What Is Harmony (ONE)?
Harmony is an open-source blockchain network that aims to provide high-speed transactions at lower costs. The platform allows users to exchange digital assets, digital collectibles, secure identities, etc. The Harmony network supports cross-chain transfers for major blockchains, including Ethereum and Binance. According to the whitepaper, Harmony seeks to overcome the shortcomings of other currencies by providing highly scalable network infrastructure.
Apart from scalability, Harmony claims to offer secure sharding and cross-shard transactions for addressing existing problems plaguing blockchain networks. Sharding is a database division technique that helps blockchain networks to process a higher number of transactions per second (TPS). The cross-shard transactions, Harmony states, allow cross-chain databases to interact with each other to ensure consistency. The platform also claims that sharding can improve network scalability without compromising security or decentralization.
Harmony uses a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism to verify transactions, which it claims improves energy efficiency and transaction speed. However, the platform aims to bridge the gap between PoS and proof of work (PoW) via its in-house block architecture, FlyClient. Additionally, the Harmony mainnet supports four shards of 1,000 nodes, which helps reduce block times to as low as two seconds. Blockchain nodes are small interconnected servers that exchange information within the ecosystem. Similarly, the platform aims to build an extensive node network governed by an integrated community called Pangaea. Out of the total 1,000 nodes, the platform states that about 800 are run by the Pangaea community, consisting of validators from over 100 countries.
Harmony states that developers will be able to access faster EVM executions by migrating on the platform and changing the Chain IDs. EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) is a software platform that facilitates the creation of decentralized applications (DApps) on the Ethereum blockchain network. However, the platform claims to allow users to work on Harmony from any Ethereum wallet, MetaMask or Ledger, without any code changes.
ONE is the on-chain cryptocurrency of the Harmony platform. Having 18 decimal units, the native token is designed to facilitate the monetary flow within the economic system of the Harmony platform. The token performs multiple utility functions within the ecosystem, including governance of the platform. Community members need ONE tokens to vote on essential decisions to improve the decentralized platform. Likewise, users can stake ONE token to become block validators and earn staking rewards as compensation. Furthermore, the platform collects ONE tokens from users as transaction fees.
Harmony claims to have used a novel PoS mechanism called effective proof of stake (EPoS), aimed at reducing centralization and fair reward distribution. The model seeks to provide simple and predictable returns to the validators. Moreover, ONE tokens collected as transaction fees in this model are burned with the intention to curb the supply. Token burning means sending a certain number of tokens to an inaccessible address to remove them from circulation permanently. The ONE token is integrated with ten cross-chain protocols, including Chainlink, Edgeware, Gnosis Safe Multisig, API3, and others.
History of Harmony (ONE)
The Harmony mainnet was launched in June 2019. The platform was cofounded by Stephen Tse, Rongjian Lan, Sahil Dewan, and Nick White. Tse is a blockchain engineer and a former researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. Lan is a former engineer at Google and an academic with over ten original papers to his name. Dewan is a Harvard Business School alumnus, while White is an electrical engineer from Stanford University. The Harmony network claims to have produced more than 30 million blocks with over 450,000 transactions executed using the native token.
How Are ONE Tokens Created?
Harmony states that 441 million ONE tokens will be issued every year, using the EPoS consensus mechanism. Therefore, new ONE tokens are created by staking, where validators stake a certain number of existing ONE tokens to validate block transactions and receive block rewards in return.
