I’ve been investing in the Cryptocurrency sphere for the good part of a year and during my time here I’ve been a part of many fantastic communities each of which presented opportunities to get behind some amazing pieces of technology.

In this article, I’m going to give you a good reason to invest or at least look into a Cryptocurrency called Ark but before I can convince you with my reasoning behind this bold title, let’s delve into what drives my investments. Quite simply I love innovation, I love projects that continue to improve and hone the technology world, those that embrace new technology and therefore it’s only natural that the blockchain and crypto sphere is where I have turned to.

When I started off, I was simply lost within a sub section of the internet that had so many things going on and the main coin, Bitcoin was the primary candidacy for investment. There was a coin which piqued my interest the most, called Ethereum. I managed to get into Ethereum below £5 and for me this was a no brainier as I could see the potential, it aimed to develop a system that went above and beyond, so how could I resist. Well I can firmly say that Ark has much of the same reasoning for me and in this article I’m going to convince you exactly why this is the case.

The Ark SmartBridge System Detailed

SmartBridges

To start explaining Ark, we can take ourselves back a little bit to a time when things were just starting. We’re in a Cryptocurrency world where there’s a big boom about to occur, most people can see it on the horizon as developers and business enthusiasts look to use Ethereum’s up and coming platform to develop their own blockchain ideas. Now explaining a blockchain to the average person is no easy feat and one thing that really helps explain the concept is the idea of distributing a ledger all over the globe thanks to those running the blockchain network. Of course the great thing about this is that it removes the main point of failure for a database, which is the centralised nature of it. The issue though much like a database is that every company, every project, every business wants their own blockchain much like how there’s never going to be one database. In the 21st century it would be nice that companies and projects can at least have the option to communicate with each other… right?

This is where the SmartBridge system in Ark kicks in, the premise is rather simple, we take the apps produced on the blockchain and we give them more functionality, we allow them to be utilized outside the bounds of their own blockchain. To do this Ark has vendor fields and encoded listener nodes which search through data to find tasks that they can then perform and once a blockchain connects to Arks system either via a code snippet or encoded listener, they are set up and connected to the Ark SmartBridge system.

This is where the fun begins, imagine executing an Ethereum smart contract through another blockchain, ark is always listening for code execution via the SmartBridge system, the power is in our hands to execute any instruction to any blockchain provided it is connected to the system. We’re no longer bound to the realms of “silo” blockchains.

ACES

ACES will be released in the coming weeks and with it the power of Ethereum contracts will be in the hands of the SmartBridge, this means deploying a smart contract to the Ethereum network can be done via Arks wallet which has the benefit of reducing bloat on the Ark system whilst connecting Ethereum and Ark together.

DPOS at work

DPOS

DPOS is a system in Ark which stands for Delegated Proof of Stake, it’s a model that improves on the usual POS system by having delegates forge the blocks instead of the entire network. For Ark there are 51 delegates who forge the blocks and holders of ark can then allocate their coins to a delegate of their choice via the wallet, these delegates have various payment plans which share the rewards that are given to the delegate upon forging the blocks. Most delegates pay out on a daily or weekly basis and therefore it’s a great way to make a bit of extra ark from your holdings. As it currently stands, about 90% of all Ark is staked through the system, which is a good indicator there are lots of long term holders in the project and helps to improve stability of the prices since holders have a reason to keep their ark and not sell as then they miss out on the staking payments. Staking costs 1 Ark to vote and unvote and it is not necessary to keep the wallet open, therefore you are always making passive income just by voting for a delegate!

DPOS also relies on relay nodes which whilst are not forging, help to add extra security to the network. Anyone can become a delegate or relay node by following instructions found on the Ark website. For additional information on voting in Ark, you can read this article here.

More Tech

It would honestly take me far too long to explain all the features of Ark so their road map is a very good visit if you want to know more. Other features that I am looking forward to are one click blockchains which will allow users to clone the blockchain in a click of a button to start their own project as well as NFC/RFID readers and Ark smart cards.

Mobile Wallets will also be released very soon.

Community

Personally when I invest in a coin, I check all aspects and for more details on my process, you can read my blog post here. The Ark community is pretty amazing, the slack is buzzing with chatter and talks and there is very open communication about other projects. In fact the Ark team host AMAs in the Slack on a weekly basis, it’s certainly agnostic and the community recognizes the importance of many projects working together to improve the industry. I highly recommend checking out the slack if you get the chance and the Reddit is also following a similar suit with more activity than ever.

Recent Ark Reddit Milestones

I feel that the community can be a big reason to invest, the more loyal following, the better the chances of long term holders which makes investing a much more reliable and secure hold. With a larger community, there will be less weak hands and those who believe in the long term vision of the project will help and participate in the ecosystem much more than coins which solely facilitate pump and dump action.

Market Economics

Possibly the most important part of investing is the economics behind the coin which is why I’ve left this section till last. Time and time again I tell people that no matter how good the project is, if the coin is not up to suitable investing standards then you won’t make any money what so ever. With Ark I firmly believe the coin model is set up perfectly from an investment point of view, the reasoning behind this is quite simple and I will go into detail as to why.

Ark statistics on Coin Market Cap

So at the present time Ark has 97.5 million coins in circulation, with a maximum potential circulation of 128.7 million. For me this fits within my rules of investing in currencies with around a 100 million circulation. The reasoning's for this are simple, you want to invest in coins that can grow exponentially whilst also having a fair supply so that distribution among investors and users of the blockchain is possible. If we look at coins with a 1 billion circulation, it gets far harder to get maximum growth and these kinds of coins are often held mainly by a small percentage of large whales and are at much more of a risk of non stability and large price swings. If we look at the price of Ark currently, it sits roughly at $3 at the time of this writing. I see the coin reaching the heights of $10 in the next year with exponential growth after this as the coin picks up use cases thanks to the ArkVM and SmartBridge adoption and because of DPOS, many investors will stay for the passive income garnered by voting rewards which helps increase the sustainability of the ecosystem.

We can see from the CMC image above that ark has a 300 million market cap and I truly believe this will grow much more as adoption comes in. Ark hits all my check marks for investing and I really believe it’s an excellent time to get into a coin that’s undervalued for its use case. We should see great growth over the next year but as always treat my advice with a pinch of salt and check out the details yourself before investing, with all the developments in place. It is certainly an exciting time to be invested in Ark and to see what the future holds!

Delegate Doom Explains

If you would like to hear more and want a visual guide, check out this video by Doom an Ark community member.