Future Blockchain technologies I am following.
The blockchain space changes rapidly. That is one reason why I stopped looking at every new blockchain or cryptocurrency project and just focused on Ethereum. Just so I could get really good at working with it. I do however listen to podcasts on my commute to and from work. They often times cover interesting projects that make me stop and check them out.
If I see or hear about something twice from two different sources I generally make a note of it and follow up later. Here are two projects I just keep hearing about and am excited to dig deeper in as they represent what could be blockchain version 2.5 or heck even considered blockchain v3.
In this post I will briefly go over two projects Solana and Hashgraph.
Solana
Grabbing some information from the Solana whitepaper:
This paper proposes a new blockchain architecture based on Proof of History (PoH) - a proof for verifying order and passage of time between events. PoH is used to encode trustless passage of time into a ledger - an append only data structure. When used alongside a consensus algorithm such as Proof of Work (PoW) or Proof of Stake(PoS), PoH can reduce messaging overhead in a Byzantine Fault Tolerant replicated state machine, resulting inn sub-second finality times.
Thoughts
After listening to a podcast with the creator and CEO, Anatoly Yakovenko, where he explained what Solana is and what their projects goals were, I got a bit more interested. They are pushing for a new blockchain that could possibly dwarf others in transaction speed with their new proofs. PoH and PoRep on top of PoS seems pretty novel. While I haven't grabbed the code and started monkeying with it, from my reading it looks pretty solid, and the people involved seem pretty genuine.
Here are some more links for further research:
https://medium.com/solana-labs/proof-of-history-a-clock-for-blockchain-cf47a61a9274
Once they implement smart contracts [next month?], you could see a whole different ball game in the blockchain space, so that is why I am keeping an eye on their progress.
Hedera Hashgraph
https://www.hederahashgraph.com/
What is Hashgraph?
Hashgraph is the first asynchronouse byzantine fault tolerant (aBFT) consensus algorithm that results in fair ordering, fast finality, and secure propagation. It is the foundation of the next generation of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT).
Thoughts
I am cautiously optimistic about Hedera. While their website and communications I've read so far look really cool and innovative, I have not seen any code yet. They will be open sourcing the project once they launch. So we just have to wait...
BUT
That being said, using aBFT and what sort of looks like a DAG, they can reach some impressive speeds. Add Solidity smart contract programming and you have something on par with Ethereum but way faster.
Here are some more links for further research:
https://www.hederahashgraph.com/about#dapps
https://www.hederahashgraph.com/whitepaper
Bitcoin for beginners had a pretty in depth review [and nice HH logo ;) ]:
https://www.bitcoinforbeginners.io/cryptocurrency-reviews/hedera-hashgraph-review/
Final Thoughts
I think we a approaching a new era in the blockchain space. Ethereum and other long time chains are starting to get their footing, and figuring out their scaling issues with the new minds that came into the space from the previous bubble. Then you have these new technologies on the horizon.
This is a pretty exciting time.
