What is Ergo? A deep-dive of Ergo, a future zero-compromise PoW DeFi platform full of potential
What is the Ergo Blockchain and why is it a hidden Gem?
We're going to go deep into just what ergo is a little bit of the history and what
makes it actually unique. A lot of this information is what sold me on the Ergo project and made me bullish
Ergo aims to be “a zero-compromise #DeFi platform.”
Ergo wants to “create highly-secure dApps & smart contracts”. Just like with many other cryptos, it’s possible to mine ERG. However, it does have some advantages over its rivals.
For example, the crypto is set up in such a way that it helps prevent individuals from being overshadowed by mining farms.
It’s also built for more efficient mining, which means users won’t need expensive GPUs to mine it.
Ergo was founded by Charles Hoskinson’s “favorite technologist” Alex Chepurnoy
He contributed to the development of Cardano and founded smartcontract.com which is now known as Chainlink
Hoskinson describes Ergo as:
“It's one of the most revolutionary cryptocurrencies ever built. Got so many crazy ideas like sigma protocols and pruning the blockchain and roller chains. All this crazy stuff. Even has a proof of no premine. So really a technological marvel in many respects, and it reflects about 8 years of knowledge that Alex has amassed as both a researcher and a developer. Super concise code and it blows my mind that the market cap is where it's at. It should be a top 10 coin or top 15 coin" — Charles Hoskinson
You might not understand everything in that statement, I certainly don't, but I have a lot of faith and trust in the Cardano project. But trust and faith are not enough. Let's find out what makes ergo special.
What makes Ergo special?
The main objective of Ergo is to provide financial contracts in an efficient and secure way so that people can use them in a decentralized manner and without any need for prior trust.
Ergo is the first blockchain to adopt the smart contract language in the same eUTxO (extended UTXO model as Cardano, enabling Proof of Work compatibility.
So Bitcoin had Bitcoin script, but that wasn't that powerful. And so one of the
great things that ergo has is the fact that we can do full-fledged touring,
complete smart contracts on a UTX system.
ERGO’s Sigma protocols and blockchain architecture make it possible to do things that would be difficult on conventional smart contract platforms, enabling a high degree of privacy while ensuring security is not compromised. While the range of possible decentralized financial DeFi) use cases is endless, examples include:
stablecoins
non-fungible tokens NFTs
oracle pools
trustless mixing of funds ErgoMixer)
Why use PoW instead of PoS?
Although PoS is a very secure protocol, some smart contracts may require the consensus-theoretic security features of PoW for some part of their execution.
The larger a dApp is, if it is doing collateralized DeFi, the larger the stake it has at its disposal, and since this is not yet fully resolved in the Proof of Stake consensus, it is a weak point. Ergo brings the proven security of PoW.
Ergo’s consensus protocol — Autolykos — is based on the well-known Proof of Work PoW consensus algorithm. Its native token is ERG .
PoW was chosen for several reasons, including that PoW protocols have high-security guarantees and are light-client friendly.
However, Autolykos has several significant differences from Bitcoin PoW. The Ergo blockchain supports non-interactive Proofs of Proof of Work NIPoPoWs), which allows thin clients to synchronize with the network by downloading less than one megabyte of data.
a normal user with a smartphone can join the network and start using Ergo with the same security guarantees as a full node.
What are the advantages of the Ergo blockchain?
Ergo will bring all the advantages of Proof of Work to users of the Cardano ecosystem.
Ergo is the first blockchain to adopt smart contract language similar to the UTxO model Cardano uses, bringing compatibility with Proof of Work to a whole new level.
Long-term scalability of dApps with the ability of parallelization of dApps.
More advanced cryptography with sigma protocols — highly flexible and composable cryptographic signatures.
The Ergo headless dApps framework.
Oracle pools — layered pools of pools of oracles with deviation checking consensus opening a whole new world of applications.
Decentralized oracle pools
The design of Ergo’s oracle pools is more efficient and programmable than using multiple single oracle data points such as in Chainlink’s oracle design. We build hierarchies of confidence using oracle pools and pools of oracle pools in Ergo. It’s faster, cheaper, and more beneficial to the end-user.
A real-world example of this is the sigmausd.io stablecoin, which utilises an ERG/USD oracle pool and refreshed every 12 minutes. When such large amounts of collateral are at stake, it is vital that these data points are accurate and reliable.
Ergo roadmap 2020/2021
Where to buy Ergo?
Coinex Gate.io
Hotbit (not recommended)
Probit
Ergo resources
https://ergoplatform.org/en/wallets/