The Role of Layer-1 Blockchains in Decentralized Infrastructure

The Beginnings

Ever since the first rumblings of cryptocurrency and its accompanying blockchains after the publication of "How to Make a Mint: The Cryptography of Anonymous Electronic Cash" in April of 1997. The irony is that that essay concluded that anonymous currency was inherently dangerous and insecure and also invited criminal activity in the form of money laundering. Obviously, however, the technology available 28 years ago wasn't anywhere near as advanced as what exists today. The dangers were real in 1997, but they aren't now.

The first nine years of ideas swirled around, but nothing much came of them. Then, on November 17, 2008, someone using the pseudonym "Satoshi Nakamoto" published an announcement regarding the creation of the first blockchain. To this day, no one knows who Nakamoto was or continues to be. In fact, it could be either a single person or a group. The chief idea was to have a peer-to-peer trading mechanism that both keeps its participants' identities secret and keeps a record of all transactions. The secrecy behind Nakamoto's identity has translated into good security for blockchains ever since Nakamoto disappeared in 2010.

The Evolution

Ethereum

Bitcoin was the first blockchain. It was at the cutting edge for its time, but it eventually became obsolete. The ideas behind it were still good, however. The next step in the development of decentralized applications was Ethereum. Bitcoin itself was supposed to be considered money whereas Ethereum was created as a platform. Such a platform allowed chains to exist upon it. Ethereum's currency, which was analagous to Bitcoin, was Ether.

Ethereum is 10 years old at this point, but its chief advantage upon coming into being was its speed compared to Bitcoin. Secondarily, its digital contracts gave it better security than Bitcoin's. The idea was to create a digital medium whereby users could create contracts in the same manner as lawyers who created contracts on paper. The "new thing" in 2015 was "proof of work," which enabled Ethereum users to validate transactions. All of this contributed heavily to the necessary security in decentralized infrastructure.

Because proof of work made Ethereum into an energy hog, developers modified the process in 2022, creating "proof of stake." This new process used far less energy and increased security yet again. The gist was that each user had to put up collateral of some kind for every transaction.

SUI

Ethereum, even with "proof of stake" in place, works sequentially using a single blockchain. SUI, on the other hand, handles all transactions in parallel. In essence, SUI creates multiple smaller blockchains and achieves much higher speeds than sequential blockchains. Another reason that SUI is so fast involves consensus. Some blockchains require global consensus for every transaction before it goes through. SUI doesn't have this requirement. The way it works is that users can gain consensus for groups of transactions all at once. As an example, let's say that an Ethereum user wants to perform six transactions. Each of these transactions will need separate consensus before being approved. On SUI, that user's group of six transactions can be validated and approved in just one step instead of six separate steps.

Like Bitcoin and Ethereum, SUI is also a layer-1 blockchain, which means that it can serve both as a blockchain itself or as the foundation for other chains that "rent space" on it. SUI also scatters its processes among several nodes at once, which is the kernel of decentralized applications. As stated, this decentralization is crucial for the security of the blockchain. It's sort of like the Federation adjusting the frequency of their phasers to get past the Borg shields. The Borg eventually adjust, and the phasers are no longer effective. Decentralization makes it exceptionally difficult for nefarious folks to cause much mischief on such protected blockchains, of which SUI is one.

Solana

Two years after the creation of Ethereum, Anatoly Yakovenko led the creation of Solana, a decentralized, scalable blockchain that improved on the proof-of-stake process to heighten security. Its improvements also included increased speed and decreased costs associated with keeping track of transactions. Perhaps its most notable contribution, however, was the implementation of "proof of history." This notates not only the collateral behind each transaction but also the time at which each transaction occurs, adding another layer of security to the process.

Also, the proof-of-history process is the driving force behind the increased speed of the Solana blockchain. Bitcoin and Ethereum top out at about 15 transactions per second while Solana can process thousands per second. The key to the whole thing is that every node on the Solana blockchain keeps track of time with a standardized clock rather than a bunch of separate clocks. Despite this use of a standardized clock, Solana remains a decentralized system, making it fast, accurate, and secure: a real breakthrough in the development of blockchains.

