There are numerous projects in the crypto world today among which is Elrond. In fact, there are over twenty thousand cryptocurrencies today despite the volatility.
Bitcoin is the biggest and most famous cryptocurrency today out of which many other projects such as Elrond are modeled. Although these cryptocurrencies have many things in common, their blockchains are however different.
In this post, we’ll learn about Elrond and its native token, EGLD. Before then, let’s have a sneak peek into the world of cryptocurrency and blockchain for the sake of beginners.
What is Cryptocurrency?
Cryptocurrency is a digitally encrypted, decentralized currency that is not linked to or regulated by any government or central bank.
It is based on blockchain technology, which is a distributed ledger framework. Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency created which has led to the creation of others alike known as altcoins.
Cryptos are categorized as virtual or digital currencies. They were originally developed to provide an alternative mode of payment for online transactions.
However, cryptocurrencies have not yet been generally adopted or legalized by many nations. They are actually too unreliable to be used as payment methods.
What is Blockchain?
Blockchain is a distributed ledger that is managed by a network of computers. It maintains an exact copy of the database and updates its records by consensus based on pure mathematics.
Blockchain store data in block that are then linked together via cryptography. It can be used to store different types of information but the most common use so far has been as ledger for transactions.
Blockchains and cryptocurrency are part of the most used words in our world today. Although it is known for its role in cryptocurrency system, it has several other functions.
What is Elrond (EGLD)?
Elrond is a blockchain protocol that seeks to offer extremely fast transaction speeds by using sharding. The project describes itself as a technology ecosystem for the new internet. This includes fintech, decentralized finance and the Internet of Things.
Elrond was co-founded in late 2017 by brothers Beniamin and Lucian Mincu alongside Lucian Todea. It was created as a solution to the problem of blockchain scalability, which they thought to be the most pressing problem facing the industry.
Though the project was first announced in August 2019, it officially debuted in July 2020. The blockchain has a native token known as eGold, or EGLD.
What Makes Elrond Different from Other Cryptocurrencies
As stated earlier, crypto projects differs in their blockchains. Elrond describes itself as a blockchain platform for the new internet economy, decentralized applications and enterprise use.
Its main selling point is its high scalability, stating that it is the first blockchain network in which state, network and transaction sharding have all been implemented. According to its economics paper, it seeks to build up its ecosystem and establish EGLD as a store-of-value asset.
To make this happen, the network runs on 2,169 validator nodes split into four shards. It is made up of three execution shards and one coordination shard.
In order to increase adoption, the project also supports developers building on the platform, allowing them to earn 30% of the smart contract fees as royalties.
The company maintains a supply of EGLD tokens to stake on the network during its first year, with validator nodes receiving a 36% annual percentage rate.
What is Elrond (EGLD) Token’s Worth in the Crypto Industry?
The native token of the Elrond protocol trades by the symbol EGLD. The token is used for paying network fees, staking and rewarding validators.
As of writing, EGLD is ranked 43rd among thousands of cryptocurrencies according to CoinMarketCap. The current price of EGLD is $56.80 USD with a 24-hour trading volume of $60,603,734 USD. It has a live market cap of $1,276,258,616 USD.
EGLD has a circulating supply of 22,471,179 EGLD coins and a max. supply of 31,415,926 EGLD coins. The tokens are available for purchase on crypto exchange platforms such as Binance, OKX, etc.
Elrond Tokenomics
The tokenomics is scarcity-oriented and has similar points with Bitcoin.
Elrond has recently made a change in its tokenomics. There’s been the shift from ERD (Elrond coin) to eGLD (Elrond Gold-Electronic Gold).
1000 ERD became 1 eGLD, so that eGLD brings its projected meaning and therefore scarcity.
How is the Elrond Network Secured?
Elrond make use of the proof-of-stakes algorithm in which nodes must stake their EGLD tokens to participate in the validation process. Here, each validator is assigned a rating score based on past activity, which also influences whether or not they are selected.
If a validator’s rating becomes too low, it will not be selected and must pay fines. Validators can also be removed from the network and have their stakes slashed if they continuously act in a manner that is against the integrity of the network.
Validators are randomly selected in a way that can be neither predicted nor modified based on the previous round of validations. In addition, validators are periodically shuffled between shards as a way to prevent collusion. Nodes communicate among one another using modified Boneh-Lynn-Shacham, or BLS, multi-signatures for strong cryptographic protection.
Why Elrond is a Hot Commodity Today
Developers, validators and businesses use Elrond to build a new internet economy because of its features which are listed below.
1. Scalability
Its adaptive state sharding brings a 1000x improvement in throughput compared to previous blockchain iterations by enabling parallel transaction processing.
2. Secure & Efficient
Its proof-of-stake consensus mechanism is fast, ensures long term security and distributed fairness. It also eliminates the need for energy intensive proof-of-work algorithms.
3. Developer-friendly
The Elrond Virtual Machine is a dedicated smart contract execution engine built on WASM. It expands the family of languages available to smart contract developers to include Rust, C/C++, C#, Typescript.
This means you can write smart contracts in whichever language you’re familiar with, compile it of WASM and easily debug its WAT human readable format.
4. Staking
Elrond is running the energy efficient Secure Proof of Stake consensus mechanism. Validators and Delegators stake eGold to secure the network and earn rewards. The staking process is non-custodial, meaning you are always in control of your funds.
Here, you can stake with your phone to earn competitive rewards. You can become an early adopter of a game changing technology and also make history by being part of the Elrond ecosystem.
What are Elrond’s use Cases & Targets?
Elrond has several use cases which are
1.Dapps and Smart Contracts development
2. Programmable Blockchain
3. Blockchain accessibility
4. Corporate Enterprise Partnerships
5. Creation of a new financial system
6. Building business on top of blockchain with simplicity
7. Focus on UX/UI for a great user experience
8. DeFi development
9. Data Monetisation
10. Gaming
What You Should do Before Buying or Investing in Cryptocurrency
Here are important things to know before putting your money into cryptocurrency.
1. Do your own research- If you’re going to invest in cryptocurrency, it is very important to understand the industry. Do your own research on the token, exchange and keep yourself abreast with the with the happenings in the market.
2. Do not fall for the hype– You’ve to avoid falling for hype in the market. You’ll need to check if an asset is on an upswing on its own or riding a bubble. This is because coin may rise quickly and then loses its gains suddenly.
3. Volatility in price is certain– Asides stablecoins such as USDT, several others are volatile. This is very certain in the crypto market. You need to have this at the back of your mind when putting your money into crypto assets. There’s no guarantee that you’ll have return on investment always as asset will see a dip.
4. Be patient– You need to exercise patience and let your investment grow naturally, over a period of time. This is very important if you’re diversifying your portfolios into small cap altcoins. If in doubt, invest in market leaders like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
5. Beware of scam– You’ve to beware of ponzi schemes if you’re investing in cryptocurrency. Fraudsters often try to take advantage of the numerous beginners who has yet to have full knowledge of the industry. They may lure you with huge return on investment. This may come through emails or text.
Conclusion
Elrond is a highly scalable, fast and secure blockchain platform for distributed apps, enterprise use cases and the new internet economy.
It is s surely a network where everyone can enjoy the benefits of distributed system technology, in fact it gives a proper infrastructure to connect objectives and goals, like businesses or just a new standard for value transfer.
Also Read– What is KuCoin?