- GoChain sports a five second block time and a Proof of Reputation consensus mechanism
- Five other projects have already announced that they will be holding their ICOs on GoChain
- One of very few projects with positive total price action this year
2018 has been a rough year for crypto, with the vast majority of all projects bleeding the majority of their market cap. There are a few exception, however. The GoChain (GO) ICO concluded only this May – at the height of the bear market’s first big bull trap. Since then Ethereum has fallen by almost 75%, and Bitcoin by a third. But if you had invested in GoChain, you would still be up 10% in fiat, and have more than quadrupled your ETH investment. Today we will be taking a look under the hood of this exciting project.
Efficiency and Performance
At first glance GoChain is similar to Ethereum – it is the base currency of a blockchain that supports an ecosystem of other tokens, smart contracts, dApps and even ICOs – of which there are already several, with more certainly on the way. And indeed, in the GoChain whitepaper Ethereum is named the best cryptocurrency on the market today, and the project they used as their starting point. Once you scratch the surface, however, there are some significant differences that may prove to be crucial for adoption.
GoChain is faster – 100 times faster. They achieve this by eschewing Ethereum’s Proof of Work for a Proof of Reputation (PoR) consensus model. Blockchain enables perfect transparency, and any node that would cheat the network can easily be proven to have done so after the fact. With PoR GoChain will see the power to mint blocks put in the hands of businesses and other groups that have far too much to lose – in reputation, but also economically, to be tempted to cheat.
The change in consensus model, by happy coincidence, is also very good news for the environment. Much of Ethereum’s mining happens in China, where electricity is often produced through the burning of fossil fuels.
Heavy hitters on the team
Jason Dekker, the CEO, is a former hedge fund manager who wielded over $250 million for his clients, as well as an experienced board member, angel investor and advisor to various businesses. With Crypto being the subject of ever mounting interest from regulators and mainstream investors, the connections and experience Dekker brings may prove invaluable to GoChain – and to crypto in general.
Their Chief Technology Officer, Travis Reeder, is pretty impressive too. He boasts an excellent 20 year career in development of everything from high scale applications to cloud infrastructure. He has also founded four successful tech companies – the perfect background for a crypto CTO.
Beyond these two they have a solid team, and a large pool of advisors that run the gamut in experience and specializations, in and outside of crypto.
Final Thoughts
During 2017 when the market was booming it seemed like half the projects were touting themselves as the ‘next Ethereum’, and we won’t go so far as to claim that. Projects so described generally refer to some ‘next big thing’ – a new concept that will revolutionize the space.
GoChain’s claim to fame is a lot quieter than that. It is not meant to be something completely new. It is simply something like Ethereum, but improved in critical ways that make it a lot more tractable to the mainstream business community.
All in all, GoChain is definitely a project to keep your eyes on this year.