Introduction
Byteball is a DAG-based decentralized ledger that supports smart contracts and uses native tokens called Bytes and Blackbytes for private transactions. One of the first services to make use of Byteball’s ledger is the Byteball wallet, which has been released for both Android and iOS devices.
In December 2016, developer Tony Churyumoff attempted to solve many shortcomings with Bitcoin and other similar crypto networks, including latency of transactions and the high cost of mining, with Byteball, a distributed ledger that uses smart contracts and a new consensus algorithm. Unlike conventional blockchain-based solutions, Byteball employs a Directed Acylic Graph or DAG, which potentially improves issues with scalability and block size. The storage of data in the Byteball network takes place through the creation of a storage unit that holds transactional data, the signature of a transaction’s creators and confirmations or references from existing units. As the network follows the DAG structure, which guarantees that none of the storage units are linked to one another in a cyclic fashion, it is impossible for transactions to be reversed. The smart contract feature of the Byteball wallet makes sure that a transaction is passed through the network only when it satisfies the pre-established conditions, and in case of failure, sends tokens back to the original address. Bytes are transferred systematically through smart contracts, defined by the users, which ensure that honesty and trust is maintained throughout the network.
If a user prefers to make a transaction privately, he or she can pay using Blackbytes, an untraceable cryptocurrency for transactions that are not visible to the public. For additional privacy there is also a TOR switch in the wallet.
Proponents of Byteball believe that its DAG structure make it suitable for P2P payments. The Byteball wallet app enables users to execute transactions based on pre-defined conditions. The DAG-based solution is also designed to support P2P insurance, market predictions, P2P betting, in-chat payments, and chatbots.
Founder
Tony Churyumoff launched the Byteball network in December 2016.
Distribution Details: Airdrop
Instead of an ICO, the creators of Byteball decided to carry out a series of Airdrops by which the tokens would be distributed for free. The network distributed cryptocurrency to random Byteball wallet holders by transferring the tokens directly to users’ Byteball wallets. Between December 2016 and November 2017, Byteball completed 10 Airdrops, during which 64.5% of the total supply of Bytes had been distributed.
Key Products
Byteball wallet
Notable Features
P2P Payments: Byteball allows its users to perform irreversible, peer-to-peer transactions.
Market Prediction: Users can create self-executing smart contracts that can perform certain types of transactions based on the occurrance of specific events in the market.
Insurance: Byteball can create a smart contract which can act as an insurance contract that pays out only when a certain event occurs.
Micro-payments: Byteball allows users to send transactions efficiently irrespective of the value to be transmitted.
Smart contracts: The Byteball network executes various tasks based on Smart Contracts.
DAG-based Structure: Byteball is DAG-based, which potentially means faster micro-transactions, better scaling capacity and unlike blockchain solutions, needs no miners.