Avalanche

Avalanche dates from 2020 and was created by Ava Labs. To date, it is the most advanced option when it comes to blockchains. Like all of the other improved blockchains, it's scalable and decentralized. When it comes to Ethereum vs Avalanche, it's like a solid and dependable family sedan compared to an F1 car. Like Solana, it alleviates the shortcomings of earlier blockchains, delivering speed, security, and innovation. Unlike Solana, however, Avalanche doesn't use proof of history. Instead, the researchers at Ava Labs, who referred to themselves as "Team Rocket," created their own version of proof of stake. Their version is called the Avalanche Consensus Protocol, or ACP. The idea is for one trusted and honest validator to accept a transaction. Thereafter, the original validating node "spreads the word" to other trusted and honest validators. This sharing among validators is the crux of the ACP. Avalanche is a layer-1 blockchain. Rather than have other blockchains use it as bedrock, it provides the stable base for its own cryptocurrency, which is called AVAX.

What Is DePIN?

DePIN, or decentralized physical infrastructure network, is a concept whereby businesses and individuals contribute items to support the network. These items could be power sources, computer networks, data storage facilities, or other such items. The idea is to have no one person or entity in control of the network, which is designed to be decentralized and communally owned and operated. The secondary idea is to provide incentives for people to contribute the aforementioned physical assets to the network. The system works as well as it does because it promotes the sharing of success rather than concentrating all of the benefits in one place while the sacrifices are spread among others.

Why AVAX?

AVAX is the cryptocurrency for the Avalanche blockchain. Quantinium chose AVAX as its cryptocurrency because of three chief characteristics: the comparatively inexpensive transactions, the scalability, and its ability to handle immense throughput.

Scalability

Avalanche has horizontal scalability, which means that it seeks to spread out to as many nodes as possible. This avoids putting too much power and/or importance into one machine. Additionally, it's not possible to create a single machine with as much power as 1,000 similar machines. By scaling the network in this way, Avalanche can continue to increase its power by adding more nodes.

Security

Horizontally scaled blockchain networks are inherently more secure because each node not only contributes to the overall security but also operates on less power. Through such decentralization, the risk of a single catastrophic point of failure is drastically reduced. For example, if there are 1,000 nodes, and one of them fails for some reason, there are still 999 other nodes to handle the load. In a vertically scaled environment, if the only machine fails, then you're out of business. This same decentralization makes it much tougher for evil folks to attack and/or disable the blockchain. Having a lot of nodes participating in the blockchain's overall security also means that there are lots of programs that could hunt the attackers. Like all criminals, these attackers will much prefer easy targets rather than tough nuts to crack.

Performance

Avalanche is eminently suitable as the Quantinium blockchain of the present. It can achieve 4,500 transactions per second with ease. That kind of speed will be necessary in the future to support computer advancements. The most notable of these will be the so-called "quantum computing." What's in store with this amazing breakthrough? That's easy: better cryptography, higher computing speeds, invigorated security, and better accuracy. Unfortunately, hackers will also use these increased capabilities for foul deeds, so the cryptocurrency world has to be ready. Quantinium has plans for both itself and its soon-to-be quantum resistant blockchain.

Quantinium's plans include expanding DePINto even greater heights than ever. For that, it needs not only terrific throughput and robust security; it also needs great amounts of power. The energy efficiency promised not only by Avalanche and AVAX but also by an ever-increasing DePIN ecosystem will deliver that needed power. By having thousands upon thousands of nodes, the power will also be decentralized, which makes it as reliable as it is strong.

What's the Big Deal With Quantum Computing Anyway?

Regular computers use what's called classical computing. That's where everything is a 1-or-0 proposition, a simple binary switch. All classical computer programs group these 0s and 1s together in certain combinations to achieve the desired effects. So, what if something could be both 0 and 1 at the same time? That's quantum computing, and it presents extremely challenging security problems. In short, the only answer to a quantum computing attack is a quantum computing defense. That's why advances in blockchains are crucial to their ongoing security.

Imagine a network of several thousand quantum nodes where each node contributes to the security, throughput, and speed of transactions on a blockchain. It'll certainly be a long, long way from the 5,000 calculations per second that ENIAC could do in 1946!

Quantinium Blockchain and the Quantum Wi-Fi Network

Quantinium is a quantum-resistant layer-1 blockchain. It's based on AVAX, which will eventually make the transition easier to accomplish than it would be if Quantinium's current preferred blockchain were something other than AVAX. The gist is that the Quantinium Blockchain will enable companies to construct multiple decentralized, secure blockchains at once.

Quantinium's interim goal is to create a super-secure Wi-Fi network through decentralized wireless hotspots. These hotspots will be free to use and will help construct a global quantum network where companies can do business. The end goal is to create a quantum artificial-intelligence network, or Gen QAI. When this happens, there will be a revolution of "quantum supremacy," which is where classical computers will completely give way to quantum computers. However, this is likely still decades away because the world's current quantum networks are 1,000 times too small to handle the necessary demand.