Over the last decade, there has been significant growth in the market cap of the crypto industry with many investors entering the market in hopes of earning high returns. Concurrently, governments worldwide have released numerous stimulus packages in an effort to support their respective economies under extraordinary circumstances. Considering these stimulus packages and the current global pandemic, there is real concern about the future value of centralized currencies and the risk of hyperinflation.
Additionally, it is fair to say that money is controlled by a small population that is content to continue allowing the increasing wealth gap between the rich and poor. Credit access and the ability for the middle and lower classes to enter particular markets is growing increasingly difficult in many parts of the world.
Crypto assets and decentralized finance (DeFi) provide an alternative to the traditional economic model. Ergo is actively building the tools to empower the average citizen while attempting to address many of the socio-economic problems societies currently face. Ergo’s smart contract platform is developed to be an avenue that can increase financial equity for everyone.
“It is all too often those at the bottom who suffer in separation from those at the top, who initiate the suffering. This cycle of economic abuse needs to be broken.”
– Ergo Manifesto
Ergo’s ERGOHACK II
Ergo hosted a hackathon this last June. In the event, developer teams were invited to submit projects with the goal of developing new tools and dApps (decentralized applications) for the Ergo ecosystem. The event was a great success with many projects set to be developed for implementation in the Ergo Ecosystem. Some of the proposed ideas included developing tools for data notarization and NIPoPoWs. A non-custodial, pseudo-ETF platform for users to pool their assets in an investment portfolio was also workshopped during that hackathon. Additionally, a team developed a concept for a raffle where a percentage of the funds are allocated for charity while another team developed a web app to analyze Ergo’s blockchain and trading.
Ergo platform has recently announced the second iteration of their hackathon, ERGOHACK II. ERGOHACK II will take place from October 8-10, 2021 and explore the theme of social transformation.
ERGOHACK II encourages teams to create solutions for mass blockchain adoption as they relate to social transformation. The participants will work closely with Ergo’s development team and all projects will have the chance to earn a prize. The prize pool totals approximately 9,000 SigUSD and there is the chance that an ERGOHACK II participant will be offered a job interview to work for Ergo. The ERGOHACK II application deadline is September 15, 2021 and interested participants can apply here.
Quick View on Ergo
The technology behind Ergo was developed by the immense experience and knowledge of the core development team. The Ergo platform was founded by Alexander Chepurnoy and Dmitry Meshkov who are both alumni of IOHK – the research arm of the Cardano Foundation. They both have many academic papers to their credit and worked together on the Scorex project before at IOHK.
Ergo is a Proof-of-Work blockchain with no ICO (Initial Coin Offering) or pre-mining. This means the platform had a genuinely fair launch. At the heart of Ergo’s inspiration is equity and the network is developed to be non-interactive and decentralized to maintain privacy and security. Autolykos is Ergo’s proof-of-work consensus algorithm which is built to be ASIC resistant, allowing people to utilize personal computers with a single GPU to have equal access to the mining protocol and rewards.
Ergo has a supply of 97.4 million ERGs. The emission schedule will end within eight years from the launch of the mainnet. In the first two and a half years, the Ergo platform gets 10% of the distributed ERG supply or 4.37% of the total emission supply. These are the only funds the foundation will get from the mining protocol.
You might wonder how the network will be sustainable when all ERG are mined within eight years? What will reward miners to maintain the blockchain? The Ergo network has devised a solution that will continue to incentivize miners with not only transaction fees but also a storage rent protocol. The storage rent protocol allows the network to recover 0.13 ERG for any UTXO box which is not spent within a four-year span.
Like Bitcoin, Ergo is developed on the unspent transaction output model (UTXO). Notably, the Ergo platform is categorized as an extended unspent transaction output (eUTXO) model. This is because the blockchain allows for smart contract functionality and it achieves this through the use of its native language, ErgoScript, and the application of novel Σ-protocols (sigma-protocols). Ergo also employs the use of Non-Interactive Proofs of Proof of Work (NIPoPoW) in order to create applications that enable light clients and side chains. When considering Ergo’s structural design and features such as ring signatures, multi-ring signatures, advanced privacy, and self-replicating scripts, it becomes clear that Ergo is a game-changer.
All-in-all, Ergo has been hailed as a future top 10 crypto asset and the “spiritual successor to Bitcoin” by Charles Hoskinson. The platform has asserted itself as a significant player in the industry as a blockchain that develops advanced features and radically new DeFi functionality.
Ergo (ERG) Market Position and Exchange Listing
Ergo’s native token is ERG and it currently holds the 126th position on CoinMarketCap. ERG’s price is trading at $17.13 with a 24-hour trading volume of $7,406,567 at the time of press.
ERG Price Chart (Source: CoinMarketCap)
ERG is listed on top crypto exchanges such as Kucoin, Bitcoin.com, Changelly and Changelly Pro. In addition to these listings, ERG is also available on Biki, Waves DEX, Hotbit, Gate.io, TradeOgre, TIDEX, Probit, swop.fi, Coinex, Vite, and Consbit.
Ergo’s DApps
Ergo has numerous dApps developed in its ecosystem, however, the Ergo community is particularly looking forward to the anticipated release of ErgoDEX. This powerful DEX will provide shared liquidity between AMM and Order Book liquidity pools, high functionality with buy-back and partial filling orders, and cross-chain interoperability on both the Cardano and Ergo blockchains.
Other Ergo dApps include Ergo Auction House, ErgoMixer, Ergo NFT’s, Ergo Utils, Oracle Pools, SigmaUSD, and Zero-Knowledge Treasury.