3 Reasons Why BitShares Is Unlike Any Other Cryptocurrency

image credit @TonyPeacock

With hundreds of cryptocurrencies on the market and uncertain regulation ahead, users can easily feel lost in their investment strategy. Which coins or tokens are worth the most? More importantly, which coins or tokens are worth investing in?

While other websites and influencers will debate over where you should place your money, BitShares (BTS) provides compelling arguments for its own existence. Make no mistake: BitShares remains one of the most democratic, profitable, and practical cryptocurrencies of its kind.

In this post, we’ll highlight a few reasons why BitShares is unique and warrants a closer look. Let’s begin.

A Democratic Model

Unlike Bitcoin’s Proof of Work, BitShares uses a Delegated Proof of Stake consensus mechanism- a unique system that allows stakeholders to vote on consensus issues. These issues include “network parameters, fee schedules, block intervals, transaction sizes” and more, according to the website. Only the 101 elected delegates in the BitShares network can receive transaction fees as rewards, while “witnesses” are paid for validating blocks (grouped transactions).

image @ParticlProject

BitShares also features a unique, self-sustaining, stakeholder-approved funding model. Bitshares has a reserve pool of 1.2 billion BTS, which rises and falls based on the collected fees and daily share price. 432,000 BTS are authorized for daily use, which creates enough value for a small development team to maintain the platform. The reserve fund ensures there is always a budget to ensure the platform runs as smoothly and efficiently as possible.

One way the platform grows is through transaction fees for witnesses and delegates. As fees are charged to non-member users (roughly $0.20 per transaction) or exchange users (0.2% of trade volume), BitShares is able to grow at a faster rate than its competitors. In addition, a special group called Refund Workers return their pay to the reserve pool for future use and investment. BitShares returns power and control back to the people and away from powerful entities. No other platform makes its money back in transaction fees quite like BitShares.

Graphene Technology

The BitShares platform promises “industrial performance and scalability”, but what exactly does that refer to?

Introducing Graphene, the underlying technology that makes BitShares possible. Unlike the blockchain protocol followed by Bitcoin and Ethereum, BitShares uses a system designed from the ground up.

By observing the LMAX Exchange, Graphene was engineered to process 100,000 transactions per second without any stress to optimization. Some of these fundamental features included keeping everything in memory, avoiding synchronization primitives (locks, atomic operations), and minimizing unnecessary computation. Instead of hashes, IDs are used.

Combine that with hundreds of other tweaks to transaction size, smart contracts, static validation, and you have a platform unparalleled in terms of speed and efficiency.

Real Business Application

The most alluring aspect of BitShares? It’s application. This is not a speculative coin or a proof of concept. BitShares is real, commercially available, and usable towards decentralized trading, purchasing goods or donating to campaigns.

Take the Billion Hero Campaign for example. Designed to bring crowdfunding into the cryptocurrency age, the Billion Hero Campaign allows users to donate BitShares to charitable causes of their choice. Existing campaigns include the Evander Holyfield Humanitarian Disaster Preparedness campaign, to the Children’s Health Fund. BitShares helps contribute to these goals in a fun and collaborative way.

Another use case is Bitspark, one of the pioneers in blockchain-powered remittance. With support for 180+ currencies, BitShares is the only platform and token capable of scaling to such an international level. Compared to Bitcoin and Ether, BitShares offers a decentralized solution with incomparable speed and access.

BitShares continues to grow, inspired by an international community of technical experts, creatives, entrepreneurs, and dreamers. It turns out that the unique aspects of BitShares, especially its DPOS consensus system, Graphene technology, and practical applications, take the best of existing crypto technology and updates them for an international audience.

While there are still some kinks to be worked out, the future is bright for this young platform. In the future, we’ll look to see a greater commercial adoption of BitShares, as well as cooperation with legislatures towards sensible regulation.

Until then, it’s time to start exploring the world of BitShares. You may be surprised with what you learn.

The author is not an attorney or financial advisor. None of the content presented should be construed as investment advice or as legal advice.

Originally posted this story about Bitshares on Medium here.