What is Aergo?
Aergo proposes to be an open platform for running decentralized applications and distributed enterprise services on a highly-performant and stable blockchain protocol combined with an advanced cloud services IT platform. It aims to not only provide the infrastructure needed for enterprise level companies to build solutions and improve elements of data integrity in their IT systems by deploying their own custom blockchains, but it also aims to provide a stable and secure platform for running decentralized applications. Aergo aims to advance enterprise blockchain by enabling autonomous business and intends to open a new era of mass market usage of blockchain. Through Aergo, it is proposed that businesses can benefit from both public and private blockchain innovation, whilst being able to build, deploy, and manage new services.
What problems does Aergo seek to solve?
Existing smart contract platforms and marketplaces fail to incorporate critical infrastructure requirements for the development and hosting of dApps. As a result, the majority of dApps are either built and hosted on decentralised platforms that suffer from slow transaction speeds, high operational costs and incompatibility with legacy IT systems. Adoption of the technology is therefore impeded due to difficulties with enterprise IT integration and a lack of developer-friendly and easy-to-use software tools.
Many implementations also lack the enterprise grade capabilities that are critical to run real business applications in both private and public deployments. Aergo’s platform seeks to enable enterprises and developers to easily design, build and deploy their own blockchain applications within the cloud. The platform aims to offer the possibility for creators to tailor their blockchain and applications to their needs, by giving them the choice to run across either a public, private, or even hybrid network. By being able to leverage and combine the different characteristics, found in public and private blockchains, enterprises and developers have maximum flexibility and choice, when designing innovative applications and services.
What makes Aergo different?
Aergo aims to be fast. Unlike existing blockchain implementations, Aergo aims not only to be horizontally scalable, but also support micro-services based applications that are optimized for vertical scalability. This should allow dApps to take advantage of multi-core hardware. Aergo aims to be easy. It proposes to provide comprehensive IT integration and support services for clients who wish to deploy and maintain new products and business services based on Aergo. Proposed new technologies include: a super-fast and efficient blockchain protocol; a new powerful SQL smart contract engine; advanced IT integration APIs; and easy to use developer tools. These are intended to be supported by a new dApp orchestration and deployment framework. This framework allows developers and businesses to install, manage and run these applications quickly and efficiently at scale.
How does Aergo differ from other similar projects?
Aergo’s core technology is already being used by over 25 million users. The adaptability and production-proven quality-of-service of Aergo’s core technology in enterprise deployments demonstrates the level of technological sophistication in comparison to alternative protocols.
Aergo is not meant to be an experimental (or theroretical) playground for pushing the limits of blockchain technology, but a productive tool for everyday developers. For developers and IT system-level architects, it aims to provide a production-hardened development and deployment platform.
As a tool for writing apps, Aergo seeks to introduce the first platform with key features and concepts familiar to full-stack developers, such as SQL, reactivity, and isomorphic programming. A blockchain, which at its core has been designed to allow systematic branching and merging, Aergo’s development platform is proposed to be built to appeal to all developers and encourage collaborative development.
A new SAM software stack (SQL, Aergo, and Meteor) aims to allows developers to easily build and deploy dApps on the Aergo platform.
What is the Aergo Hub?
Aergo Hub aims to be the web-based blockchain hosting service for managing separate independent private blockchains based on the Aergo chain;conceptually very similar to current public cloud web services. It seeks to provide the necessary environment and supporting services to construct a user-specific blockchain network with arbitrary nodes including Web Service, Identity and Access Management (IAM), Load Balancer, Resource DB and Name Service.
What is the Aergo Horde?
Aergo Horde – a core module of Aergo Hub – is the proposed orchestration platform that aims to allow multiple blockchains to be installed on, and managed by, one or more nodes. It aims to function as a software framework for infrastructure providers who want to participate in the Aergo Hub ecosystem. All members must install Aergo Horde to act and host as a node.
What is the Aergo Marketplace?
Aergo Marketplace proposes to be a one-stop-shop interface where users can search, discover and purchase software applications, computing resources and more. The aim is for third parties such as service providers, ISVs and cloud infrastructure vendors to be able to market their products and services to users of Aergo.
Aergo Marketplace is proposed to be accessed via the Aergo Hub public interface and managed via Aergo Horde.
What is the difference between Aergo and Coinstack (from Blocko)?
Coinstack is a permissioned blockchain solution of Blocko that has been successfully deployed within multiple enterprises. Aergo and Coinstack both offer enterprise blockchain platform frameworks. Coinstack, however, is purely private, whereby node providers and applications are self-contained within enterprise organizations. Conversely, Aergo is proposed to be a platform that leverages cloud architectures as well as both public and private blockchain networks. As its predecessor, Aergo will inherit many critical technical components from CoinStack includings its well developed and tested stable application programming interface (API).
Aergo proposes to collaborate and leverage the skills and resources available at Blocko, who are committing to Aergo as its core contributor and strategic partner. Since Coinstack’s source code supports the foundations of the Aergo protocol, Aergo has the privilege of harboring many functionalities that are proven in a commercial environment.
What is the current technical stage in Aergo’s project development plan?
The Aergo mainnet launch takes place on April 15. There are a number of features planned for rollout after, found here.
Who is creating the Aergo public network, and who will host the network?
The Aergo (not-for-profit corporation) and Blocko Inc. intend to initiate and prime the public network as the first members of the operating committee for the not-for-profit corporation. This is necessary in order to incubate the DPoS algorithm on Aergo chain.
Following the incubation period, Aergo proposes to employ a rules-based automated delegation process to ensure that the network operates democratically. The rules will be based on a scoring system and the Aergo amount at stake.
What is DPoS consensus algorithm?
DPoS is an acronym for Delegated Proof of Stake. It is a consensus mechanism that intends to enhance Transactions Per Second (TPS) and the robustness of the network by letting only delegated witnesses (also known as ‘block producers’) who reside in the network among other stakeholders to make blocks. Aergo chain aims to support various consensus algorithms and allow users to choose and define the exact algorithm they wish to use based on their business requirements. DPoS is intended to be the fundamental and default consensus model for Aergo.
Who intends to participate in the genesis block of the Aergo main network?
We plan to explain this further into the month of April via a detailed article.
Does Aergo intend to support smart contracts?
Yes. Aergo aims to develop AergoSQL, a new multi-paradigm smart contract engine for Aergo chain. It is a proposed relational data model for storing and accessing data and SQL-like scripting language for writing smart contracts. We aim to allow users to easily create advanced smart contracts using simple structured query language to enable innovative business products and services.
Smart contract execution within Aergo chain is intended to require the Aergo native token to support running costs. Also, Aergo chain supports the Ethereum Virtual Machine to aim to achieve interoperability between different types of smart contract operations.
Can other blockchains be bridged to the Aergo Chain?
Aergo supports bridging through the novel Merkle Bridge mechanism. It allows for fast, convenient, and cost-effective bridging between sidechains on Aergo, as well as bridging between Ethereum and Aergo.
Are there transaction fees on the Aergo Chain?
Transactions on Aergo Chain intend will be subject to fees. Users need to pay fees depending on the gas mechanism.
What are the intended functions of Aergo for enterprise?
Aergo is proposed to be a next generation enterprise blockchain platform for utility computing. It aims to help enterprises adopt and utilise blockchain technology for real world applications. Aergo seeks to provide an easy-to-use blockchain configuration for enterprise and SQL-like smart contract language for applications that will serve to autonomise business processes. It is intended that enterprises and IT providers should also be able to participate within the Aergo network as a node or service provider and receive financial rewards in return for their resources and contributions. These activities are intended to create a feedback loop, to help the Aergo ecosystem flourish.
What are the intended functions of Aergo for developers?
The intended main smart contract virtual machine of the Aergo platform is SQLVM. New technologies such as blockchain often introduce new programming frameworks and languages. Some of these are complex to understand. Aergo aims to recognize these challenges and recognizes that millions of developers are familiar with SQL and DBMS. Aergo believes that a developer’s familiarity with a programming language will result in much greater performance. We strongly believe that Aergo’s approach – based on traditional, well understood, and easy to use SQL technology – will enable the mass market of developers and business users to benefit from blockchain.
In addition, Aergo Hub intends to grant developers the ability to seamlessly build and control their own private or public blockchain. Many features such as deployment, version control, rolling upgrade, are freely provided to developers to help support and streamline development.
What are the proposed functions of Aergo for node providers?
Users who propose to use Aergo Hub can be classified into node providers and node consumers. Node providers are repository providers who agree to supply their physical nodes to Aergo Hub individually. These nodes will be selected by node consumers and configured as a blockchain. Node providers are expected to be compensated through a payment system on the Aergo Hub, where payments are made, directly from node consumers.
What are the proposed functions of Aergo for customers?
Node consumers are users of the repositories that are made available by Node providers. Typically, node consumers utilize the nodes provided from Aergo Hub to construct their own blockchain. On request, node consumers can configure their network requirements to their desired performance needs. In return, node providers are financially remunerated by node consumers as a function on the resources is consumed. Payments are managed through Aergo Hub’s payment system.
Over the next 12 months, what is most of the engineering effort focused on?
