May 22 2019

Harmony: a Breakthrough platform for a better future

The emergence of bitcoin in 2008 has brought various changes in the world of blockchain technology. After the rise of bitcoin, the concept of blockchain has spread across the globe. With the popularity of bitcoin from year to year, automatically many people also find out the idea of blockchain, which is the supporter of the cryptocurrency.

To be reminded, bitcoin appeared in 2009 where there was someone named Satoshi Nakamoto, and many people claimed he was the one who discovered the digital currency. Bitcoin is the first digital money that is implemented, and then, the other cryptocurrency appears.

The bitcoin blockchain is created as a peer-to-peer payment system that makes it easy for users to make transactions because the system is decentralized. In other words, when someone makes a purchase or payment using bitcoin, there is no intermediary to complete the transfer of value. Unlike current transactions, there are conventional banks that are intermediaries between senders and recipients who make operations run longer than using bitcoin.

It should be noted that cryptocurrency is one of the blockchain representations whose presence and the impact can be enjoyed directly by the wider community. It is not without reason why many people invest their money on cryptocurrency because the blockchain system offers advantages that are not found in other systems.

The advantage offered by the blockchain system is a distributed storage system. Blockchain can be said to have no loopholes for failure because data storage is scattered in devices whose networks are spread. Besides, the data storage network can replicate and store copies of the database so that security is also very tightly maintained. Unlike storage systems found in conventional banks whose data is stored only in one center, which is very vulnerable to attack so that when the order is hacked, the data will be more easily spread.

Another advantage is the cost savings when using the system. In transactions or payments made via the blockchain, there are no third parties involved in the transaction. Conversely, every transaction that is carried out only involves related parties. It is because every person or user has access to the same single data permission. Of course, this saves costs for almost all businesses because they don’t need to recruit intermediaries.

Blockchain is a system that has a lot of potential going forward so that it can still be explored to be better. One of them is when, in 2014, Vitalik Buterin developed a new blockchain infrastructure called Ethereum. Ethereum is almost similar to the blockchain that relies on peer to peer networks intending to make Ethereum a smart contracts platform.

Website: https://harmony.one/

White Paper: https://harmony.one/whitepaper.pdf

Scalability as the problem

 

When ethereum was developed, it was found that no solution could solve the problem of the previous infrastructure. The problem in question is about scalability, where ethereum fails to support high-throughput applications such as decentralized exchanges.

With the obstacles that occur, improvements are, of course, continuously carried out to get a system that can improve the precise application. Many blockchain projects have sprung up offering solutions that are claimed to enhance the quality of operation such as replacing Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus Proof-of-Work (PoW) and several other projects that unfortunately cause significant performance. In fact, among the plans, the security and decentralization aspects were ignored.

Until the first public blockchain appeared and claimed to be able to overcome the problem of scalability by using sharding. The blockchain is called Zilliqa. But Zilliqa stumbled by two issues that made him fail to offer a solution. The first is that Zilliqa does not share storage on blockchain or sharding data. The second is that Zilliqa relies on Proof-of-Work, which can cause him to be sensitive to single-shard takeover attacks.

With all the projects that have been tried and the claims of each party that carried out the plan that they have found a perfect solution to the problem of scalability, in fact, nothing has been said to be successful or even close to solving the problem.

Website: https://harmony.one/

White Paper: https://harmony.one/whitepaper.pdf

Blog: https://harmony.one/blog/blog.html

Harmony is the answer.

Scalability is certainly still a problem even when the blockchain was first created. Many parties are curious to provide solutions to the issues that can be said to be one point of the blockchain weakness. But it seems that the presence of this one blockchain answers anxiety about scalability. It claims to be the next generation blockchain based on sharding that has been tested to be safe, energy efficient and is undoubtedly fully scalable. The generation of this blockchain is named Harmony. Let’s find out more about Harmony.

Harmony comes as a response to the problems of the previous blockchain infrastructure. Harmony comes by combining the results of the best research that has been done before, and the system practices that are adjusted optimally. The notion of Harmony one itself is an open consensus platform which will be expected to become a driver of a decentralized economy in the future. Unlike the previous blockchain platform, Harmony offers a platform with low-latency, high throughput, and low cost.

As the name implies, which is Harmony, this platform is undoubtedly expected to be a platform that unites all needs and becomes a harmonizer for many people’s lives. This platform can be a consideration for people because Harmony does not only offer a blockchain whose scalability problems are solved but also becomes an infrastructure that can later be a place to build various types of applications that require high throughput and decentralization. Applications that can be made on Harmony one are games, decentralized applications, to the AI data market. All of that can be realized thanks to the presence of Harmony.

Harmony has stated that its platform not only resolves scalability issues but also the number of nodes participating in the network of decentralized nodes. Some of you might be curious about how Harmony handles the issue of scalability and what approach the platform does so that the problem can be resolved. So the answer is Harmony using a sharding-based consensus protocol that is adopted, which scales according to the number of nodes that are increasing in the network. That makes Harmony different from other blockchains. Harmony cares about the number of nodes participating in a decentralized blockchain network.

