Komodo Platform (KMD) is a privacy-centric coin that promises to be a faster, safer, and ultimately decentralized cryptocurrency with its own established ecosystem. Komodo’s very private development team stresses the concept of freedom with their platform, from the standpoint of both users and developers. Access to Komodo receives special attention.

Komodo’s system allows crypto users with average equipment to compete equally with those with expensive, specialized equipment, like application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs). ASICs have become a bit of a dirty word in the crypto community despite their prevalence in mining Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other top-shelf coins because they tend to aggregate the hashing power – and thus verification power – of a blockchain in the hands of a few powerful miners. Komodo and other democratized currencies seek true decentralization of the blockchain itself and its production.

It should be noted that Komodo is an evolution of the similarly focused BitcoinDark program, and Komodo itself is slated for a rebranding effort later in 2018. This probably won’t include another name change, but it will mean big changes to the product website, logo, and other identifying information. Despite its connections to BitcoinDark, the code for Komodo is actually a fork of the Zcash project, though the Komodo team maintains that the two projects are entirely unrelated apart from the shared open-source code. Stay tuned for constant developments.

What Does It Do?

The original Bitcoin relies on a proof-of-work standard, in which computers expend processing power and electricity to sign hashes on a distributed ledger. It’s this signing process that makes each Bitcoin – and many other proof-of-work coins – unique and guarantees the security of the blockchain.

Proof-of-work contains at least one major security flaw, from a mining standpoint. This has to do with how transaction chains are verified when two miners or groups of miners are working on the same transaction verification. The longest chain of verified transactions is the one that ultimately gets assigned to a block within the blockchain, so the miners with the fastest equipment tend to win these races. This creates the potential for high-powered miners to cheat the system by consistently outracing slower miners, even though the “longest chain” system was originally introduced to solve the so-called “double-spend” problem.

Komodo’s approach differs from the traditional “longest chain” system, as the developers spell out in their white paper.

“In a key difference separating Komodo from regular PoW (proof-of-work) networks, our dPoW (delayed proof-of-work) consensus mechanism does not recognize the Longest Chain Rule for any transactions that are older than the most recent ‘backup’ of the Komodo blockchain,” the developers stated. “For conflicts that may arise which refer to transactions that are older than the most recent ‘backup,’ our consensus mechanism looks to the backups in the chosen PoW.”

Who Is the Team Behind Komodo?

There is little public information available about the core Komodo team, which is in keeping with the coin’s privacy-centric theme and its past life as BitcoinDark. The management, marketing, and development team information, however, is freely available in the project’s roadmap section. The project leader is identified as James “jl777” Lee, and the chief technology officer is identified as ca333. A GitHub user by the handle of jl777 has been identified as one of the developers behind BitcoinDark, so it’s highly likely that this is the same developer or development team, given Komodo’s pedigree.

Komodo’s FAQ contains a short section detailing the team’s long-term commitment to the project.

“Our leader, jl777, is the founder of the Komodo project. He has a strong talent for blockchain technology, and could easily rest on other blockchain and financial accomplishments,” according to the FAQ.

Barter DEX

Komodo are currently developing their own Decentralized Exchange, named Barter DEX. The exchange will be powered by Atomic Swaps of which they have already completed over 100,00 successful swaps. The exchange will feature:

Liquidity Multiplier – Place simultaneous multiple orders for many different coins using the same funds.

Light Weight Swaps – We use Electrum servers so that no blockchain download needed to use our exchange.

Decentralized Ordering – Place orders through a secure & decentralized order matching orderbook.

Atomic Swaps – Atomic Swaps allows you to trade crypto from right within your own private wallet. The DEX is currently available for testing here, and you can view live stats for the platform here. Barter DEX is currently scheduled for full release in Q3 2018.

What’s the Market Look Like?

Komodo carries a price of about $3.30 on most major exchanges as of June 2018. The coin’s daily trading volume is about $4 million with a total market capitalization of about $343 million. The coin’s circulating supply is 104 million, and no definite total supply figure has been released.

How to Buy Komodo KMD

The Komodo Coin, KMD, is available on a wide range of the top cryptocurrency exchanges as follows:

Whatever Happened to Bitcoin Dark?

Bitcoin Dark, the progenitor of the current Komodo Platform project, is functionally dead. It is still traded in a limited fashion on some exchanges, but the BitcoinDark project has now fully moved over to the Komodo platform. BitcoinDark began life as an attempt to improve upon Bitcoin’s privacy failings. It also introduced a unique pegging system, whereby the value of the coin could be pegged to other securities by burning the coin. In this way, an investor could adopt a long or short position in another security or commodity, such as gold, by burning BitcoinDark pegged to the value of that asset at a given time. This same asset pegging feature is expected to be incorporated in Komodo.

What’s Next on the Komodo Roadmap?

The Komodo team has finalized its swap of BitcoinDark for Komodo tokens. The next phase of development will include fleshing out the marketing and development teams, as well as a full rebrand of Komodo itself. That means a new website, new logo, new color palette – the works. This seems a little early after the rebrand from BitcoinDark, but the Komodo team stresses that it is in response to user feedback.

Along the way, Komodo plans to deepen its development bench, both in terms of personnel and, crucially, code.

“Prior to this year, most of our technology was developed exclusively by jl777 and ca333,” according to a Komodo update. “With the addition of four new experienced blockchain developers in 2018, we have already completed Etomic swaps, expanded our Atomic Swap network, and are on schedule to complete the tasks outlined in our Tech Road Map, such as smart contract integration. With our new additions, you can expect more frequent development updates and road map improvements.”

Where Can I Learn More?

You can visit the Komodo home page at https://komodoplatform.com