Many people say that cryptocurrencies need to be able to “interact” with real-world or physical assets before the world can take them seriously. There are some narratives out there that say blockchain is like a solution to problems that don’t exist as it does not really offer something new.

Of course, this kind of argument can be debated, as blockchain eliminates the need for trust and centralization. However, the point remains that blockchain should prove itself as something that can solve something real and not just always about decentralization or being trustless.

Here’s where Bytom plays its role. Bytom has the vision to bring tokenization of real-life assets into the blockchain. The core team of Bytom believes the massive demand for blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT) will come from tokenization.

So, how does Bytom do it? And is Bytom coin as an investment worth your money in the long run? Let’s find out together.

Bytom - Summary

There are not many projects that try to bring tokenization of real-life assets into the blockchain, and this is exactly the specialization of Bytom. With its three layers approach (application, contract, and ledger), Bytom’s mission is to transfer assets from Atomic World to Byteworld.

It is believed that blockchain will finally become mainstream when there are more and more real-life assets that are “transferred” to the blockchain world. One of the prime examples of such use cases is stablecoins. With transfers of USD being done on the blockchain, even people who are naturally skeptical about crypto can easily benefit from it.

In the future, however, the tokenization of real-life assets would be much wider than just fiat currencies. Physical gold, as an example, has been tokenized by some crypto startups, most notably with DGX token.

And then, there are also properties and real estate businesses that have been issued on the blockchain thanks to several different crypto startups.

Bytom team saw this opportunity, and that’s why they are developing the project. Bytom believes it is a superior asset creation blockchain platform compared to its competitors, including Ethereum itself.

In the blockchain world, different platforms can use different layers. Bitcoin only uses a single layer. Ethereum, which was often dubbed as blockchain 2.0, uses a dual-layer approach. And Bytom uses three layers because Bytom wants to maximize each layer’s efficiency for each purpose.

In Bytom blockchain, the first layer is for transmission, the second layer is for data transaction, and the latest one is for asset interaction. The layers are called ledger layer, contract layer, and application layer. So, the ledger layer acts as a bridge between other layers to the blockchain itself.

Meanwhile, the application layer is the ecosystem where you can find web and mobile apps work and where they interact with the end-users. Then, the contract layer is where everything happens with smart contracts. Inside the contract layer, you have what they call as genesis contract and general contract.

Genesis contract is like the core of the contracts here. Its role is to verify all assets on the Bytom protocol to make sure they all use the same rules. On the other hand, the general contract is specialized in asset exchanges between protocols. And in case of dividend distribution, you also need to use the general contract. New assets that interact with general contract still need to be sent to genesis contract for approval.

As for its consensus mechanism, Bytom still uses PoW (Proof of Work). An important note here is that Bytom does not discourage its miners in utilizing ASIC. The Bytom team believes it’s pointless if it tries to make the blockchain ASIC-resistant.

Many people believe that the tokenization of real-life assets can only happen if the blockchain world can successfully convince traditional corporations and entities to cooperate with them. And, to be honest, most corporations don’t really care about decentralization. They only care about time and cost savings.

Once these same corporations successfully issue and guarantee the assets on the blockchain, the hope here is that others will follow. And when everything can be “transferred” easily on the blockchain, it will save time and costs for these same corporations. Bytom hopes to be one of the pioneers for this exact use case.

Analyzing Bytom Team

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Of course, when it comes to crypto investments, you need to know who’s behind the project. When you want to invest in a cryptocurrency, you believe that the same crypto will be able to do different things in the future and won’t stay stagnant.

That’s why knowing the core team behind the project is quite crucial because you want to know if they can keep their promise or not, especially with their own roadmap. So, how about the Bytom team?

The important figures in the Bytom team are Chang Jia, Lang Yu, YiQi Zhu, and Duan Xinxing. They have a strong background in the crypto space before they decided to join Bytom. Chang Jia, the founder, was the owner of 8tc, which is one of the biggest crypto and blockchain media in China. Meanwhile, Duan Xinxing (the other co-founder) was the VP (Vice President) of OKCoin, the parent company of OKex.

And then we have Lang Yu, who’s the current Chief Executive Officer of Bytom Foundation. The Chief Technology Officer is YiQi Zhu, who was the Senior Software Developer at FarmLead and Software Developer at Magmic.

While the team is not that famous outside China but they are actually well-respected in the country. Based on my analysis of the founders and the current higher-ups of the foundation, they have the capabilities to grow Bytom’s popularity.

The Use Case Of BTM Coin In The Bytom Ecosystem

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You are already aware of what Bytom project is trying to do, but what about the coin itself? Bytom’s native cryptocurrency is just called Bytom coin or BTM. Well, BTM has several different use cases in the Bytom ecosystem. The most obvious use case is to pay for transaction fees inside the blockchain.

It’s similar to how ETH is being used to pay a transaction fee in the Ethereum blockchain. Here, BTM is also needed to pay for each transaction fee. And when a project that’s built on top of Bytom has a dividend feature, you also need to use BTM.

Another point to know is that BTM coin is used for asset issuance deposits. With all these three use cases (transaction fees, dividend, and asset issuance deposits), the hope is that natural demand for Bytom blockchain will drive up the price of BTM coin.

Bytom Future And Potential Roadblocks

If we talk about Bytom technology and use cases, it looks like Bytom has a really strong future. Tokenization of assets into the blockchain world is already predicted by many experts, and it’s been happening for some time as well.

The real question here is not whether the blockchain industry can take advantage of this tokenization of assets or not, but rather more about Bytom’s ability to get the first-mover advantage over its competitors.

As we all know, the blockchain space has a lot of competitors for each specific use case. In Bytom’s case, it is competing (directly or indirectly) with Ethereum, Ravencoin, Polymath, WeOwn, Stellar-based Smartlands, and many other projects.

It’s still very early to tell which project can eventually get the biggest market share in the tokenization space. Bytom might be able to pull it off, or the competitors might be able to win the biggest market shares. To be honest, nobody knows.

The biggest roadblocks for Bytom's future are exactly the ability and the growth of its competitors. It’s interesting to see how big and how far the Bytom project can go.

External Factor And BTM Price

Fundamentally, Bytom is good enough. Unfortunately, investing in cryptocurrencies is not just about the fundamentals. Altcoin prices are almost always affected by Bitcoin price action. And thus, you must pay attention to Bitcoin price before you decide to invest in any altcoin, including Bytom coin.

2019 has been a generally good year for Bitcoin, although recent months have been bad. And how about the upcoming years? Well, nobody knows for sure, but it’s likely that Bitcoin to go up following Bitcoin’s halving event next year.

Many analysts predict Bitcoin's price would go up just like the previous halving events, and this time it wouldn’t be any different. However, there are also skeptics who believe everything is already “priced in”, which means this year’s Bitcoin pump was due to many traders expecting the same thing from the next year’s halving.

Whichever ways Bitcoin choose, you must be careful and follow the price action carefully. Most likely, BTM future price will still be affected by Bitcoin price action for quite some time.

Conclusion

Bytom is targeting the right market and use cases. If Bytom successfully attracts many entities and corporations to issue their assets in the Bytom blockchain, that would be a huge win (not just for Bytom, but for the entire crypto space).

However, Bytom still has a lot to prove. It’s still very early to tell whether they can eventually win over their competitions or not. That being said, investing in BTM coin is still a good idea looking at the current situation.