Ah, finally getting back into the normal shit. Back to reading the whitepapers of various projects and spewing forth upon my readers with an actionable opinion that matters not! I'm still working on my own Ethereum token project, and of course I hope to get that up and running in say... about 11 months or so. Stay tuned for that. It's gonna be fun at the very least.

I'm excited, because today's interesting little project is a bit... different from the others. There's a lot of math here; not as much formalism and research as say Cardano (oh my God that was terrifying) but a little more involved than say, the Stellar Consensus Protocol. It's a nice Goldilocks Zone between the two and for once, the major idea of the Whitepaper in a Math-Heavy Whitepaper actually made sense! WHOO!

So, What's The MAJOR Idea Here?

Basically, Holochain wants to approach the problem of security and maintaining a decentralized ledger by thinking "Outside The Block" (Go ahead and hit me up for that one, HoloChain, I'll take about 100 HOT for that slogan). Every major cryptocurrency since the beginning of time (2008) has run on a super cool thing called THE BLOCKCHAIN! I know that my audience is no bunch of pansies when it comes to tech, but I'll give you the Cliffnotes anyway.

Say you got two guys. Their names are Bob And Dick. Bob has a piece of paper on with a bunch of transactions from his last cocaine run. He also has a password. In order to say, "connect" his shady transactions to Dick's Transactions, Dick also has to agree on Bob's password. The password they agree upon is the "Chain" that connects their "blocks" of transactions (AKA the pieces of paper that contain the cocaine sales and Hooker buys). Dick also has another password that must agree with the next guy in the chain, let's call him "Carlos". Carlos has some experience with blockchain tech, having worked for a rather unhinged guy in a warehouse for about 4 months (until he lost his shit after a coke bender, where he beat the shit out of the other employees and fled into the woods naked). Carlos has a set of transactions too, but he also has a password that agrees with Dicks' password. And so the chain continues on...

Now, there are several cartels in the greater North Texas Area; There is not just one copy of the of these connected ledgers. Each cartel has their own copy and their own version of Bob, Dick and Carlos. Their transactions agree with each other, and if there is a disagreement, they have a means of coming to consensus and agreeing on the ledger. The big issue is deciding which "copy" of the ledger gets to be the "Head Hancho" of the ledger, and how everyone agrees on it. That's Blockchain in a nutshell.

So, How is HoloChain Different?

Block chain, as Holochain puts it, is very "Data-Centric" meaning that the hashes and keys and such are the main arbiters of how all this works, so to speak. The nodes (cartels in the previous example) do not necessarily have to "agree" with the other nodes. In short, they have their own special list of transactions that serve as  part of a greater distributed whole (The so called "Distributed Hash Table". So, presumably, every node doesn't need an entire copy of the distributed ledger to maintain, but maintain their own little piece of it, which is subject to rules and validation in a more generalized broader sphere. The math is about six theoretical computer science courses ahead of my understanding, but the gist is made clear; It is an "Agent-Centric" way of doing things, where basically everyone runs their own shit, and makes sure it agrees on a bigger scale through validation and rules and such. Interesting to say the least.

But... Why??

Well, this answer is pretty clear. The first main why is that the nodes help validate the ledger without having to rely upon a "Proof-Of-Work" algorithm. In short, transaction validation and other fun little activities of the PoW system without actually having to do the really power intensive stuff like cracking cryptographic hashes and whatnot. The system is truly distributed and the nodes/agents play a role in maintaining the chain in a much different way than say, Bitcoin or Ethereum. I know this is a very high level explanation, and I hope it makes sense; They did away with the traditional blockchain in favor of a method of distributed ledger maintenance that allows the nodes to do less work. That means less electricity! The second main why is what many different crypto projects yearn for; an increased scalability that say, bitcoin doesn't have. This unique setup is what (in their words) allows for greater scalability. That's pretty awesome.

What Do I Think of All This?

This is fresh. It's different, and... it's still relatively young, being established in 2018, so keep that in mind. One of the really Cool things is that you can buy a node from them!

I want like, THREE of them.

So yeah, you too can earn crypto and help validate a distributed system with a plug and play device right in your own home! The fun thing about this is that you can use HoloPort to earn "Holo Fuel" which can then be used as a source of income or as a "payment" for your own hosting applications. That's pretty nifty. Wanna be your own Crypto Enthusiast Master without raising alarms in your dorm room ("How in the HELL did you use 2000 kWH of Electrcity in a WEEK?")? Now you can. 

But, Is It worth It?

Let's take a look at the financials:

That's one hell of a market cap and a volume for such a tiny priced coin. My guess is that there are a lot of inflows and outflows through associated exchanges that make for this. That's a good sign, it means it is being used and I imagine as the project matures, there will be more of this to come. This of course relies on a couple things:

1.) The GODDAMN CORONAVIRUS FUCKS OFF.

2.) Increased adoption of the technology.

3.) SERIOUSLY, THE CORONAVIRUS MADE BITCOIN LOSE HALF ITS VALUE IN A DAY HOLY SHIT.

4.) Increased applications and use cases, such as a holochain social media "Dapp" and others. Which of course, falls under the "Increased Adoption".

Any Case, I think that this (NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE, JUST INTERNET ASSHOLERY HERE) could make for a really good investment for the long term. There are of course 177,619,433,541 Holo coins at the time of this writing GODDAMN. That's a lot, but that's why I say it is a long term investment. We need the stock to flow model to hit the next halvening event for BTC, as well as mass adoption for this to become a highly valued asset. That's not impossible, for even if this is worth 50 cents per coin in the future, that would give it a rough market cap of about 50 Billion dollars, which will be small potatoes in a few years if everything keeps growing like Stock-To-Flow Says it should. Give it to say... 2022, and if the tech still pans out, you'll see some huge returns here (Maybe).

Thanks SO SO much for reading, I REALLY appreciate it. I'm nearing 1100 followers, which is the tits! I love you, followers, in completely consensual way that doesn't include butt stuff. Unless you want it to include butt stuff. That being said:

SHILL of the WEEK!

Okay, so I signed up to be an affiliate with Amazon Associates. I know, I know, whatever right? Well it's a pretty simple thing, All I really gotta do is tell you about a product I have used or otherwise know about, and BOOM! If you like it, buy it! If you don't, Well, just click on it anyway. If you do that, I'll get a commission from whatever you buy from Amazon for 24 hours!

TODAY, I'm talking about THIS GUY:

This bad boy is a device you can use to store the mnemonic phrase to you Bitcoin/AltCoin Wallet securely and safely. Comes with little tiny stamps that you can use to stamp the phrases into the metal (That's just freaking awesome) and it has a tamper evident seal. Cold Storage with a Vengeance.

Store your shit long term and safely. At The Very Least, Check This Shit Out On Amazon, It is A Legitimately Cool Low Tech Solution To High Tech Magic Internet Money. And, your shopping will help me carry on my own projects moving forward and allow me to keep on bringing on the goods!

Until next time, keep your eye on the markets, Justin Sun can kiss my Black Ass, and I'll see you on the HoloDeck.