The key factor is that Aergo is proposed to be built off Coinstack (Launch Pad), an existing battle-tested platform. Many of the features are already built and we will also utilize existing customers totest the enhanced version. So essentially integration will be a major focus of our efforts. The existing platform will play a critical role for the project in the early phases of Aergo. More information regarding this is regularly provided through our Quarterly Project Updates, found on our Resources section.
How many infrastructure providers do you intend to have?
We can use around 23 Block Producers (“BP”) and 50 BP candidates. There can be many non-BP nodes in the network. In the sub-chain (or private chain) you can change the number of BP and BP candidates. In the case of Public Network, they can potentially be changed by a DAO process. We will analyze other DAO cases, and consider adapting good and proven protocols in the best interests of the platform.
What is the proposed gas pricing mechanism?
Aergo is proposed to follow a similar gas mechanism to Ethereum. Users must pay a gas fee according to the amount of work is necessary for the virtual machine to execute the contract in question. The gas parameters are intended to be calculated and tested on the Test-net.
How will you create a virtuous circle in creating the Aergo ecosystem?
We have a committee dedicated to making this happen. During the initial incubation period, we aim to leverage the network of our technology partner – Blocko – to form partnerships with companies who have the power to help jump-start the platform and ignite network effects. We have three major providers in the ecosystem:
- infrastructure providers,
- technology providers,
- service providers.
We will be incentivizing the providers with tokens, various rights and access to Aergo.
The target market and industry sectors Aergo is aiming to address are very complex – what help are you getting to help the team focus and execute on your plans?
We have secured the services of a distinguished Advisory team. This comprises of several leading experts and industrialists in areas that are directly of focus for the project. This includes specialists in sectors such as cybersecurity, government relations, financial and insurance services, automotive, startup and dApp incubation, cloud computing, data privacy/GDPR, open source licencing and ecosystem development, strategic partnering, crypto hedge funds, DLT, payments, new venture creation, corporate venturing and M&A.
What social networks do you use? Where can I get official information on the current status of Aergo?
We use Twitter and Telegram as our main means of community updates and announcements. We also use Medium to provide in-depth and detailed updates on many matters regarding Aergo. Any official news will be published through a formal press release, corroborated to the media through our dedicated public relations team.
Securing many dApps seems to be one of the key success factors, how will you go about securing them?
We will be initially connecting dApps through Blocko and Blocko’s partner and client networks. Among Blocko’s existing clients, there are clients who want to hold their dApps on Aergo. We plan to start by having early strong anchor dApps on board. Based on this (and prior to the release of the public protocol) we will launch functions that do not require many other supporting features, such as a smart contract run time. We propose to source new innovative and best-of-breed dApps in major categories to fuel the platform. In doing this, Blocko will take a prominent role in the initial incubation phase, by leveraging its existing and expert sales and project delivery resources.
Where can I get more help or make other inquiries?
If you want to receive more information or make further inquiries, please email us at hello@aergo.io
What would you tell a person who only wishes to participate in Aergo, NOT Blocko (or vice-versa)?
A good comparison between Aergo and Blocko is that of ‘Linux’ to Redhat. We believe that a public protocol will only be sustainable with an active open source community and a supporting open source technology platform to nurture future ideas and developments. Opensource technology has a history where it flourishes with active and genuine involvement of good developers. It is hard to draw continuous interest and activities when it involves purely profit-oriented activities. That is the reason why we are launching the Aergo project under Aergo (as a not-for-profit corporation). For Blocko, whilst it will first contribute the cornerstone “seed” technology and network to Aergo; it will also eventually benefit from the Aergo community as it advances to provide professional support services to customers who want to deploy Aergo based systems within their mainstream businesses. Just like Redhat allowed Linux to reach beyond the base LAMP technology stack and expand from initial internet startups into the enterprise world; Blocko will focus on helping businesses who want to adopt the Aergo technology within their enterprise environments.
How much (and what is the growth rate) of data running on Blocko’s private chains?
Currently, Blocko’s technology is primarily serving Korea with over 25 million users using applications running on systems it has built for them on blockchain. Blocko. For example, top credit card companies have adopted Coinstack for many of their mobile applications. On average, each has registered circa 13M users, with approximately 1.7M MAU on average).
The Coinstack platform is popular in Korea, especially with enterprise firms. How do you propose to accelerate the adoption outside of Korea?
Blocko recently went through its Series B fundraising round. The main objective behind this round was to finance its global expansion. Blocko is setting up offices in London and Hong Kong. London will be the hub for the EMEA region, and Hong Kong for the APAC region. Blocko’s expansion plans include recruiting top-tier developers from Germany, UK and France. We are already working with a leading bank in Switzerland, and talking with wit many prospective partners, including a major regulated stock exchange in Europe.