Bitrue Project Highlights Series#7 — Aleph Zero AZERO | by Bitrue | Aug, 2022

Dear Bitruers,

The world of crypto is an ever-expanding industry with plenty of new projects being built almost every day. But amidst all of that, many forget that we have not solved the most basic problem of all: providing an adequate infrastructure for this ecosystem to thrive on. The introduction of Ethereum and the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) has unlocked many possibilities for the usage of blockchain technology,Bitcoin introduced the concept of blockchain being used in monetary transactions, but it is the EVM that opened up the window for complex uses of the blockchain. However, in its application, Ethereum still has many shortcomings that invites many other projects to join in the race to develop a faster, more scalable blockchain without risking decentralization and security. For this very reason, we believe that betting on a good blockchain project is one of the most reasonable investments in the long run. Bitrue has added another quality asset into our collection of Layer 1 projects that you could now invest in. The project that we are going to look further into today is Aleph Zero. Although Aleph Zero has only recently launched in February of 2022, it has amassed quite a following across its socials, and is dubbed to be a game changer for the B2B Saas industry by industry influencers.

Aleph Zero Technology:

Since its development in early 2018, Aleph Zero’s mainnet is already live in November 2021. The project’s main goal is direct and simple: to refine existing Distributed Ledger Technologies to create an infrastructure that will be accommodative for the future mass migration of digital applications to a decentralized web. The main issue with the blockchains available today is perfectly summed up in what we know as the blockchain trilemma, where a mainnet or Layer 1 project can only thoroughly solve a maximum of two out of three issues that should be tackled in order to have the perfect blockchain. The three issues are scalability, security, and decentralization. Each of the blockchain projects that have existed today has their own recipe to creating a good blockchain, with some prioritizing a certain aspect of the trilemma over another.

Aleph Zero in its nature is most similar to Solana, as both projects emphasize more on throughput and transaction time. Solana itself was the poster child of blockchain projects in late 2021, with its price increasing about 6,000%. However, Solana is often criticized for centralization, with 90% of the proposal votes coming from a single user, this ultimately ignores the original purpose of cryptocurrencies being a decentralized medium of exchange. To compare Solana to Aleph Zero, Aleph Zero has surpassed Solana and a majority of blockchains in scalability, with a record breaking number of 100,000 transactions per second, and transaction time is estimated to be 0.4 seconds. Aleph Zero achieves this by combining Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism with Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) technology. The PoS mechanism was first used by Peercoin and popularized by top altcoins such as Cardano and Solana, allowing for higher transaction speeds and greater scalability compared to the original consensus mechanism of Ethereum, the Proof-of-Work. In Proof-of-Stake, several nodes are selected randomly to verify a transaction, users will have to stake their tokens in order to be eligible to be a validator. Although PoS is already efficient to some extent, Aleph Zero takes it to the next level with the DAG. What differentiates the traditional blockchain to a DAG is the architecture of the data, while a blockchain consists of blocks interconnected to another block, in a DAG transactions are recorded as vertices. In a DAG, nodes can validate transactions simultaneously, hence the faster processing time. Just like the blockchain, a DAG structure is build in regards to the preceding vertices that comes before it, existing transactions are stored in the structure and checked to avoid the problem of having a duplicate transaction.

Complementing the PoS mechanism implemented in a DAG data architecture, Aleph Zero implements the Byzantine Fault Tolerance of their own called the AlephBFT. The BFT is very important to the blockchain, as it allows the blockchain to still operate, assuming that ⅔ of the nodes are acting honestly.

Aside from being highly scalable,In terms of security, Aleph Zero allocates a great deal of resources to ensure a secure and private network which they wish to achieve by implementing zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) and multi-party computation (MPC) cryptography. ZKPs allows a node to verify to other nodes that it has the information required by the other party, without spilling the information itself. This way nodes can reach a consensus without data spillovers. The MPC is another precaution instilled on Aleph Zero’s mainnet, the MPC works exactly as the name says, data is stored in different computers and can only be encrypted if all of the computers storing the data reaches a consensus. The MPC adds another layer of security to the ZKP design of Aleph Zero. Aleph Zero’s implementation of these two technologies is vital, as for a blockchain to be sustainable, developers and users have the right to anonymity and a secure network free of data breaches.

Lastly, the decentralization aspect of a blockchain is equally important, as this concept is the foundation of the crypto industry as a whole. What might spark some controversy is Aleph Zero’s choice of consensus mechanism and data architecture, with the PoS known to favor bigger token holders, making it more prone to centralization then the PoW, and the DAG model also having some potential issues in decentralization in the long run.

Now, whereas all of the concepts mentioned above seem to be excellent on paper, feasibility is all that matters in the end. When trying to evaluate if a project is too good to be true or not, investors should pay attention to the team and framework behind the project, and if there are any actual usage or real apps already built on top of it.

Aleph Zero ecosystem:

At the moment Aleph Zero already has over 30 projects building on top of it, ever since its relatively late launch to the party during the 2021 bear market. The ecosystem consists of a variety of apps, including infrastructure projects such as oracles, DeFi projects including lending and borrowing protocols, investment funds, and even NFT platforms. There is still plenty of room for new developers, and we hope that as Aleph Zero constantly improves their technology ,it will receive more media attention, the ecosystem will flourish.

Aleph Zero Roadmap:

Aleph Zero is currently in phase 3 from a total of 6 phases of development. The phase 3 of development is focused on sophisticating its mainnet, with native token transfers being enabled as well as working on the Rust implementation of the AlephBFT consensus. It is good to see a project with a clear vision for what’s ahead and an on-schedule implementation.

AZERO Tokenomics:

Like its roadmap, the team behind Aleph Zero planned well for AZERO’s tokeneconomics. Investors would want to invest in projects that will protect their in-platform currencies. AZERO’s tokenomics include a vesting period much longer than average crypto projects, over 4 years for both the team and foundation and 15 months for pre-seed investors. The initial total supply is 300M tokens with a fixed inflation rate of 30M tokens per year, after 10 years the token will then be deflationary, suppose that there are no new tokens minted. Although most people would love tokens with a fixed total supply, on the other side some believe that it is wise to be open to new mintings of tokens, as it will keep the ecosystem flexible to any market conditions.

Aleph Zero Team and VC fundings:

Aleph Zero’s core team members are made up of researchers and experienced professionals in mathematics, Distributed Ledger Technology, cryptography, and data science. Three out of the four co-founders, Matthew Niemerg, Adam Gagol, and Michal Swietek have received their PhDs in mathematics, with each of them with their own unique focus in cryptography and mathematical sciences. The fourth co-founder, Antoni Zolciak handles the business side of Aleph Zero, with over 10 years of experience as a technology marketer in big companies including Samsung and Sony. Aleph Zero has over 40 team members and advisors with unique backgrounds and expertise in their field.

Aleph Zero has 34 partners and investors as of the moment, with some big names including Crypto Valley and Coinbar.

Closing Summary:

After reviewing this particular project, the team at Bitrue feels that Aleph Zero is a blockchain project with lots of potential that is yet to be found by the mainstream crypto investors. As a growth stage exchange focusing on providing customers with the best trading and investing experience, we hope to provide our Bitruers with accessibility to hidden gems and exotic projects such as Aleph Zero. However, it is to be noted, that given the nascent nature, investing in crypto is highly volatile and investors should always do their own research before investing in order to minimize risk.