Late last year it became abundantly clear that the cryptocurrency industry was not completely ready for mainstream adoption. The surge in new customers made exchanges halt their efforts in acquiring new users. Blockchains got congested, which increased the transaction costs. Various digital exchanges experienced trading disturbances which led to angry traders that sometimes got negatively affected and saw great trading losses. Countless scams surfaced in the midst of the bull run that damaged various investors. The investments in ICOs skyrocketed into a bull run of its own with some investors throwing money at it like it was the holy grail of investing, which it probably was for a brief period.

To solve the scalability, security and efficiency issues various startups have emerged that claim to have found the solution to the blockchain trilemma. Vite is one of those projects that aims to build a platform to facilitate the launch of decentralized applications that provide high-throughput and low latency. In order to process transactions through their chain, Vite uses Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) ledger structure instead of the more commonly used blockchain distributed ledger structure.

The difference between blockchain and DAG ledger structure

A blockchain is a data structure that works like this:

Someone executes a transaction. This transaction is a recording of data that will be added to the current block in the blockchain. Transactions that occur around the same time will be added to the same block. Various network nodes are working on solving mathematical equations to reach consensus on the validity of the block. After all the network nodes are in agreement that all the data (transactions) in the block are in fact legit, the block is approved and it will be added to the chain of blocks that form the distributed ledger aka the blockchain. Each block will take around 10 minutes to be processed. The linked data-storage structure will only allow for one chain on the entire network.

In the case of DAG, the transactions are processed in a different way:

A DAG structure is a data structure that uses a topological order to process transactions. This way different kind of transactions can run on different chains simultaneously, allowing for a lot more transactions to be processed in a lesser amount of time. All the nodes are pointing in the same direction which disables the chance for nodes to reference back to itself.

Projects based on DAG ledger structure are IOTA (Tangle), NANO (Block Lattice), Hashgraph, Fantom, Byteball and Holochain. Vite is building upon NANO’s block lattice structure with the addition of a snapshot chain and some other innovative features.

An introduction to Vite

Vite aims to build a high-throughput, low latency infrastructure by implementing its proprietary HDPoS (Hierarchical Delegated Proof of Stake) consensus algorithm, that allows for industrial-strength dApps to be deployed on the platform. Using DAG as a data structure seems the way to go as it has the ability to process thousands of transactions each second. Vite is adding a snapshot chain to it. Block lattice structure in combination with Vite’s virtual machine and Solidity ++ programming language enables smart contracts to be added to the chains on the platform.

Vite also came up with a way to solve the security deficiency in DAG structures. The snapshot chain structure is put into place as a safety measure as the standard DAG structure has security vulnerabilities. The snapshot chain will increase in size, making it more expensive over time to tamper with it.

Having a HDPoS consensus algorithm will allow for masternodes to be appointed to serve as Vite delegates.

VITE smart contracts

Vite is building its own Virtual Machine, called ViteVM. It is similar to Ethereum’s Virtual Machine and the development is focused on providing a smooth transfer from an Ethereum based dApp into a Vite platform based dApp. The Virtual Machine is designed to serve as a runtime environment for the execution of smart contracts. Because it is isolated from the main network this environment is great for testing.

Vite’s programming language is Solidity ++, which is an enhanced version of Solidity that can be used to write smart contracts. Solidity ++ is creating an amendment to Solidity for developers to be able to write specific smart contracts for Vite-based dApps. By writing in Solidity ++, Vite enables smart contracts to be implemented in the chain.

Loopring partnership

Vite has a long-standing partnership with decentralized exchange (DEX) project Loopring, with their founder and CEO, Daniel Wang, being appointed an advisor to Vite. The Vite project will implement Loopring’s decentralized exchange infrastructure into their own Vite wallet, so that dApp projects can issue and launch their own tokens on the Vite ecosystem and it will also allow for cross-chain value transfers and exchanges.

Future potential

Vite recently concluded its ICO in which they raised the equivalent of 28 million USD. Vite has some high profile venture capitalist (VC) firms invested in the project. LinkVC, Node Capital, OK Capital and Bitmain are just a few of the professional investors backing the Vite project. Seeing these professional entities have faith in the project also give me faith as an investor that the project has great potential. Giving the current market conditions and the fact that a lot of blockchain projects have emerged that aim to solve the blockchain trilemma, the long-term success of the Vite project isn’t a guarantee.

Recently the team released a preview version of their wallet and their blockchain explorer, which were released three months ahead of schedule. Vite seems to have a strong team behind it and it has a unique approach with the addition of smart contracts to the DAG structure, the implementation of the snapshot chain that solves the security deficiency and the creation of the programming language, called Solidity ++, to support dApp teams that want to build on the VITE platform.

I have been following this project for some time now and I will continue to follow it as I would like to see if the creation of the Vite ecosystem will stand the tests of time in the highly dynamic and quickly evolving industry called the cryptocurrency industry.

Official channels: Would you like more information about Vite, you can check out their official channels: Website: https://www.vite.org/ Telegram channel: https://t.me/vite_en Telegram Announcements: https://t.me/vite_ann Medium: https://medium.com/vitelabs Twitter: https://twitter.com/vitelabs