Upon hearing about Scorum for the first time, people often ask why we need blockchain to launch this innovative sports media platform. It’s a valid question, a question that should be asked of all projects raising funds through an ICO/Crowdsale/ITO. Without regurgitating the entire whitepaper here, the Scorum team sees it’s blockchain foundation as the intractable foundation upon which a rewarding fan experience can be built.
By building the blockchain economic system with the open-source Graphene Framework, Scorum has created a transparent, reliable, and efficient system of rules that will distribute rewards in a fair manner to all active fans on Scorum. Aren’t we just making money out of nothing? No, the money is huge in the sports media industry, we’re just laying out a framework that will allow it to be shared among the fans who do the real work to raise it!
Currently three of the top five most active blockchains by transaction are built on the Graphene Framework:
Top blockchains by transaction volume. Source
Why the Graphene Framework is a Perfect Fit for Scorum
Fast, precise, and efficient. There are many sports around the world where these are the sought-after characteristics of winning performances. The same applies to the blockchain technology behind Scorum. As the Scorum audience grows and welcomes more and more users from the global audience of 1 billion plus sports fans, we need a blockchain foundation that is scalable. One that can record and transmit the thousands of microtransactions that will distribute rewards among users across Scorum’s four core services.
The Graphene framework, an open-source blockchain system developed by Dan Larimer during his (successful) quest to create a reliable and secure decentralized exchange called Bitshares for cryptocurrency traders over three years ago. Since then, the Graphene framework has proved itself capable of executing free and fast transactions in many projects and we’re excited to be building the Scorum community on such a proven foundation.
An illustrated view of Graphene Implementation. Source
So how does it work for Scorum?
The Graphene framework runs on a Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) consensus algorithm that requires representatives from the Scorum community to verify/sign a new block every 3 seconds. Each block can hold up to 10k transactions, so the tx speeds are able to be sustained at over 3k per second. Not only is this markedly faster than the Proof of Work consensus algorithm currently used by Bitcoin and Ethereum, an added bonus is that it is exponentially less energy consuming.
Scorum’s DPoS consensus relies on 21 block-signing members (delegates), 20 of whom are elected from the Scorum community and 1 who is selected from a list of users with a high amount of Scorum Power. By allowing everyone in the Scorum community to vote for the 20 elected delegates, the Scorum blockchain consensus algorithm ensures that the transactions within the Scorum community are verified quickly and accurately.
What do the Delegates get for signing blocks?
As compensation for delegates who sign blocks to keep Scorum’s rewarding economy rolling along, we’ve designated 480K Scorum Power tokens to be distributed among block-signing delegates. This will ensure fair compensation until the SCR token distribution from advertising revenue replaces SP rewards.
Delegate compensation will be stabilized over time by holding a reserve of rewards for a set amount of days. In practice, this means that if SCR rewards from advertising income exceed the amount needed to compensate delegates for the next 100 days, the rewards will increase by 10%. Conversely, if there is a dip in ad revenue and the reward pool for delegates has less than 30 days worth of compensation, then the reward amount will decrease by 10%.
The Future for DPoS is bright
One of the beauties of the cryptocurrency industry is that blockchain technology allows a certain amount of flexibility in creating value transaction systems to meet the needs of certain communities. Proof of Work systems such as Bitcoin have clearly shown their ability to function as a secure and decentralized means to transfer funds.
Delegated Proof of Stake blockchains offer projects like Scorum the added benefit of fast and free transactions. This is a key solution in the movement towards mass adoption of cryptocurrencies. By allowing the community at large to elect delegates and having nodes distributed all over the world, the goals of decentralization and security are met without the exorbitant energy costs, “slow” transaction confirmation, or any loss of funds to transaction fees.
With Ethereum planning to transition to DPoS, EOS doing the biggest ICO in history to take Graphene-based projects to new heights, and Bitshares functioning for over 3 years on Graphene, the grand majority of blockchain projects will be running DPoS consensus in the near future. Scorum is excited to be a part of this and bring atomic swap capabilities to Graphene.