Elrond network gears up for July 30th Mainnet launch

The Elrond (ERD) blockchain is a public smart contract platform where a set of validators are incentivized to secure the network by locking in an ERD stake, running a node, processing transactions, producing blocks, and reaching consensus.

The Elrond coin launched as an Initial Exchange Offering (IEO) on the Binance Launchpad platform and raised US$5.1 million. It currently has a listed market capitalization of US$65,231,196. The Elrond Price is currently US$0.027 and its value has risen steeply in the last month as its mainnet launch approaches.
The Elrond price has surged as its mainnet launch approaches. Source – BNC Data. Click here for the latest ERD price

What is the Elrond network?

The Elrond network is broken up into two main entities, nodes and users. Users are tasked with signing transactions for two core activities, value transfers, and the execution of smart contracts. Each user is identified by a unique account address. Nodes are computers/devices operated by validators and run the protocol.

The Elrond whitepaper describes two keys aspects of its infrastructure that are designed to make the platform “secure, efficient, scalable and interoperable.” These are a state sharding approach and a secure Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism.

Sharding is a way of partitioning, and spreads out the computational and storage workload across a peer-to-peer (P2P) network so that each node isn’t responsible for processing the entire network’s transactional load. State sharding involves partitioning a blockchain into multiple shards, with each shard being handled by a unique set of validators. In simple terms, as explained by the Elrond team, “More validators mean more shards, and more shards mean a more scalable network.”

Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithms use a pseudo-random selection process, where allocation is weighted based on the size of a nodes stake when selecting the validator of the next block. The Elrond whitepaper states that it refines its consensus mechanism by adding an additional weight factor called “rating.”

To bootstrap the growth of the protocol, Elrond has created a genesis event to launch its mainnet, with incentives to attract more validators to the network. The Elrond protocol will use a genesis smart contract deployed on Ethereum, which will act as a bridge to the Mainnet, and will gather all necessary data for the Elrond genesis block in a transparent way.

Post-genesis the ERD token will move to a fixed max supply, which will reach its limit in less than ten years. The overall cap for staking will also rise to 1,672,500,000 ERD. Before the mainnet launch, ERD holders have been rewarded with 25% APR for staking their tokens to the network. Post the mainnet launch, users who delegate their stake to validators will earn 29% while validators will earn 36%. The total number of nodes will also increase, and will be set at 2,169.

A minimum guaranteed staking reward will be issued each year to validators and delegators. This reward will come from network transaction fees and issuance. if network fees are high on a particular year then fewer tokens will be issued. Assuming network fees are zero, 10.84% of the total supply will be issued as a staking reward in the first year, 8.75% will be issued and so and so forth until 0% is issued in the tenth year.

The Elrond sharding model creates efficiencies by using a model that divides account address space through a predetermined hierarchy. Hence, the whitepaper states, “there is no split overhead, meaning that one shard breaks into two shards, each of them keeping only one half of the previous address space in addition to the associated state”.

On June 26th Elrond announced a partnership with the Shyft Network, a public blockchain protocol designed to aggregate and embed validation & trust into data stored on public & private ecosystems, as well as permissioned & permissionless networks. The collaboration will enable Elrond accounts & smart contracts to participate in a larger ecosystem that enables attestation, consent management, identity frameworks, and adding additional context to data originating from various public or private systems.