What Is Band Protocol?

Band Protocol is a cross-chain data oracle platform for connecting real-world data and APIs to smart contracts. Blockchain oracles are entities that connect blockchains to external systems, allowing smart contracts to execute depending on real-world inputs and outputs.

As per the official docs, The project hopes to achieve the following objective : 

• Speed and Scalability: The system must be capable of serving a large number of data requests to various public blockchains with minimal latency and high throughput. The expected reaction time must be in the range of seconds.

• Cross-Chain Compatibility: The system must be blockchain-agnostic and capable of serving data to the vast majority of publicly available blockchains. The verification of data validity on the target blockchains must be efficient and trustless.

• Data Flexibility: The system must be versatile and capable of supporting various methods of retrieving and aggregating data consisting of both permissionless, publicly available data and information protected by centralized parties.

• Components: Two of the most important components of Band Protocol are the BandChain and BandChain Oracle. BandChain is a high-performance blockchain designed for data oracle whilethe BandChain Oracle solution functions as an intermediary layer between smart contract platforms or decentralized apps and various data suppliers.

Problem: To start off, smart contracts are just like regular contracts; however, instead of being drafted on paper, these contracts run in the form of protocols on the blockchain. Smart contracts excel at immutable storage and verifiable transactions, but their use cases were previously limited due to their access to external data. Most blockchains are unaware of what is going on in the real world and cannot access data that is not native to the chain. While most existing smart contract platforms allow for the trustless execution of arbitrary algorithms, they lack access to real-world data. This constraint prevents such contracts from reaching their full potential. BandChain was created to address this issue by connecting public blockchains to real-world, off-chain data. 

There have been multiple attempts at finding solutions. Three major limitations persist:

• Centralization: Contemporary data solutions, such as API (application programming  interface) feeds and some oracle systems, are designed to be centralized. This not only contradicts the concept of decentralization and distrust, but it also constitutes potential security issue data tampering and outages for the users.

• Network Congestion: All major oracle solutions suffer network congestion due to the solution being on the same blockchain as the application. As a result, if the blockchain network becomes overburdened with outstanding transactions, the data request transaction would be delayed as well.

• High Cost: They are pricey. This is due to the costs of researching, developing, and deploying the solution, as well as the different expenditures connected with operating and sustaining it over time.

Solution: According to the whitepaper, BandChain Oracle has the following advantages over other oracles:

• Decentralization: BandChain Oracle is decentralized by implementing maximal redundancy on two distinct layers of the infrastructure design: BandChain validators (consensus level) and data source level.

• Flexibility:The platform's data source scripts and oracle scripts enable users to query and compute their preferred data feed with maximum customization and freedom.

• Cost: Band's oracle enables anyone interested in requesting data to do so only when necessary and to pay the corresponding fees on a per-request basis. This is more economical than having to update the prices of an entire collection of assets when you may just require the most recent price of one.

The native token of the platform is BAND, and it is based on the ERC20 token standard.

History of BAND Protocol

Band Protocol was cofounded in 2017 by Soravis Srinawakoon, Paul Chonpimai ,and Sorawit Suriyakarn. Srinawakoon is presently the CEO of Band Protocol. Chonpimai is the network's CPO and was formerly a web developer at Turfmapp and an engineer at Tripadvisor. Suriyakarn is the protocol's CTO. Initially, in September 2019, Band Protocol was launched with an ERC20 standard on the Ethereum blockchain. 

How Are New BAND Tokens Created?

Bandchain is a Cosmos-based blockchain. BandChain uses a delegated proof-of-stake consensus mechanism to secure the decentralized oracle network. Accordingly, BandChain's validators process transactions and produce new blocks. As a result, the validators earn BAND tokens as a reward for block minting. At the same time, the reward for processing transactions comes from a fee that each validator can set. Additionally, a percentage of the total block reward is sent to the community fund pool. Users who do not want to become validators can stake their holding on existing validators. They are known as delegators and earn a portion of the validators' rewards. For this, delegators pay a commission to their validators on the revenue they earn.

How Many BAND Tokens Are There?

The total supply of BAND is one billion coins.

How to Buy Bandchain Protocol (BAND) Tokens

You have a lot of options when it comes to Bandchain Protocol (BAND), including Coinbase. You can buy Bandchain Protocol on Coinbase.com or Coinbase app, anywhere Coinbase is available.