It is a widely known fact among economists and policymakers around the world that as the ease of money transactions progress, so does the rate at which money changes hands. Historically, this increase in the velocity of money has shown a significant correlation with economic development.

While traditional payment processors and services have filled the need for many years, each has had issues that both the consumer and merchant have had to deal with and except. For example, payment service providers such as MasterCard, Visa, MoneyGram have been known to suffer from the following concerns:

Too many intermediaries and third-parties

Intermediary Costs

Complex and time-consuming

Although the service providers of the Internet Era are much faster than their counterparts from a decade ago, there is still room for improvement and innovation. Which leads to such questions as: how can we make the exchange of goods a faster, more beneficial, and straightforward process? How can the payments process be made costless, intermediary-less, and efficient?

In this article, we would like to present to you a solution to these issues and concerns as we share information on a decentralized community’s answer to payment services.

The Electra Project

“Electra (ECA) is a Proof of Stake (PoS) open-source project that runs on an ever-developing and improving blockchain, that focuses on protecting funds from malicious attacks, as it aims for mass adoption as a peer-to-peer digital payment option.”

The Electra Project is a community-based project, with a team of coordinators and developers from across the globe. According to the Electra Whitepaper, it aims to be the first and most used decentralized payment community in the market. With its native token ECA, the Electra Network perceives itself as the payment processor of the world, without the complexities of the current payments’ infrastructure.

One of the many attractive features of the Electra Project is the fact that it is supported by a foundation. The Electra Foundation is set up in The Netherlands to act as a legal representation of the Electra Project with regards to exchange listings, business initiatives, and partnerships. The Electra Foundation also safe keeps the small development budget that is brought together by community members through donations.

The Electra Blockchain and the ECA coin are a product of the combined skills and abilities of an ever-growing community of coders, developers, business professionals, and other contributors. Electra is a unique cryptocurrency because it is both a development project and a contract. Despite being a fully operational cryptocurrency at present, Electra is an ongoing development project subject to review, innovation, and updating.

Everything about the project, from its codebase, to its customer support and implementation of marketing, is taken care of by an ever-growing community of volunteers from around the world. Each volunteer takes up tasks that are put up on the community board and help build the network. No single entity is entrusted with anything more than they can handle. An interactive community is a good sign that a project is growing, and such is the case with Electra.

Leveraging the decentralized nature of blockchain, along with the Electra Project’s NIST5/SHA256 algorithm, security, speed, and simplicity, are built into the technology’s foundation. NIST5 is an algorithm developed using the best features of the five SHA-3 finalist algorithms as selected by the National Institute of Science and Technology of America. In practice, the NIST5 implemented by ECA selects the most beneficial attributes of each component algorithm to maximize performance, security, and efficiency.

The Electra Project also prides itself as a prestigious member of the Electronic Transactions Association (ETA). Among ETA members are such names as Google, Amazon, Bank of America, Apple, and Worldpay. As a member, Electra is taking its seat and joining into committees that contribute to ETA focus on payment technologies. The opportunity to be a part of the association will help Electra Project as it continues to grow its network of key industry groups and individuals.

Features of the Electra Network

“ElectraPay will be a go-to system for merchants and consumers who wish to use cryptocurrency as a medium of exchange. The speed and security features of ECA, combined with the aspects of the ElectraPay system, will enable payments for goods and services to be a pleasant experience for all parties involved.“

In a medium post by the Electra Team, the community outlined several features and applications that they hope to develop. These features will lower the complicity of payments transfer and increase the adoption rate of the project. Below are some of the features promised by the Electra Team that could help fulfill their dream. These proposals are unique in the fact that they try to solve or remove all the problems from the current payments’ infrastructure.

QR Codes implementation for making payments; due to its speed, efficiency, and low cost.

No hardware costs for the online merchant.

Increased security for Customer and Merchant through the Electra Blockchain

No down-time or network problems

Compatibility — user guides and community of developers who will develop integration platforms.

Fees will be deducted after a specific number of transactions, drastically reducing the intermediary cost.

Solutions Offered by the Electra Project

Secure and Fast Blockchain: With an 800 TPS (Transactions per second) speed, it ensures fast and near zero-fee transactions. A full block confirmation happens under 64 seconds for the users, and a total of 50,000 transactions can occur in a single block.

With an 800 TPS (Transactions per second) speed, it ensures fast and near zero-fee transactions. A full block confirmation happens under 64 seconds for the users, and a total of 50,000 transactions can occur in a single block. Integrated Merchant & User Support: The Electra Community promises 24/7 real-time customer support to both consumers and merchants.

The Electra Community promises 24/7 real-time customer support to both consumers and merchants. SocialPay: Electra’s SocialPay is an automated application that enables individuals and organizations to leverage the power of Social Media. This feature will be accomplished by initiating ECA transactions on a large scale, allowing content providers and organizations to send or receive ECA within their existing Social Media audiences. The SocialPay feature is currently being marketed to content creators, rewards-based communities, etc.

Electra’s SocialPay is an automated application that enables individuals and organizations to leverage the power of Social Media. This feature will be accomplished by initiating ECA transactions on a large scale, allowing content providers and organizations to send or receive ECA within their existing Social Media audiences. The SocialPay feature is currently being marketed to content creators, rewards-based communities, etc. Atomic Swaps: Electra’s atomic swap architecture generates a hash-time-locked contract, which uses multi-signature addresses and time locks to secure the transaction at an agreed-upon price. In a two-party cryptocurrency transaction, using atomic swaps transactions on differing blockchains can occur simultaneously, and most importantly, they are secured by the sharing of a private code between both parties. Atomic Swaps are the digital equivalent of giving by one hand and taking with the other.

Conclusion

The Electra Project has an ambitious aim at uniting individuals from around the world to work for one common cause. The purpose of developing a new payment standard for the world is objective Electra is aiming to achieve. While there are several hurdles along the way, such as adoption, scalability, resistance, competition, however, with the help of 40,000+ contributors and community members on their side, this mission seems achievable.

The Electra Project is definitely a hidden gem that one should keep an eye on. With advancements such as the release of Proof-of-Stake version 3.0, support for 800+ transactions per second, and implementation of Atomic Swaps, Electra is steadily making its way to reach great heights.

Resources:

Electra Project | Whitepaper | Github