Distributed Technologies Research (DTR) Is Funding Researchers To Solve Scalability Issues Of Blockchain
Blockchain being the innovation of the century carries innumerable distinctive features like security, immutability, transparency and reliability. All merits considered, blockchain is not without minor faults. The scalability issue has long been an issue and the threat of that shortcoming has long been looming over its head. Even though many new platforms are being introduced with each passing day, all the newer platforms being created in the shadow of the conventional blockchain are not scalable either. So rather than consorting to older cryptographic algorithms there is room for newer ones to be implemented that offer all the prior mentioned features in addition to scalability.
In the past it had been observed that bitcoins blockchain could handle only a number of transactions, and if the traffic increased, the whole system would slow down. Ethereum also ran into similar troubles, as it is also as of yet not scalable, not to mention the whole crypto kitties fiasco that took place in late 2017.
Recently, Distributed Technologies Research, a non-profit foundation that funds research and development of the innovative blockchain based platforms launched along with introducing its first project Unit-e, which is a scalable decentralized payment system. DTR believes that the centralized institutions which were the secure means for storing wealth and making transactions were no longer trustworthy after the financial crisis that prevailed years ago. There was a need for a more trustless and transparent system that would enable transaction at a higher speed. Fortunately, blockchain has made it possible to turn that vision into a reality.
The quality that makes Unit-e distinct from the existent fintech applications and payment solution is that this decentralized platform is scalable. The project is being backed by blockchain investment fund Pantera Capital. The developers of Unit-e have also claimed that their goal for the cryptocurrency’s processing time is 10,000 transactions per second. Joey Krug who is Co-Chief Investment Officer at Pantera Capital shed some light on the subject by saying,
A lack of scalability is holding back cryptocurrency adoption, and DTR’s groundbreaking research is addressing this, The Unit-e developers are turning this research into real scalable performance which will benefit a huge swath of decentralized financial applications.
DTR is currently funding a team of researchers from very well known universities all over United States that have come together to work on the problems that still exist in the nascent technology. This includes researchers and tenured professors from seven major American universities, that includes the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley. Where some have deemed blockchain unscalable altogether and working on a variation, these individuals also seek to redefine the boundaries of financial innovations that can be created using blockchain. Andrew Miller, who is head of the Unit-e independent technical steering committee and also the Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign told,
Having a healthy and effective governance process is important for the success of a cryptocurrency project. Unit-e has focused on addressing these topics from the start, learning lessons from a long history of successful open-source and academic projects.
The Distributed Technologies Research plans to launch Unit-e in the second half of this year as mentioned in the press release.
Although there have been multiple studies that prove that blockchain can be scaled, there is not much that has been done to cater to this particular problem. However with non-profits organizations like DTR making efforts to make this technology better by targeting areas that need improvement and by inclusion of highly qualified professionals, it can be expected that the technology will indeed keep on getting better and better.
