Most Expected Blockchain Projects In 2022
According to the chainalysis global cryptocurrency adoption report, crypto adoption increased by 880 percent between 2021 and 2022. With less than 5% of the world population transacting in crypto as of March 2022, and with the full potential of blockchain applications yet to be unlocked at scale, we expect a lot of new projects to be launched.
The list below includes eight promising blockchain projects to watch in 2022. These projects have been summarized by their technical capabilities, ecosystem, roadmap, how they address the blockchain trilemma of security, decentralization and scalability and their differentiators. This is not a comparison and the projects have been ranked in no particular order.
1. Kadena
Introduction:
Kadena was founded in June 2016 by Stuart Popejoy and Will Martino, both former JP Morgan executives. Kadena enables businesses and organizations to efficiently transact and share data in a decentralized manner. It also seeks to address the issues that current generation blockchains face, such as speed, scalability, and security.
Kadena ecosystem comprises of layer 1 public chain protocol, a layer 2 protocol, Kuro and chain web, the only sharded and scalable Layer-1 PoW network in use today.
Differentiators:
- Bitcoin is proof of work (PoW). Smart Contracts and scalability are two issues it does not address. There are blockchains that do feature Smart Contracts, such as Ethereum, but they have scalability and security issues. Kadena fixes this.
- Kadena has 20 braided chains running at the same time, significantly improving its capacity and guaranteeing its security. Multiple mined blocks at the same height reference each other’s past, reducing the amount of time an attacker may get “lucky” against an honest network.
Ecosystem:
Introduction:
Solar Network, a fully decentralized energy-efficient blockchain that utilizes a Byzantine Fault Tolerance consensus mechanism via Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) powered by SXP. It is secured by 53 voted-in delegates that produce blocks and validate transactions.
SXP has an extra use as the native coin on its own standalone community-driven Layer-1 blockchain network, thanks to the rebranding of the Swipechain blockchain (Solar).
Differentiators:
- Solar will be entirely run by SXP holders with no central company or management. A true decentralized autonomous organization.
- Solar’s value proposition enables plugins to be developed in Javascript and Typescript and built-in Layer 1 format so that all scalability and smart contract-like features will be developed natively.
Roadmap:
3. Shardeum
Introduction:
Shardeum is an EVM-compatible smart contract Layer-1 protocol on which decentralized applications can be built. It is a Sharded blockchain with infinite scalability, true decentralization and solid security. It is built to scale and capture billions of users and transactions while maintaining decentralization.
Shardeum, like the Internet, will be open, collaborative and community-driven that would democratize accessibility to decentralization. It is being developed using Omar’s unique distributed ledger project launched in early 2018, Shardus.
Shardeum will be the infrastructure on which the next iteration of the Internet which is Web3 will be built.
Differentiators:
- It aims to leverage existing tools and applications such as the EVM to solve the scalability trilemma without compromising on security and decentralization.
- Each node added to the network adds to the network capacity (TPS). The network also uses separate ‘archive nodes’ for storing data and ‘validator nodes’ to validate transactions. This enables low-configuration devices to participate in the network, earn incentives and keep the network truly decentralized.
- Shardeum will solve scalability and expensive transaction costs. It will, however, maintain a high level of centralization, something which is missing in most blockchains today.
Roadmap:
Introduction:
Secret Network is a layer-1 blockchain with its own consensus and on-chain governance, built atop the Cosmos/Tendermint framework.
Secret Network is a blockchain that allows for privacy-focused smart contracts. Secret Network provides programmable smart contracts that protect user data by enabling encrypted inputs, outputs, and smart contract states.
Differentiators:
- Secret Network is designed to empower decentralized applications that demand a level of privacy not found on many other blockchain networks.
- SecretSwap is Secret Network’s answer to popular DeFi platforms like Uniswap and PancakeSwap. On the Secret mainnet, it is a cross-chain decentralized exchange. It provides the same functionality as other DEXs and will continue to do so in the future. SecretSwap charges fees in SCRT, which is substantially cheaper than Ethereum presently charges.
Ecosystem:
5. Cronos
Introduction:
Cronos is an EVM-compatible sidechain running in parallel with the Crypto.org Chain. It has established itself as a high-profile participant in the cryptocurrency industry, gaining exposure through celebrity sponsorships such as Matt Damon and the purchase of the naming rights to the former Staples Center in Los Angeles.
Cronos works as a store of value and a payment token, similar to Bitcoin or Ether. It works essentially as a way to secure and expand the Crypto.com network.
Differentiators:
- If you hold CRO in your Crypto.com account, you may qualify for lower trading fees. This is particularly helpful for large-volume traders.
- TPS on Cronos is higher than that of Ethereum. Therefore, Cronos is faster & cheaper to execute smart contracts
Ecosystem:
Introduction:
Hedera is a public Distributed Ledger that allows developers to create decentralized applications and smart contracts. The Hedera network is governed by a governing council comprising 39 companies and institutions (26 as of today) from various industries, including Google, Wipro, Tata Communications, IBM, Boeing, LG, and IIT Madras. The network presently operates on a permissioned model, with nodes managed by the governing council, with plans to transition to a permissionless form once it achieves scale and stability.
