The Elrond Network is a smart contract execution blockchain platform with guaranteed security from technological innovations such as secure proof of stake and adaptive state sharding. It is an incredible blockchain platform.
Although Elrond has been in development since 2017, it first launched in 2020. Since then, the network has been making waves in the blockchain space. Currently, its native currency, eGold, is the 38th-largest cryptocurrency in the world. The project holds over $4 billion in market capitalization.
What is the Elrond Network?
The Elrond Network is a blockchain platform designed to handle high volumes of transactions. Founded in 2017 with ERD as its currency, then eGLD, Elrond is currently the most scalable blockchain available. Elrond offers fast transactions and a scalable environment for enterprises and users with low transaction fees.
Keep reading to know some of its amazing features.
The Elrond Network is made of different components:
Nodes and Users:
Users send transactions on the network. It can be a transfer of value or the execution of a smart contract. Nodes are the computers on the network that broadcasts the transactions.
Validators:
They are special nodes that process the transactions and place them on the network's ledger (blocks) following the consensus algorithm of the elrond blockchain.
Shards:
They are independent sections of the Elrond Network running parallel to each other. Each shard maintains its state and processes a fraction of all the transactions going through the network.
Metachain:
The Metachain is the central shard that keeps the summary of transactions that go through other shards. It also, among other functions, serves as the origin shard for new eGLD that comes into circulation.
eGLD:
The eGLD (Elrond's eGold) is the native token of the Elrond Network. The economical use of eGLD includes staking and validator rewards, then functionally for smart contract execution and transaction fees.
Here are 7 exciting features you didn't know about the Elrond Network.
1. Adaptive State Sharding
Elrond uses sharding differently. The adaptive state sharding used by Elrond is an approach to sharding that combines network, state and transaction sharding uniquely and innovatively. The nodes on the elrond network are grouped into distinct shards to optimize transaction processing and broadcasting by localizing each transaction in a shard instead of the whole network. Each transaction is assigned to the shard of the address initiating the transaction. The state of the whole network is further fragmented into different shards with each shard holding a distinct fraction of the entire network.
2. New Digital Economy
The Elrond network aims to build a new digital economy where decentralization and scalability are vital characteristics of its blockchain structure. As a result, Elrond permits users to develop new assets (called Elrond Standard Digital Tokens, ESDT), decentralized applications, and make transactions conveniently. It also makes smart contract development easier for developers since programming languages that can compile to Web Assembly can be used to develop Elrond smart contracts.
3. Staking
The Elrond network is secured through staking which is enabled by the Secure Proof of Stake consensus mechanism. Through staking eGLD holders can benefit by getting staking rewards in eGLD as incentives for their activity in securing the network. This is one of the major reasons StakeAfrik was set up; to seamlessly onboard people new to the elrond ecosystem into the staking offerings of the Elrond Blockchain.
4. DApp Development
The Elrond platform is also used for DApp development targeting to create a new internet economy with an ecosystem of cryptocurrencies and decentralized applications. Though not a direct feature of the Elrond blockchain, the team at Elrond has made it a breeze to set up a DApp with the many resources they provide. See Elrond's GitHub for more.
5. eGold
The Elrond token is known as eGLD and can be used for staking, paying for transaction fees, and other uses. eGLD can also be bought and sold in the market of cryptocurrencies for a profit based on the difference between the trading price.
6. NFT support
Elrond has native support for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) through the features Smart Accounts and by adding metadata and attributes on top of the Elrond Standard Digital Token (ESDT). This native support reduces development overheads for smart contracts developers as they will not have to worry much about storage and configuration if they intend to build a smart contract with NFT support.
7. Maiar wallet
You can safely reserve your eGLD tokens in any of the available mainnet wallets, such as the Elrond Wallet, which comes with much lesser transaction fees and full control over your funds. Maiar is also an official eGLD wallet, supported by the Elrond blockchain. You can register your phone number with the wallet app so you can easily access your funds and activate a wallet account.
Closing thoughts
Elrond is an efficient, scalable and inexpensive blockchain platform that provides innovative blockchain solutions. Buying and selling eGLD, or trading it for any other cryptocurrency, is done as soon as you choose a secured platform as your storage solution. Elrond is one of the most popular power blockchains that solves the issue related to slow transactions as it can execute thousands of transactions in a second, it's a highly scalable, fast, and secure blockchain platform. This amazing feature of it makes it worthwhile, more investors are pouring into the project, as evidenced by the 50% surge in trading volume presently. While other projects continue to decline through the corrective period, eGLD is boasting a 9% plus gain.
To learn more about the Elrond blockchain, join our community or stake your eGLD with us, visit our website or keep an eye on our blog.
