On December 15, 2018, Komodo successfully activated an enormous upgrade in the Komodo ecosystem. It was the biggest update the Komodo development team has ever activated and it demonstrates Komodo’s continued commitment to innovation.

As part of this huge update, Komodo added a handful of new customizable parameters for all blockchains launched with Komodo. This post will explain the details of the 7 new ways to customize your blockchain with Komodo's technology.

Smart Chains: Independent Blockchains Built With Komodo

Komodo is the world’s only multi-chain platform. Whereas other platforms are just a single blockchain, Komodo gives each and every project a dedicated, customizable blockchain with independent infrastructure. Independent blockchains created with Komodo’s technology are called Smart Chains (previously known as assetchains).

Other platforms are often referred to as “smart contract platforms” because they allow external projects to utilize smart contracts that can support tokens and dApps. However, every project building on a smart contract platform is sharing the same infrastructure and the same, single blockchain with all the other projects built on the same platform. This leads to massive congestion, high transaction fees, and painfully slow transaction times.

To make matters worse, every project that builds on a smart contract platform is locked in. There is no option to migrate to a new platform. The development team of a smart contract platform may make decisions or changes that adversely affect some of the projects built on it but there is no path for recourse. Even if a platform becomes so heavily congested that it is unusable, all the projects built on it are still stuck there.

Komodo has a multi-chain architecture that offers much more than smart contract support. Every project that builds on Komodo gets an independent Smart Chain. That means you get independent infrastructure and avoid the pitfalls of congestion that plague smart contract platforms. It also means that you make your own decisions and operate your project with complete autonomy from Komodo.

On top of all that, every Smart Chain launched with Komodo has the ability to support smart contracts, tokens, and dApps. In that sense, every project that builds on Komodo is given their very own smart contract platform. If you wanted to launch a Smart Chain and then host thousands of other projects that wished to create tokens, you could most certainly do so.

7 New Smart Chain Parameters Coming On December 15

Komodo’s Smart Chains have always had 18 different customizable parameters. For instance, when you launch a Smart Chain, you can choose your coin supply, whether or not to have premined coins, the number of coins awarded for mining a block, decay of block rewards, and block times (either one minute per block or on-demand block generation), among other things.

Now, Komodo has added 7 more customizable options for blockchains launched with Komodo. These new parameters were added to the Komodo code base, along with the Sapling upgrade and increased block sizes, with the huge update on December 15, 2018.

It’s important to note that most of the new Smart Chain parameters were developed and kindly shared with Komodo by Verus Coin. Verus has developed a number of cutting-edge technologies in the blockchain space, including VerusHash, which brings near-equality between CPUs and GPUs with the fastest CPU mining algorithm in the world. The Verus dev team also innovated a solution to the “Nothing At Stake” attack for Proof of Stake (PoS) blockchains.

Here are the benefits of the new Smart Chain parameters that Verus upstreamed to Komodo:

Choose the hashing algorithm for your blockchain. Options include VerusHash and Equihash

Choose whether or not to implement VerusPoS, a a unique 50/50 combination of Proof of Stake (PoS) and Proof of Work (PoW). With VerusPoS, the 50% PoW component can be either VerusHash or Equihash

Choose whether or not to adjust your blockchain’s coin emission schedules. There can be up to 3 different eras, each with different coin emission procedure, including slow-start options and linear or exponential decay at predetermined block height schedules.

Choose whether or not to implement time locking of newly-mined coins, which forces miners to wait for coins to mature before transacting with them.

Here are the additional customizable Smart Chain parameters being activated on December 15:

Optional activation of Komodo’s UTXO-based smart contract library, powered by the Custom Consensus framework.

Optional designation of a small reward for the creators of your blockchain, based on a small percentage of each block reward earned.

Choose whether or not to make rewards payments from the parameter above multi-signature payments (for added security).

4 More Reasons To Build Your Blockchain With Komodo

In addition to receiving your very own customizable blockchain with independent infrastructure, there are 4 more reasons to build with Komodo.

Security

Every blockchain in the Komodo ecosystem is protected with the power of the Bitcoin hash rate. This is made possible with Komodo’s Delayed Proof of Work (dPoW) security mechanism, which uses a series of cross-chain notarizations to provide Bitcoin-level security.

The process begins with Komodo’s 64 publicly-elected notary nodes storing a block hash from every Smart Chain in the ecosystem onto the KMD blockchain. This ensures that every Smart Chain has an added layer of security.

Then, every ten minutes, the notary nodes store a block hash from the KMD chain onto the Bitcoin ledger. This protects every transaction that took place prior to the latest notarization— whether the transaction occurred on the KMD chain or on a Smart Chain— with the power of the Bitcoin network.

This Blockchain Security Service is automatically integrated for all assechains and also available to any UTXO-based blockchain that wants BTC-level security.

Scalability

The fact that Komodo gives every project an dedicated blockchain with independent infrastructure largely resolves the issue of scalability in the blockchain space. The activity on one Smart Chain cannot and will not affect the performance of any other Smart Chain.

In the event that one chain is not sufficient, Komodo offers multi-chain syncing technology to allow projects to scale out and increase performance linearly whenever necessary. An innovative burn protocol allows multiple chains to function as one, boosting transaction-processing capacity without inflating coin supply and devaluing the currency. There’s no limit to the number of Smart Chain that can be synced.

Interoperability

While all Smart Chains are independent from other Smart Chain— and even from Komodo itself— there are still several cutting-edge blockchain interoperability features.

First, Komodo’s industry-leading atomic swap technology enables peer-to-peer exchanges of cryptocurrencies with direct trading pairs between 95% of all coins and tokens in existence. Traders retain control of their private keys throughout the entire trading process, with no third-parties or intermediaries necessary.

Second, Smart Chains created with Komodo’s technology are eligible to become part of a massive ecosystem of blockchains. Once part of the ecosystem, a Smart Chain is fungible with all the other chains. It makes the whole ecosystem seamlessly interoperable.

Access To Komodo’s Smart Contract Library

Traditionally, Bitcoin-protocol coins have been thought of as incapable of supporting smart contracts, tokens, and decentralized applications. That’s why smart contract platforms like Ethereum were seen as such an important breakthrough in the blockchain space.

Now, with Komodo’s UTXO-based smart contract technology, every blockchain launched with Komodo’s technology has access to Komodo’s smart contract library. This means that every project that builds with Komodo has the opportunity to build their very own smart contract platform. There are no gas fees for Komodo’s smart contracts and they’re language agnostic, making the Komodo ecosystem the perfect environment in which to build complex dApps.

Launch Your Very Own Blockchain

If you’re interested in creating your very own blockchain, Komodo provides the technology you’ve been looking for.

Programmers and developers are welcome to generate a Smart Chain free of charge. For those who need some assistance in creating a Smart Chain, several certified third-party service providers are available to help you begin your journey into blockchain. Send an email to [email protected] for more information.

If you’d like additional features and whitelabel blockchain dApps— integration to a multi-coin wallet, a crowdfunding dApp, decentralized exchange integration, and a block explorer— check out Komodo’s Blockchain Starter Kit. Direct any inquiries to [email protected] and the Komodo marketing team will be happy to help.

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Join us as we continue to accelerate the global adoption of blockchain technology.