What Is Flow (FLOW)?

Flow is a decentralized and developer-friendly blockchain. Flow is designed as a foundation for the new generation of games, applications, and digital assets. The Flow project claims to be based on an architecture that attains the required performance for mainstream applications. Such performance is achieved without any compromises with decentralization. Thus, a developer can build secure applications to help many people worldwide. The network is designed as the base of a new digital economy owned and governed by the users.

The Flow project empowers the developers to build cryptocurrency-enabled businesses. According to the documents of the Flow network, the project intends to keep consumers in control of their data. It also aims to provide the flexibility to developers to create digital assets that can be traded on any open market that is accessible around the world. The project also aims to build an economy owned by users, which helps users feel valuable.

According to the papers of the Flow project, four pillars make Flow different from other existing blockchain networks:

• The Flow project has a unique design that allows the network to serve billions of users without sharding or lowering the decentralization. Sharding is a process of making partitions in the database, which enables the blockchain to process more transactions per second and reduce latency. But by sharding, blockchain data becomes vulnerable to attacks by hackers.

• The project also claims that the smart contracts made on the Flow network are written via Cadence software. As per the papers, Cadence is an easy and safe programming language to build crypto-related assets and applications.

• The smart contracts in the project are upgradable, and the project also facilitates built-in support for users who want to log in to the Flow emulator.

• Flow is also designed for mainstream consumers who wish to trade crypto and payment to people worldwide.

Further, the Flow project has a multi-node architecture. In simple words, a multi-node architecture distributes the role of validating a transaction to different computers. Thus, this distribution helps other computers on the network to work on their own defined stage. This ultimately increases the speed of transactions and increases the network’s efficiency with low cost. The project also houses many tools that help the developer make decentralized applications.

Additionally, the Flow project uses specialized proofs of confidential knowledge (SPoCKs). SPoCKs are a new cryptographic technique developed by the Flow team. It is an algorithm used by miners to show their work to get incentivized. Moreover, the project uses proof of stake as a consensus mechanism. 

Speaking of the token, FLOW is the native cryptocurrency of the Flow protocol. According to the paper, the token is used by validators, users on the platform, and developers to earn a reward. The token is also used as a transfer fee used in a transaction. Further, the token works as collateral for a secondary token on the Flow network. Furthermore, the token is also used as a governance token. 

History of Flow (FLOW)

Dieter Shirley is the founder and CTO of the Flow project. Shirley has also served as a head developer in the iPhone ecosystem. Other members include Roham Gharegozlou as the CEO. Gharegozlou has degrees in biological sciences. Additionally, Mikhel Naayem is the chief business officer, and Alex Shih is the chief financial officer of the Flow project. 

How Are New Flow (FLOW) Tokens Created & Earned?

As per the project papers, Flow tokens can be earned in several ways. Around 1.25 billion FLOW tokens were created. A token can be earned primarily by being a validator in the blockchain. A validator receives newly minted FLOW as a reward for running a node on the network, also called mining. Further, a user can receive newly minted FLOW as a reward for making apps on the Flow blockchain. Also, a person holding a FLOW token gets holding rewards. Further, users can also stake their tokens on the network and gain new FLOW tokens in return.