Bitcoin Global News (BGN)
June 04, 2018 -- ADVFN Crypto NewsWire -- The Crypto world doesn’t
take a break. Over the weekend, the news broke that Baidu,
the company that’s effectively China’s Google, is developing a
protocol that it hopes will reduce Crypto mining’s energy
consumption.
Baidu’s Chief Scientist, Xiao Wei,
was the one to do the honors at an apparently, regional conference. Even so,
it’s important to note that this is not Baidu’s first rodeo with
the Blockchain.
According to Coin Telegraph and
Technode, Baidu already launched what it calls a “BaaS Platform,” or a Blockchain
as a Service Platform, in 2017. At the same time, however, Tencent,
the company behind the massively successful Chinese version of
WhatsApp called WeChat, had already launched their own version of
the same product.
The key idea behind Baidu’s BaaS
Platform is to offer a sort of a subscription based, b2b model in
which companies pay to access Baidu’s blockchain in various ways,
in order to store assets and exchange them more securely than with
traditional methods. As of now, they’ve released one product on their BaaS platform,
which allows companies to store the rights to digital
images.
Given that Superchain, according to
Wei and Baidu, can “insert and remove consensus mechanisms to solve
the current energy consumption problem,” it would seem that Baidu
is poised to be the first mover on what is arguably, Blockchain’s
biggest roadblock in the case of widespread adoption. If they can
demo this on their existing Blockchain with a clear level of
success, then this future position seems all the more
likely.
Before even thinking about demoing
the Blockchain, however, it would be best to make clear exactly
what consensus mechanisms Baidu is referring to here, to add a
little context to their statements. First off, because reports
clearly state that the “Superchain” is trying to veer away from
Proof-of-Work based consensus algorithms to provide something
better, it is safe to assume they will not be using PoW.
Secondly, according to a report by
Bitcoin Radio, because Proof-of-Stake can be ruled out due to the
fact that the richest users usually hold the most power on the
network, it is logical that Baidu might start with Byzantine Fault
Tolerant consensus. The problem with Bitcoin Radio’s idea is that
some experts have pointed out the lack of any
difference between Proof of Work, Proof of Stake and BFT
consensus mechanisms. Reportedly, BFT is largely an umbrella term
for those that exist today.
Thus in the end, it’s reasonably
clear what Baidu won’t use. As of now, the only question that
remains is what will serve as their main consensus mechanism? How
will the “Superchain” reduce energy consumption mathematically and
scientifically? One can reasonably assume that the answers will
arrive in the near future, as the initial announcements on the
project have only recently just been made.
By: BGN Editorial Staff
News:
Baidu
Blockchain
Cryptocurrency
Mining