scaling solution via the introduction of these new concepts as they relieves the workload on the blockchain, reduces network congestion and renders the transaction process fast and adaptable for different use cases as summarised in the chart below
Harmony Blockchain Architecture in a Nutshell
Harmony blockchain offers true decentralization and solution to scalability. Their solutions have being adopted in ground-breaking projects like Cryptokitties and DeFi. This is why important personalities like Vitalik Buterin (Ethereum), Zaki Manian (Tendermint), Gawin Wood (Parity Technologies), Alex Skidanov (Near Protocol) have aired their views on this technology.
From this revelations above , it appears the Harmony blockchain can serve as the base network on which other economies can be hosted including high-volume decentralized exchanges, marketplace for fungible and non-fungible tokens, IoT-driven economy and other large scale integrations.
10 interesting Fun Facts About Harmony
Harmony blockchain reaches consensus 100 times faster than any other consensusThe technology will allow hosting of assets from multiple block chain granting freedom to create multiple trade-pairs for traders and users to thriveHarmony is truly decentralised and linearly scalableHarmony innovates on both the network and protocol layerHarmony team are credible silicon-valley associates comprising of engineers and academiasOn June 28th, Harmony launched their Mainnet. The Mainnet had 600 nodes, making it one of the top 15 decentralized networksAtomic locking provides references to ensure cross shard consistencyHarmony consensus accrues votes based on the amount of Harmony ONE token staked.Harmony uses censorship detection to vote on view changesdApps can be built on harmony networks such that heavy computatins can be driven on third party frameworks like magic Network. A good example is an hybrid DEX where order books can be maintained and settled off chain.
Features and Benefits of Harmony Blockchain Architecture
To Miners
Provably fair consensus mechanism to drive mass participation ensures overhead cost per block created is considerably reduced.
Provably fair mining reward
Proof of Stake consensus provides an energy efficient network
To businesses and users
Faster Block creation process
immunity from 1% shard attack
Zero-knowledge proof of data sharing to ensure customer's privacy
Linearly scalable for mass adoption
Provably secure
Peer-to-Peer communication
Low transaction fee
Harmony And the Evolution of dApps
Harmony blockchain is creating partnerships that will allow it to gain the front door and be the defacto standard when it comes to dApp(decentralized Applications) deployment and hosting for businesses and vendors.For instance their partnerships: with Matic will allow dApps to run complex computation task off chain. Therefore as a result dApps pay less gas fee and potential slow performance will not affect the overall network.
Also, dApps can be built on harmony networks such that heavy computations can be driven on third party frameworks like magic Network. A good example is an hybrid DEX where order books can be maintained and settled off chain.
About Harmony ONE token
Harmony ONE token is the native currency for Harmony's open economy of developers, miners, validators/stakers and investors.
The Harmony token will gain relevance in the following aspects of the protocol:
For staking, inorder to participate in the POS consensus, earn block rewards and cover for transaction fees.
Voting for on-chain governance of the protocol
To pay for transaction fees, gas and storage fees.
Final Thoughts
Blockchain technology alone is not sufficient to drive business on to new heights due to its inherent limitations. Just like the internet which required the advent of social media before businesses start realising the potential; the blockchain also needs new concepts to ensire businesses thrive on the network.Harmony Blockchain shifts their focus to dApp inclusion economy while offering practical solution to solve the numerous issues confronting blockchain adoption as an tool for national development.
Harmony open economy fits the bill for businesses to plunge into new heights.
Use Case
Salary disbursement/Micropayments
Harmony could serve this use conveniently because it maintains users privacy within the network via its zero-proof knowledge algorithm. Therefore, Salary could be disbursed to different grade of workers at once, the differences in salary structure does not matter. All that is required to make it carry out the proper execution is a smart contract enabled dApp. Which removes the need for manual error or manipulation.
In otherwords the process is automated!!!
Synopsis: Pangaea Case-Study
Pangaea - A Blockchain Experimental Zone Turned To A Massive Success
Pangaea is an experimental zone for thousands of people to interact with the Harmony network, test the limitations of our technology and have lots of fun while earning rewards. Pangaea is created purely for experimental purposes. It will have its own currency for playing and bookkeeping.
It’s the first live experiment - showcasing great prospect for participation on the development of the Harmony network. Within the first 24 hours the initiative had the following:
138 Nodes up & running already
1283 Signups
77 Countries
356 Keys Downloaded
Roadmap
Token Metric
Meet The team
