Did you know that as of now 1074 DApps have been build on Ethereum?
This number is far greater than I expected and most people only get to name a few like Cryptokitties and Funfair. Finding useful DApps can be quite a challenge at this moment.
Another issue is blockchain upgrades as blockchain are decentralized in nature they cannot be easily upgraded. For some bigger upgrades a hard fork is needed sometimes splitting up the developer community in the process as the old version of the system keeps existing. We have seen this at Bitcoin where the community behind Bitcoin cannot agree on how to solve its scaling issues this has resulted in a split to Bitcoin Cash taking part of the community to this new forked chain. We have also seen this at Ethereum where a fork was required to refund stolen ether after the Dao hack, leaving part of the community that did not agree with the fork to stick with Ethereum Classic.
A thirds issue is the consensus algorithm to be used. The traditional algorithms seem to have some drawbacks. Proof of Work (PoW) is a huge drain on the environment while Proof of Stake (PoS) can make it so that a huge part of the platform is controlled by a handful of very wealthy master node owners. Most notably this is seen at Dash where a small group of master node holders control an ever larger portion of its supply.
Nebulas however aims to solve these three distinct problems.
Nebulas is a new blockchain protocol and operating system. Currently it is still being traded as an ERC20 token (NAS). However they aim to launch their mainnet in Q1 2018 at which moment these tokens can be traded into the native currency of this new blockchain platform.
Nebulas rank - Search the blockchain(s)
The first issue is to be solved by introducing Nebulas rank (NR). This is a ranking algorithm akin to the one used by Google to make DApps easily searchable based on the rank that is received by the algorithm. Moreover NR does not just give a rank to DApps but also to smart contracts and user addresses. This search does not only span Nebulas's own blockchain, but is going to be implemented across blockchains as well. This will really push for blockchain adoption as it will greatly improve usability of blockchain as well as increase it commercial viability as we have seen in advertising for Google.
Nebulas Force - Evolving blockchain
This is the mechanism with which Nebulas aims to solve the blockchain upgrade problems. This is quite technical in nature, but I will aim to briefly explain it in a simplistic fashion. First they will make blockchain base protocols part of the data within the blockchain system, by then later applying additions to the data, the blockhain protocols can be upgraded. Furthermore smart contracts will be upgradable as well, this is done by making parts of the contract accessible by other contracts. Thereby in case if for instance a bug is found in the original contract, the old contract can self destruct leaving its underlying assets inherited by the new contract. Another interesting feature regarding this is that Nebulas will be fully compatible with Ethereum contracts, so Ethereum based applications can be migrated to nebulas at zero cost.
Proof of Devotion (PoD) - A new consensus algorithm
As mentioned in the introduction both PoW and PoW can have its drawbacks, Nebulas aims to solve these drawbacks by implementing Proof of Devotion (PoD). In PoD the Nebulas Rank status of individual Nebulas users is used to determine who get to be a consensus node running a master node. In this still an amount of NAS has to be staked as with proof of stake, but Nebulas hopes to achieve more decentralization by using this consensus algorithm while at the same time promoting activity on the network. To achieve stability in the group of validator nodes, the Nebulas blocks in its chain are grouped into so called epochs, at any given time the group of validator nodes is part of a given dynasty. A node cannot leave or enter a dynasty in the middle of an epoch, but has to wait at least 2 epochs after the current epoch before he can enter or leave the dynasty. The consensus process itself follows a BFT (Byzantine-Fault-Tolerance) voting process same as in Neo to determine the legitimacy of the current block.
Conclusion
The problems of blockchain searchability and value ranking especially have earlier on not been addressed. This will give Nebulas a definite edge in the ever expanding blockchain domain.
Will this be a top 10 coin?
With a current market cap of a little over 320 million there still is a great opportunity to get in early on this project. With also a great team of former Neo founders and ex-Google employees this team has all the resources to make this project a success both in expertise as well as in connections. Right now you can pick up your NAS tokens on Huobi.pro. At this moment the Nas token is not yet available on larger exchanges like Binance, Bittrex or Poloniex. Once this happens we can expect to see a price increase. Also the release of the mainnet could be a huge trigger for a surge in price. Over the long term this project has very good potential to be a top 10 coin with a circulating supply of only 35,500,000 NAS that would mean a coin of 260 usd if it would reach Cardano's current market cap.
Source: nebulas.io
Source: coinmarketcap.com
If you want to stay up to date on everything new on Nebulas you can follow them on Medium over here or follow their Twitter.
Please let me know what you think of this post and let me know in case you see any errors. Also let me know if you agree or disagree with the outlook for Nebulas.
The above references an opinion and is for information purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice.