Zilliqa is a public blockchain platform, which has high scalability due to the sharding system. The project utilizes its cryptocurrency named Zilliqa (ZIL), ex-ERC-20 standard digital coin. Zilliqa launched the Mainnet in January 2019. Zilliqa was created by Xinshu Dong back in 2017, and the cryptocurrency was distributed during the ICO in 2018.
The blockchain has linear scalability, which means the more miner nodes participate, the more transactions the network can process. Zilliqa uses Proof-of-Work mining algorithm. It defends with Sybil attacks and helps to perform network sharding. However, the system uses practical Byzantine Fault Tolerant (pBFT) for consensus mechanism. The PoW used on Bitcoin is completely different from Zilliqa method. But let’s talk about everything in order. Explore the Zilliqa (ZIL) cryptocurrency with Changelly team!
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Zilliqa (ZIL) Basics
The main feature of Zilliqa is its high throughput, increasing with network size. For a public platform, this is a great advantage, because of which both individual users and entire companies are interested in it. The work uses the principle of sharding, which is a common decentralized network. It is divided into separate components, smaller networks, which are called shards.
The shard size is not determined. However, it has bounds for security reasons. The lower bound is 600. The upper bound will be announced separately. Sharding technology that increases network bandwidth is used only in the Zilliqa blockchain. Their network is divided into separate components (shards) that will simultaneously process the incoming information. This will maintain the data transfer rate at the required level while increasing the number of transactions.
Zilliqa project uses Smart Contract Intermediate-Level Language (Scilla) designed especially for Zilliqa, but any developer can utilize it. Its main advantage is providing a high level of security and standardization. It also allows you to distinguish between the actual computing work of a smart contract and its functional tasks. However, Scilla also has its drawbacks: it is not Turing complete and does not allow the use of conditional operators and certain types of loops.
Blockchain developers did not use classic schemes, such as Proof-of-Work or Proof-of-Stake. Instead, they developed their own protocol, offering additional protection against intruders. Moreover, the new protocol, according to the assurances of the developers, is less energy-consuming than most of the available options. Zilliqa uses the Byzantine Fault Tolerance consensus protocol.
pBFT is responsible for creating new blocks on the network. The procedure consists of three stages:
- Pre-prepare phase. The shard leader announces the appearance of the next block of transaction records. The participants, the nodes, will have to agree on a decision: whether to recognize the block as valid, and whether to include it in the blockchain. The announcement is made using a special messaging system.
- Preparatory phase. After receiving a message from the center, each node makes a judgment about the block being created. The corresponding message is transmitted to all nodes, including those not included in a particular shard.
- The commit phase. All participants in the system confirm the fact of receiving voting messages. Then each of the shard nodes announces its final decision to create a new block. After that, it is verified that a sufficient number of nodes participated in the vote.
Zilliqa Team
Zilliqa team consists mainly of doctors of computer sciences who have received an academic education:
- Xinshu Dong is the CEO. He defended his doctoral dissertation at the National University of Singapore. Prior to the launch of Zilliqa, he worked as a leading expert on cybersecurity in government projects.
- Prateek Saxena is the chief scientific consultant. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. Now holds the honorary position of professor of computer science at the National University of Singapore. He was the founder and CEO of the Kyber Network project.
In addition, an impressive list of advisers speaks about the seriousness of the project’s intentions:
- Loi Luu – Co-founder of Kyber Network;
- Vincent Zhou – Founding Partner, FBG Capital;
- Nicolai Oster – partner of Bitcoin Suisse AG;
- Alexander Lipton is the founder and CEO of StrongHold Labs.
Zilliqa (ZIL) Cryptocurrency Value
All operations through the network are carried out using ZIL tokens, the local cryptocurrency. These coins give the right to use the platform. With their help, the function of smart contracts is paid, financial transactions are made, and applications are developed. The issue of tokens is 21 billion.
The initial placement of Zilling tokens was held on December 27, 2017. In total, 60% of the maximum possible supply volume of 21 million coins was distributed.
Tokens were distributed as follows:
- 40% – reward to miners;
- 30% – to crowdsale participants;
- 30% is the reserve of the company and developers.
In addition, the developers published a plan for using the collected funds:
- 80% – development of the platform and ensuring its performance;
- 15% – Anquan Capital Pte. Ltd., the company that developed Sharding, the technology behind Zilliqa;
- 5% – to the founders of the project.
