Introduction

Cryptocurrencies and smart contract platforms are becoming a shared computational resource. One could view these platforms as a new generation of computers that synchronize over thousands of individual computers. However, existing cryptocurrencies and smart contract platforms have widely recognized limitations in scaling. Average transaction rates in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and related cryptocurrencies have been limited to below 10 (usually about 3-7) transactions per second (Tx/s). As the number of applications utilizing public cryptocurrencies and smart contract platforms grow, the demand for processing high transaction rates in the order of hundreds of Tx/s is increasing. A global payment network would likely require tens of thousands of Tx/s in capacity. Can we build a decentralized and open blockchain platform capable of processing at that scale?

The limitations in scaling up existing protocols are somewhat fundamental — they are rooted in the design of the consensus and network protocols. Therefore, even though reengineering the parameters of the existing protocols in say Bitcoin or Ethereum (e.g., the block size or the block rate) may show some speedup, to support applications that need processing of thousands of Tx/s however requires rethinking the underlying protocols from scratch.

We present ZILLIQA— a new blockchain platform that is designed to scale in transaction rates. As the number of miners in ZILLIQA increases, its transaction rates are expected to increase as well. Specifically, ZILLIQA’s design allows its transaction rates to roughly double with every few hundred nodes added to its network. As of this writing, the Ethereum mining network is over 30,000 nodes. At Ethereum’s present capacity, ZILLIQA would expect to process about a thousand times the transaction rates of Ethereum.

What is cryptocurrency Zilliqa (ZIL) and how does it work?

Zilliqa deploys a finely-tuned blend of tech solutions in search of the blockchain holy grail: true scalability with high throughput and low congestion. This promises to open the doors to dApp and smart contract developers to put this sharded network to use on large-scale applications from advertising to financial services.

Interested in Zilliqa (ZIL), but not sure what it’s all about or where to even begin? No worries. This guide is designed to teach you everything you need to know about the project and get you ready to jump into the most user-friendly trading experience available on the market.

What is Zilliqa?

Zilliqa is a public blockchain designed to tackle the issues of scalability and throughput facing many cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Ethereum. To achieve this, Zilliqa deploys sharding to improve the speed of transactions and create a scalable and secure platform by dividing the network into nodes that run processes in parallel.

The token’s developers claim that Zilliqa is the first blockchain to rely entirely on sharding to solve the issue of scalability, which they say it accomplishes successfully. According to the token’s white paper, sharding helps the Zilliqa blockchain achieve a transaction speed around a thousand times quicker than that of the Ethereum network.

The fact that Zilliqa is a permissionless blockchain network with high throughput means that developers can use it to host decentralized apps and execute smart contracts without the main issues facing many older blockchain platforms, such as congestion or high gas fees.

Verification (Proof of Work -PoW)

ZILLIQA uses PoW only to prevent Sybil attacks and generate node identities. This is in contrast to many existing blockchain platforms (in particular Bitcoin and Ethereum), where PoW is used to reach distributed consensus. ZILLIQA employs Ethash, the PoW algorithm used in Ethereum 1.0.

Ethash is a memory hard hash function designed to make it easy to mine with GPUs but hard with specialized computing hardware such as ASICs. To achieve this, Ethash computation requires a considerable amount of memory (in GBs) and I/O bandwidth such that the function cannot be invoked in parallel on specialized computing hardware.

What Makes Zilliqa Unique?

The developers who made Zilliqa state that it’s the first public blockchain that relies entirely on a sharded network. Moreover, they assert that the high throughput and transaction rates Zilliqa can achieve put it in a position to rival traditional centralized payment methods such as VISA and Mastercard.

Due to its sharded structure and hybrid consensus mechanism, Zilliqa promises to become the blockchain of choice for developers in search of a solution for large-scale enterprises in financial services, gaming, advertising, and other sectors.

In addition to these features, Zilliqa is also written in a bespoke language, Scilla, that is designed to automatically improve the security of the whole network.

What Gives Zilliqa Value?

Zilliqa tokens (ZIL) can be used as a store of value, a means of exchange, and users can also reap rewards if they stake a portion of their holdings. Holders of Zilliqa who stake some of their holdings will also be able to participate in the governance of the Zilliqa ecosystem, with their voting power being in proportion to the amount of ZIL they stake.

The limited supply of the token also ensures that ZIL price won’t be depreciated by uncapped inflation, potentially making it a good store of value in the long term.

How Many Zilliqa Coins Are There in Circulation?

Of the total supply of ZIL, there are currently 14,645,951,493 in circulation.

Before it was launched, Zilliqa generated 60% of the total supply and distributed some of these as follows: 10% were reserved for Anquan Capital, 12% for Zilliqa Research, and 5% for current and future members of the Zilliqa team. The remaining 40% of ZIL will be generated through mining.

According to projections by the Zilliqa blockchain development team, all of the tokens will have been mined within ten years of launch, with the mining rewards decreasing gradually over time.

Binance Smart Chain Contract Address: 0xb86AbCb37C3A4B64f74f59301AFF131a1BEcC787