What’s blocking the success of Blockchain?
Blockchain technology is revolutionary, but there are various issues. 2 of the main ones are speed (also known as transactions per second) and the complexity.
Insufficient speed means that it is not yet ready to function as a global solution. 3 transactions per second is Bitcoin’s current peak. This may suffice if a few thousand are using it, but it is not suitable for the masses. These numbers fail miserably to be comparable to centralised systems like PayPal for example.
Complexity is an issue because as revolutionary as the technology may be for security due to its decentralised nature, it is not easily adoptable by the masses. This prevents the solution from becoming globally viable, especially due to the lack of experts in the area of Blockchain technology.
Sparkster’s vision?
Sparkster has attempted to provide a solution that will make Blockchain technology everyone – and not just a select few. They have sought to develop a state of the art platform that allows you to create applications without requiring any prior coding ability. Their solution is a plug and play platform that utilises the technology associated with Blockchain under the bonnet.
We invented a language that’s plain English. Statements that are so simple, a child can understand them. No more cryptic syntax that’s impossible to decipher.
But that’s not all! They have also managed to address the speed-scalability issue through using a “decentralised cloud”. This has allowed them to hit speeds of transcending anything seen in the industry to date. Their claim sounds ambitious, but they intend to hit 10 million transactions per second through the integration of virtual hardware and smart decentralised based coding. That said, their most recent tests were able to hit 52,963 transactions per second – which is phenomenal! The video for this can be found here:
The Demo
Sparkster have taken this a step further by providing several online demos for users to try. The progressively build up in terms of complexity, but overall, provide a relatively thorough picture of the platform’s current capabilities.
Having tried the demo, several things were clearly apparent straight away:
1. The platform is simple.
There’s a lot of simplicity to the platform at face value – whilst they allow you to do a plethora of things. They seem to strike the right balance here. However, there is always the concern (as with all plug and play type platforms), that there is sufficient flexibility to perform any complex implementation you could possibly imagine.
2. There is immense room for growth.
The concern posited at the end of point one is quickly superseded by this point. Sparkster’s design means they can always add more and more functionality to capture features as they are demanded. It is clear to see that the platform can much room for improvement and growth in this area which is cause for excitement.
3. There were issues but more with the demo itself as opposed to the platform
There were several issues that I encountered during the walkthroughs – which I’m sure many others probably did also. That said, they are still at the ICO stage and they have functioning platform with a training / demo environment available already. This is a wonderful amount of progress so early on and thus a few bugs are to be expected – it’s not expected to be perfectly stable. Additionally, all of the problems were related to the demo environment itself as opposed to the platform. Therefore, the demo’s instability is probably not a good measure when determining the stability of the platform itself.
Roadmap
The picture above is of the Sparkster Roadmap.
Above, you can see from Sparkster’s roadmap, the solution they’ve provided is a mature one, having begun as far back as 2014. They have already delivered upon a number of their milestones however the 2 next big deliverables that stand out are:
• The ARM certification – due Q3 2018; and
• The public alpha release of Sparkster Decentralised Cloud – due Q4 2018.
Team
The picture of the leadership team above has been taken from the Sparkster website.
This team is being led by Sajjad Daya, a man who has performed excellently on the AMAs. But not just that, taking a look at the leadership team, we can quickly see that there are many big company names being mentioned e.g. Cisco, Citi, Accenture, AT&T etc. The wealth of knowledge and expertise possessed within the team seems quite exceptional.
Additionally, they have a relatively large team of software engineers to help aid the process of delivering the product. Their collective experience is also broad ranging and very impressive. The following picture has been taking from their website:
The above picture was taken from the Sparkster website.
Expert Ratings
As always, it is useful to cross-reference any project against some expert opinions (i.e. influencers and websites) because it’s informative and quick to do. That said, here are some of the results:
• Shadow – 86%
• Liu – 88%
• KriptKeeper: 92%
• Black Dragon: 76%
• Tom Chase: 90%
• ICO Drops: 85%
• Ian Balina: 90%
Against various standards, by a range of influencers who focus on different metrics, this ICO constantly scores highly. Ian Balina’s score has often been referred as potentially “shilling” the project in exchange for financial remuneration. Regarding this, I don’t seek to validate or refute the claim, but in light of the numerous other good reviews, the project is definitely worth watching with or without his personal influence.
Conclusion
As per usual, this is not financial advice, and you should consult a financial advisor before investing. Yet, my personal opinion the concept is fresh, innovative and hopefully extremely useful for the global adoption of Blockchain technology. Thanks for reading!
If you like, give it a thumbs up!
Think others will, then share for others to see!!
If you want more, follow / subscribe!!!
Website:
https://sparkster.me/
Bitcointalk Annoucement Thread:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4350911.0
White Paper:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_341kbDEDc9PWn4lbsCGpAmcqDqcggUq/view
BitcoinTalk Profile:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2031579