Hashgraph Distributed Ledger Technology is designed for speed, fairness, and security. The Asynchronous Byzantine Fault Tolerance is the consensus mechanism used, in which each person reaches a specific level of agreement that cannot be changed. The presumption is that at least two-thirds of the members are non-malicious. Each transaction is assigned a timestamp that is the median of the timestamps acquired by the nodes, and transactions are ordered according to the timestamps, not by the fees.
Differentiators:
- Blockless consensus with timestamps ensures speed, fairness in transactions with predictable gas fees
- Key enterprise partners in governing council- promising choice for enterprise blockchain
- Carbon negative blockchain
Ecosystem:
7. Moonbeam
Introduction:
Moonbeam is a smart contract platform that provides compatibility with Ethereum with minimum or no code change. Moonbeam is a parachain on Polkadot, which allows it cross-chain integration to other protocols through bridges and parachain connectivity.
Moonbeam is built in Rust programming language with a substrate framework. Rust is similar to C++ in syntax and additionally has built-in memory features during compilation which prevents bugs and security issues. Substrate framework is a blockchain development framework with multiple modules on Rust. Smart contracts can be implemented using Solidity, Vyper or any other language compatible with EVM.
Moonbeam’s blockchain works on Polkadot’s Proof of stake model- Collators collect transactions on Moonbeam parachain and produce state transition proofs for validators on the relay chain. The top N stakers are chosen to be collators and a part of the block reward goes to the collators. Moonbeam also has an additional layer for consensus called Nimbus. The parachain stakers form the active collator pool. Nimbus applies a filter and chooses candidates who are subsets of the parachain staking pool as collators. These collators are changed every 600 blocks. A second filter is applied to a random subset of these selected candidates for each block.
Trilemma:
Scalability: Moonbeam is designed to provide entry points for dapps to scale from/to Ethereum and to other chains in the Polkadot parachains which in turn provide bridges to other blockchain protocols.
Security: Moonbeam uses Polkadot collator and validation network with an additional layer of the filter. Security has been a point of discussion for cross-chain protocols. According to Vitalik, “Cross-chain activity has an anti-network effect”. Security risks may surface at scale. Polkadot claims to solve this by moving the economic incentives to the relay chain.
Differentiators:
- ETH compatibility
- Cross-chain integration through Polkadot network
Ecosystem:
7. Algorand
Introduction:
Algorand solves for decentralization, scalability and security. It runs on a “Pure proof of stake” consensus. The transaction throughput is on par with large payment and financial networks
Smart contracts are written in a language called Transaction Execution Approval Language(TEAL) and Python using the PyTeal library. TEAL is similar to an assembly language and is Turing complete by supporting looping and subroutines. It also limits the amount of time a contract has to execute using “dynamic opcode cost evaluation algorithm”. Algorand Virtual Machine(AVM) runs on every node on the blockchain and interprets the TEAL programs to run smart contracts. AVM aims to make blockchain development more accessible.
The consensus protocol has 2 key features which make it tolerate an arbitrary number of malicious users:
- The users who certify each block are secretly and individually selected. The adversary does not know which users he needs to corrupt.
- By the time the adversary realizes the users selected, the selected users would have already certified a block. A new set of users are selected for every block.
Algorand also has a consensus mechanism for protocol upgrades -proposed changes are posted on the blockchain, the community votes to accept or reject the change using a consensus protocol, the community agrees on a block where the change happens and switches to the new protocol simultaneously.
Trilemma:
Scalability: Selecting the user for validation takes microseconds. Once selected, the users need to send 1000 short, immediately complied messages
Security: The validation committee for each block is selected by a lottery. As long as the blockchain has a majority of fair nodes, it cannot be corrupted.
Decentralization: Every node has an equal chance of participating in the network.
Differentiators:
- In addition to its claims for solving blockchain trilemma, Algorand also claims to have an extremely low probability of forking by design- only one block is allowed to be added to the blockchain at a time after crossing the required threshold of committee votes.
- Algorand pledges to be a carbon-negative network by partnering with CO2 emissions and traceability solutions. Algorand and ClimateTrade have partnered to implement a sustainability oracle to calculate Algorand’s on-chain carbon footprint for each epoch. A set of smart contracts will then lock an equivalent amount of carbon credits in a treasury. “Algorand is experiencing accelerated adoption and network expansion. As this period of hypergrowth continues, we find it crucial to operate at a carbon-negative level. Indeed sustainable growth is way better than growth,” said Silvio Micali, Founder of Algorand.
Ecosystem:
References:
- https://kadena.io/about/
- https://solar.org/about-solar
- https://shardeum.org/blog/shardeum-solves-scalability-trilemma/
- https://scrt.network/about/faq
- https://coin98insights.com/what-is-cronos-cro
- https://docs.hedera.com/guides/
- https://docs.moonbeam.network/learn/
- https://ecosystem.algorand.com/explore
========================================
About the Author(s):
Harshakaranth has been in the energy and e-commerce industries before he came across web 3.0. He is enthusiastic about building impact projects on web 3, particularly in the environment, animal care and education sectors. You can follow him on Twitter
Shuwam Rana is a Technical Analyst, Digital marketer and SEO expert with a passion to help businesses grow. He also has an engineering background. You can follow him on Twitter