When talking about the technology used by Harmony, another reason why Harmony is the answer to people’s anxiety about the issue of scalability in the blockchain infrastructure is that Harmony believes that maximum optimization is needed that crosses several layers to complete scalability. That is why Harmony takes an approach by applying innovation in networks, systems, and consensus algorithms that are done ten times than what is usually done.

Harmony chooses sharding and pipelining designs because they can effectively handle connection latency and allow throughput to scale to the size of the harmony network. To get a broader range of devices participating in a more decentralized system, they also widened mission lean kernels explicitly made to run their protocols. The way it works is by increasing CPU performance and security.

With the explanation is given about Harmony starting from the issue of scalability to the technology developed and run by them, it seems very appropriate to choose Harmony as a blockchain platform that can support a decentralized economy. It is seen that Harmony is not only a project created only to solve the issue of scalability but also bring the blockchain to a more advanced era.

The breakthrough offered by Harmony

 

As a platform created to become the next generation of blockchain, Harmony certainly offers breakthroughs in several aspects that are expected to be maximized well to achieve a radically good economy. The following is a breakthrough made in several aspects:

a. Fully Scalable

Harmony’s first breakthrough is on the element of scalability. As we have already known, the issue that is being sought out is the scalability. What makes Harmony is a fully scalable blockchain is the fact that it shards the blockchain states, unlike the previous blockchain which claimed can handle the scalability issue.

b. Secure Sharding

The second breakthrough is safe sharding. One way to solve the issue of scalability is by sharding. Sharding is creating many groups of validators and making them conduct transactions simultaneously. It certainly requires a secure system to process transactions simultaneously, and Harmony has proven that the process of sharding in their platforms is safe due to distributed randomness generation or DRG processes. The function of this DRG is to make the sharding process unpredictable, unbiased, valid, and last but not least scalable.

c. Efficient and Fast Consensus

The third breakthrough that Harmony made is a practical and fast consensus. Harmony Consensus is dynamic because it uses Proof-Of-Stake or PoS, which provides the advantage of saving energy. Whereas the other blockchain uses PoW, which requires them to choose a validator.

d. Adaptive Threshold PoS

The next breakthrough is an adaptive threshold PoS. In this aspect, so that a node can join the network, a bet threshold is adjusted based on the total bet volume. This method is done so that the malicious stalker cannot concentrate on one shard.

e. Scalable Networking Infrastructure

The next breakthrough is scalable networking infrastructure. In this aspect, Harmony uses an Adaptive Information Spreading Algorithm whose function is to spread blocks quickly in fractions or across networks. As for achieving an algorithmic scale cross-shear transaction with a specific amount, Harmony uses the adopted Kamdelia route.

f. Consistent Cross-Shard Transaction

The last aspect of making a breakthrough is regular Cross-shard transaction. In this aspect, the factor that influences the consistency of cross-shard operation is the atomic locking mechanism used by Harmony.

Those are some of the breakthroughs made by Harmony in several aspects of the blockchain. The innovations presented by Harmony are undoubtedly able to provide applications that were previously not feasible on the blockchain to be something that can support a newly emerging decentralized economy. Increasing the trust of billions of people is one reason why Harmony made innovative breakthroughs.

Website: https://harmony.one/

White Paper: https://harmony.one/whitepaper.pdf

Blog: https://harmony.one/blog/blog.html

 

Sharding and Consensus

Consensus protocols are a vital element of each blockchain because it plays a role in determining how safe and fast blockchain validators one is to be able to reach consensus on the next block. The commonly known consensus protocol is Proof-of-Work, which is used for cryptographic solutions. Whereas the other consensus protocol, Proof-of-Stake, was used by Harmony as the basis for the selection of the Harmony consensus Validator.

 

A little explanation about sharding, scalability is an issue of concern in the world of blockchain technology. Every new project that will be launched tries to solve the problem by claiming to have found the answer. But, when Zilliqa, which is the first sharding-based public blockchain, appeared and claimed to have found a solution, the solution offered was not proven to solve the issue of scalability. It should be noted that the issue of scalability is not only a concern for those who work in the blockchain industry but also those in the academic world. This issue has attracted a lot of attention since 2017.

 

Describing sharding as a solution to scalability problems, before claiming to have found a solution, Harmony has tried various approaches to assign nodes to fractions which of course have been proposed first. Portions referred to are random-based sharding, location-based sharding, and centrally controlled sharding. After going through the process of this approach, it was found that randomness-based sharding was the safest and most recognized solution.

To determine sharding tasks on each node, a mutually agreed random number is needed, and the number must have several properties. Among these are random numbers. Which means that no random number can predict before it is produced. Other features are unbiasable, which means that there should be no bias by any participant when the process generates a random number running. The third property is valid. The meaning can be verified is the observer can verify the validity of the random number generated. Last but not least, the previous property is scalable. Randomness generation algorithms must scale a large number of participants.

Website: https://harmony.one/

White Paper: https://harmony.one/whitepaper.pdf

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