What Is Agora (VOTE)?
Agora is a blockchain-based platform that provides decentralized digital voting systems. It is created with a series of decentralized apps (dApps) to allow anyone, anywhere, to vote online. The platform seeks to enable communities, businesses, and government agencies to combat fraud and corruption, cut expenses, and make voting a modern, engaging, and convenient exercise.
Most countries' voting methods are inefficient and obsolete. In most circumstances, citizens must still go to polling stations and cast ballots using manual, error-prone systems. Due to the difficulties and frustrations of outmoded voting procedures, many eligible voters eventually decide to abstain from voting. To address the issue, Agora aims to disseminate fair and transparent elections globally with end-to-end verified blockchain voting technology.
According to the whitepaper, the digital voting ecosystem is based on a proprietary blockchain with three technological innovations: Skipchain, Cotena, and Valeda:
Skipchain offers a consensus mechanism with high throughput and efficient transaction verification.
Cotena then enables storing cryptographic Skipchain proofs onto the Bitcoin blockchain. Agora leverages the Bitcoin blockchain as part of its larger architecture to store data because the Bitcoin network is a large decentralized system of computers. Its blockchain is believed to be extremely safe and data immutable.
Finally, Valeda verifies Skipchain and Cotena data using cryptographic proofs.
As a result, the platform's design aims to provide end-to-end verification while maintaining a high level of security.
The native token of the platform is VOTE. After an election, the Valeda network's “Citizen Auditor Nodes” perform validations on the voting results. VOTE token holders who choose to enter a dedicated contract with Agora are confirmed to run Citizen Auditor Nodes. They stake their VOTE tokens and audit the elections remotely under the contract conditions, after which the stakers earn paid tokens for the services they provide.
History of Agora (VOTE)
Agora was founded in 2015 by Bryan Ford, who led the Decentralized and Distributed System Lab (DEDIS) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) with his team of engineers and researchers, and Leonardo Gammar, a successful entrepreneur with a passion for blockchain who grew up in diplomatic circles.
