Aleph Zero is a layer 1 public blockchain ecosystem that brings solutions to overcome many problems faced by the existing blockchains. The key areas it focuses on are:
Aleph Zero was founded in 2018 by Swiss IT experts Matthew Niemerg and Adam Gagol, Swiss blockchain developer Antoni Zolciak, and Swiss software engineer Birk Hintze Thisted. The company is based in Zug, Switzerland. Its mainnet went live in 2021. It’s a scalable open-source blockchain network aimed to make the current Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) widely usable.
It aims to establish itself as a public blockchain that powers enterprises to build over it by providing private channels. This approach is dubbed as the ‘hub and spoke’ model, wherein, a spoke is an enterprise’s private instance built above Aleph’s decentralized ledger, which is the (public) hub. This is enabled by the integration of Substrate stack- an open framework Software Development Kit (SDK) developed by Parity’s Polkadot network.
Substrate Stack provides a mechanism to build para chains and sync chains above a main chain. Aleph does not use Substrate to make itself into a para chain, rather it’s an independent Layer 1 chain.
The consensus mechanism used is ABFT (Asynchronous Byzantine Fault Tolerance) combined with Proof-of-Stake. ABFT itself is an improved version of BFT (Byzantine Fault Tolerance). The innovative consensus protocol is peer-reviewed and gives faster transaction speeds than the highly advanced HoneyBadgerBFT version. It also improves the “trustlessness” of the system by implementing an ABFT Randomness Beacon over the protocol.
The security of these high transaction speeds comes from a custom algorithm of Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG), a coding technique. Hence, the network boasts of having pioneered this consensus protocol that includes PoS-combined, ABFT Randomness Beacon-powered ABFT protocol with a DAG algorithm. This gives ultra-high transaction speeds with the lowest possible latencies that are also very secure. They dubbed it the AlephBFT protocol.
It processes validations very quickly and achieves finality accurately with almost no downtime. Notably, this advancement also accounts for the resultant extremely low gas fees and reduced carbon footprint. The average transaction fee on the network is 0.0003 AZERO.
Furthermore, when the code is run in Golang, one of the highest-level programming languages, developed by Google, it gives transaction speeds of up to 89,600 transactions per second (TPS), with transaction times as low as 416 milliseconds (ms). Therefore, the network is highly optimized for APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) that run in Golang.
The system is highly secure with each transaction involving a new threshold Elliptical Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA). For the secure custody of digital assets, the network has developed a tECDSA protocol that enables fault attributability during signature generation.
There are two major upgrades the system does besides tECDSA- increasing the signing time and bandwidth of the elliptical curve of the ECDSA, which gives the network two additional benefits. One is the increased interoperability of the blockchain and the other is robust processing of a large number of transactions.
This helps in network scalability, as interoperability will be crucial to the development of wide utility dApps, and the network must be able to robustly handle multiple committees of parties.
The entire network is governed by Zero Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs). Specifically, they use the Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-interactive argument of Knowledge (ZK-SNARK) for generating encrypted messages. This helps to attain the privacy of transactions readable only by the digitally signed sender and receiver.
Another privacy-enhancing feature of the network is the use of secure Multi-Party Computation (MPC), a protocol for safeguarding data distribution across multiple computers. If one of the computers needs to access data from another, there has to be a unanimous consensus among everyone.
Interestingly, the sMPC technique was mainly used by centralized networks. No privacy solution uses the complementary combination of sMPC and ZKPs. Aleph is the first one to adopt this technique. This is also crucial to secure multichain privacy for projects that intend to expand their network for a scalable ecosystem of dApps.
Advanced smart contracts allow the development of dApps in the network capable of executing a wide variety of functions beyond DeFi. Most existing blockchains that employ smart contracts utilize an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) to run them. Aleph employs a Web Assembly Virtual Machine (WASM VM) to run its customized smart contracts written in the programming language- Ink! In contrast, EVM smart contracts are written in a programming language called– Solidity.
ink! immensely helps smart contracts enable an open environment for the ecosystem to develop. Besides, it is very user-friendly to compile with the existing code libraries. Another reason to use the language is it is compatible with the sMPC protocol and can be used to secure smart contracts as well.
ZKPs are not sufficient for the complete security of smart contracts because of the lack of a functionality known as ‘Common Private State’ essential for smart contracts to function. sMPC security protocol offers this functionality, making smart contracts secure both before and after user interaction.
It is noteworthy that the environmental footprint of the network is very less due to the PoS-combined ABFT consensus mechanism. It is also possible due to the careful adoption of the DAG technique that makes the consensus mechanism even more energy efficient.
The company has also signed the Crypto Climate Accord, an environmental initiative by international non-profit private organizations, pledged to bring down the greenhouse emissions of the entire crypto industry to zero by the year 2040. It also collaborates and contributes to certain carbon dioxide offsetting projects.
AZERO is the native cryptocurrency coin of the ecosystem used for transaction fees, gas fees and making payments on the network, and can be used for trading in the secondary market. Along with that, the owners of the coin can also use it to generate passive income by depositing it in the staking pool and nomination pool. It has a limited total supply of 333,844,989 AZERO.
At the time of writing the article, the price of AZERO was 0.969386 USD, indicating an increase of 2.91% over the past 24 hours, and the 24-hour trading volume was 1,213,190 USD. With the current circulating supply of 231,490,300 AZERO, its current market cap is about 224,403,456 USD.
There are several dApps up and running on the network including lending protocol Abax, identity management and domain-name service AZERO.ID, NFT collection Nuclear Sharks, smart contracts development company Brushfam, software development kit company Subsquid, and a lot more.
The upcoming projects include Liminal and Shield. Liminal is a multichain privacy layer protocol used by any network that bridges itself with Aleph. Shielder is a series of advanced smart contracts that will be ZK-enabled and Turing Complete, for enabling a wide variety of DeFi activities.
Besides these, several ambitious third-party projects are on the horizon to exploit the scalability of the network. These projects go beyond DeFi; they are to leverage blockchain technology for real-life applications. These include IoT (Internet of Things), the supply chain sector, virtual reality games, payment services, and automated tax payments, among others.
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