What will be the real theme to define the Third Generation of Blockchain Technology?
There is a lot of new interesting projects and points of view in Blockchain Technology, everyone is trying to develop the next big thing and are trying to call themselves the Third Generation of Blockchain Technology, someone even calls theme-self “The Fourth Generation Of Blockchain Technology “ like Multiversum, a great project without a doubt but with a huge misunderstanding in their communication. PS: This is my response to it: https://medium.com/@alet89/mmm-eos-is-already-more-scalable-and-product-90-ready-the-fourth-gen-is-a-joke-are-you-serious-1ff986cad294
Defining a Generational Milestone
To understand this theme as well we need to think about the evolution of the Blockchain Technology:
- First Gen: Trasfer Values with Decentralized Transactions and Ledger [Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Litecoin, BitcoinCash, Monero, Dash, Verge etc.].
- Second Gen: Trasfer Values and Logic with Decentralized Transactions, Ledger, applications and Data.
- Third Gen: ????
If we define projects like EOS, NEO or even Multiversum the Third Generation of Blockchain is like to call BitcoinCash, LiteCoin or Monero, the Second Generation because they are Bitcoin’s improvements (good or not) or projects designed for a specific use case.
Litecoin is designed for scalability, bitcoin Cash is designed to improve the block size and try to become a standard for payments, Monero for privacy-based transactions and so on…
A generational milestone is about something that really change this technology with some new concept, like how Ethereum concept started the Second Generation, introducing Smart Contract and logic transaction, with a completely new way to intend Blockchain as an OS where people can decentralize and use Applications in a trustless way, without working on centralized costume layers but inside the network.
The most talked trends in Blockchain technology today is scalability and decentralization, but as in the old Gen, these themes are improvements of the Second Generation Concept.
The question is What’s next?
The Second Generation of Blockchain limits to mass adoption
In the Second Generation of Blockchain Technology the development and research is huge and there is a lot of projects that are trying to develop the best technology as possible to run Decentralized Applications in their network, everyone has different views and different killer features, EOS is trying to scale as much as they can with the DPOS consensus focussed on Dapps, Ethereum is trying to decentralize and connect the public Blockchain with the Privates with Plasma, Cardano is trying to develop a network focussed on security, NEO is trying to use the POS consensus, Nebulas are developing an incentive-based Blockchain for developers and so on.
This scenario is amazing in terms of research, and for sure in 2/3 years we’ll have a lot of different Blockchain networks focussed on specific fields and to solve different problems.
At the same time if you want to build a Decentralized Application today you have to choose a network like Ethereum or EOS etc and you can’t change that for wherever reasons it’s like a marriage and this is dangerous for any kinds of business. An example is what’s happened in the Ethereum network in 2017 the hype for Crypto Kitties had congested the entire network, unfortunately, this is not the dangerous risks that could happen, like network updates errors, forks, hack and more, si your business is completely in the hand of the network you chose.
The Blockchain is different than the Cloud, building a network using a regular Cloud network like AWS or Google is more resilient because you can split your application into different networks or change network for any reason whenever you want. In the Blockchain field, things are more complicated, first of all, there’s not an exit strategy to change network and there is not any plan to solve this simple problem that could happen:
You start a decentralized application in the Ethereum network for example, in a 100% Trustless-friendly way and someone will start a new blockchain network better fixed perfectly for your business or Ethereum makes some changes that you Don’t like or for some other reasons you want to change the network for your Dapp, you can’t.
Yes you can make a fork, but forks are designed and it’s a useful method for blockchain networks especially in values transactions only, when you transact logic things are more complicated and you’ll have a lot of users and forks usually are somethings designed for tech guys, not for the masses, and the last but not the list, when you have users and you transact logic you have to deal with regulations, in this days this kind of stuff is not so simple. This is a huge problem for small and big business.
To understand as well what could be the Third Gen Of Blockchain Technology we have to think about something new, a hard trend that really makes sense, I think this hard trend could be Interoperability. As Don Tapscott says: “
10 years from now, the top cryptocurrency today, I’d be surprised if there were still three of them on the list. And there are all kinds of amazing new technologies that are linking various Blockchain together and creating all kinds of new capabilities. Companies like Cosmos, Polkadot, Aion or Icon. These are the next generation of companies and probably investments opportunity too”
The Second Generation of Blockchain Network is a vertical network technology where you can build your own application for the first time in the history with a Decentralized Logic, the next step in this technology is to solve the interoperability and connect Blockchain 2.0 with a new technology that works like the internet for computers in the 90’s. This concept, in my opinion, is critical to developing a trustless based decentralized application and at the same to scale this technology to run interconnected and unstoppable applications free from risks of a vertical network, using more network based on specific needs.
The concept of Interoperability
Interoperability is the concept of interconnecting different Blockchains to build Decentralized Applications that interoperate with more Blockchains transferring Values and Logic in a decentralized and Trustless way.The concept of Interoperability in Blockchain Technology is about to build a network designed to translate a Dapp and run in into more Blockchain OS to transfer logic and values between different blockchains. This sounds like a new step in this technology and why I like to call it The Third Generation of Blockchain Technology.