Now the price of the coin is $0.007195, and ZIL coin is ranked 76th among all the cryptocurrencies. Zilliqa market cap is $62,506,740, and the circulating supply is 8,687,360,058 ZIL. The maximum price of Zilliqa for the entire life of the coin was $0.23 in May 2018. The lowest coin price was tested a couple of days ago, on August 16, 2019. The ZIL coin was worth $0.007095.
Zilliqa developers plan that this process will take 10 years from the launch of the platform. At the same time, separate mining farms and special equipment will not be required for the extraction of coins.
Explore the full information about Zilliqa coin at Free Decentralized Crypto Encyclopedia BitcoinWiki.
Zilliqa (ZIL) Mining
Zilliqa is using PoW algorithm. Moreover, Zilliqa utilizes a DAG in its proof-of-work algorithm. It is created at an incremental rate for each DS epoch. The difficulty is determined by estimating the network hashrate.
The system has two types of rewards: base and flexible.
- Base reward is 25% of the total reward. It is given for all nodes or shards.
- Flexible reward is 70% of the total. It is given for valid and accepted signatures.
Zilliqa client is officially available only for Ubuntu OS. There are some minimal requirements for mining ZIL coins:
- X64 Linux operating system
- Any GPUs with at least 2GB vRam
- Recent dual-core processor 2.2 GHz (e.g., Intel core i5/i7, Intel Xeon, AMD Ryzen)
- 4GB DRR3 RAM or higher
Zilliqa Roadmap
The developers published the project roadmap in 2017 as part of the official presentation of the platform. Since then, most of the intended tasks have been successfully completed, and the implementation has reached the final stage. Users can access the source code of the alpha version of Zilliqa, as well as the full technical documentation that describes the methodology for creating smart documents that the program can recognize.
Zilliqa Latest News
The developers of the Zilliqa blockchain project announced the launch of Scilla-based smart contracts on their main network.
Zilliqa smart contracts are subject to a formal review and are equipped with a set of static analyzers to help identify potential errors and bugs.
Zilliqa (ZIL) Wallets
Since Zilliqa switched to its own platform, the tokens should be swapped to the native ones. We’ve got an updated list of wallets available for ZIL coins after the launch of the mainnet. Here it is:
- Moonlet Wallet. Extension for Chrome, which supports both ERC-20 and Zilliqa native tokens.
- Trust Wallet. Cryptocurrency multi-wallet from Binance team.
- xZil is a mobile ZIL wallet for Android, and Zhip is a mobile ZIL wallet for iOS.
- ZilPay is one more Chrome extension wallet, which allows users to deploy/call contracts easily.
- Zillet.io. One more web wallet for Zilliqa, which allows users to interact with their accounts either in a browser setting or on their desktops.
- Zilcli is a CLI Wallet for Zilliqa blockchain.
Ledger Nano and Trezor hardware wallets are available only for storage of ZIL ERC-20 standard tokens.
Where to buy and trade Zilliqa (ZIL)?
It’s quite easy to buy and trade Zilliqa (ZIL) coins due to a significant number of exchanges it is listed at. Let’s take a look.
Exchange | BTC | ETH | USDT | USD |
Upbit | • | |||
Sistemkoin | • | • | • | |
LocalTrade | • | • | • | • |
HitBTC | • | • | ||
Binance | • | • | • |
Zilliqa Summary
All in all, Zilliqa has an effective solution for network scalability. The developers have used sharding technology to increase transaction processing speed. According to the results of the experiment, this indicator grows exponentially in the number of nodes in the network. One more advantage is the mining efficiency scheme. PoW is used only to verify data about nodes, the consensus in the blockchain is achieved through the protocol of the practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance paradigm. Verification of transactions and the creation of new blocks do not require a large number of energy resources, as, for example, is relevant for Bitcoin.
Zilliqa project is a development of scientists from the University of Singapore. Moreover, the management team includes specialists who have received a doctorate in leading world universities.
Zilliqa blockchain was launched two years before the ICO, and this is a strong argument in favor of the seriousness of the intentions of the developers against the background of many “one-day projects” that have flooded the crypto sphere today. Let’s see what it brings to the world of cryptocurrencies and blockchain.
Disclaimer: This article about Zilliqa (ZIL) should not be considered as offering trading recommendations. The cryptocurrency market suffers from high volatility and occasional arbitrary movements.
Any investor should research multiple viewpoints and be familiar with all local regulations before committing to an investment.