An example to understand how big this concept could be, is thinking about the evolution of the “Old Wide Web”, in this case, the Second Generation Blockchain Network is like an E-Commerce with his own catalog, the interoperability Blockchain network is like a platform when you can purchase items from more catalogs from different E-Commerce.
The interoperability Ecosystem
Current approaches in the Interoperability field are like The Intranet and The Internet of the 90s, they can be organized into two sections:
- Single-OS Interoperability: A Blockchain network designed to build private/public Blockchain that interoperates and transact values and logic each other with the same OS (INTRANET).
- Multi-OS Interoperability: A Blockchain Network designed to interoperate different Blockchain Technologies translating functions for different O.S. to transact Values and Logic between different technologies and standards (INTERNET).
The Intranet vision is already on and the most used project is Cosmos, “The Internet of Blockchains”. This technology is interesting for some companies that need an intranet from different Blockchains.
One of the most interesting projects between the Intranet vision and the Internet vision is Polkadot, developed from a co-founder of the Ethereum, Gavin Wood, that works for an interconnectivity consensus between different Blockchains:
I’m focussed on the second vision the Multi-OS Interoperability concept where projects like AION, ICON, and WANCHAIN have developed the Interoperability Alliance to push standards in this field to help Blockchain networks and Dapp’s developers to build technology and simplify in the future the resilience in interoperation and transitions between this technologies.
As wrote in this official post:
The inability for isolated blockchains to communicate with one another is a recurring problem in the decentralized landscape. Isolated inter-blockchain communication can put a strain to blockchain’s scalability and mainstream adoption.
The Alliance’s main priority is collaborate on research on interchain transactions and communication. The Alliance will focus on developing common industry standards, sharing researching, and protocol architecture.
All three blockchain projects have the common goal of connecting blockchain protocols. ICON is an interconnecting blockchain network that connects independent blockchains without additional intermediaries. Aion aims to become the common protocol used for these blockchains, enabling more efficient and decentralized systems to be built. Wanchain is a distributed financial platform that enables private, cross-blockchain smart contract execution that aims to unite the world’s isolated digital assets.
Blockchain Interoperability Alliance: ICON x Aion x Wanchain_ICON has joined the “Blockchain Interoperability Alliance”. The Alliance is backed by ICON, Aion, and Wanchain and has…_medium.com
From the article “Blockchain Interoperability Alliance (BIA) — Defining Blockchain 3.0”
“ICON project was first started by the request of our enterprise blockchain clients to interconnect with other blockchain networks. The goal of this alliance is to create a globally accepted standard for connecting blockchains and to bring innovations together,” said JH Kim, Foundation Council, ICON
“We believe that collaborating across projects will help set best practices for blockchain interoperability and encourage broader market adoption across enterprises and the public,” shared Matthew Spoke, Founder, Aion.
“The Blockchain Interoperability Alliance will play a crucial role in increasing the connectivity of our digital assets and our lives,” said Wanchain President Dustin Byington.
Looking AION in this field, for example, this kind of Blockchain Network have to:
- Federate: Transfer logic (data) and value (crypto) in a decentralized and fully trustless way between different blockchains technologies (Ethereum, Bitcoin and others).
- Scale: Provide fast transaction processing and increase data capacity to all Aion participating blockchains.
- Spoke: Enable the creation of customized public or private blockchains that maintain interoperability with other blockchains, allowing publishers to choose governance, consensus mechanisms, issuance, and participation.
The vision of Aion Network is a multi-tier blockchain set of connections to solve the problem of Blockchains as ‘islands in isolation’, to scale this technology for the mass adoption. the vision M. Spoke the CEO of Aion, is interesting for the next decade of this technology, were in the future we’ll see a lot of new Blockchains focussed on solving specific problems, interconnected to scale.
The BAAM (Blockchain as a Micro-service )Concept
This new technology that is reinventing Blockchain ecosystem, will change how we build Dapps, for a new generation of interoperable decentralized Applications, that really can change every sector and that finally could build a competitive web 3.0.
As I wrote in my article: Understanding The Gold Rush of Scalable and Validated Data powered by Blockchain and Decentralized AI
The Interoperability infrastructure allows developers to create Decentralized Applications in a new smart way that I like to call “Blockchain as a Micro-service.”
The “BAAM” concept, first of all it’s sounds very cool, and is similar to the way in which we create modern centralized applications with microservices-based on dedicated and replaceable APIs for each function. In Dapps we will use many dedicated and replaceable Blockchains focused on specific needs to perform each task. This type of infrastructure will create an exponential research on the evolution of this technology, especially in new Blockchains focused on specific use cases, without loosing the Trustless validation.
The concept of BAAM, possible after this generational passage, is a huge milestone for Blockchain technology that finally could defeating every friction for enterprise or small businesses to adopt Blockchain technology in a trustless way.