The article excerpt below was first published by Savannah Morning News. See the original article here.
2018 was an interesting year for people in technology and finance. Financial sectors started to see cracks in our global economic stability, following in the wake of an incredible ten year bull market. Similarly, Bitcoin and cryptocurrency investors and enthusiasts saw an unprecedented boom in alternative digital currencies in late 2017 and early 2018, followed by a vicious bear market that closely mirrored the dot com boom and bust of the early 2000s.
As we begin to settle in to 2019, I would like to introduce an exciting new technology that was revealed in 2018 and is staged to make impressive inroads in the year to come. This technology has implications that could profoundly impact the way the world does business in nearly every sector. Finance, hard and soft technologies, even blue chip industries like manufacturing and logistics all stand on the precipice of a virtual revolution.
Savannah, Georgia, meet Hedera Hashgraph, a public distributed ledger technology (DLT) that is taking the world by storm.
Hedera Hashgraph is a DLT similar to its more well-known counterpart, the blockchain, but hashgraph has many advantages over blockchain. It is incredibly fast, it is fair, it boasts the gold standard of security, and unlike most blockchains, powering it does not require super computers and vast electrical consumption.
What’s a distributed ledger?
First, let’s take a quick look at public distributed ledgers. What are these, and why should anybody care? Essentially ledgers are ways of recording and totaling transactions of various kinds, usually monetary. Their usage in economies of every scale is ubiquitous. You could say that the very idea of an “economy” is an abstraction of cumulative ledgers.
The next question we should ask is, “what does it mean for a ledger to be public and distributed?” The most familiar example of a DLT is undoubtedly Bitcoin. Bitcoin, and other DLTs, are peer-to-peer systems of exchanging value, powered by the math-magic of cryptography. Cryptography is the science of secret codes and digital keys, which makes these public and distributed ledgers possible. We can use them to safely share and receive information with people that we do not inherently trust.
Now, let us say “Hello Future” to the next generation of DLTs, Hedera Hashgraph. Hedera Hashgraph is a fast, fair, secure DLT that has the power to change the way the world does business. The hashgraph algorithm was created by Dr. Leemon Baird who paired up with his long-time friend and business associate Mance Harmon, to create a company called Hedera. Together they are sharing Dr. Baird’s exciting math discoveries with the world, in the form of a public DLT called Hedera Hashgraph.
For those of you that might be thinking “Okay…what the heck is a hashgraph? In my day hash was…” I know, I get it, I had the same thoughts when I heard people talking about hash this and hash that, but a hash is a way to represent data without revealing the contents of the data.
Adding speed to data
How fast is hashgraph? Blindingly fast. When compared to most blockchains, hashgraph is like a fighter jet traveling at supersonic speed, while blockchain is like a snail creeping in the grass. The most common blockchains are capable of a mere three to seven transactions per second (TPS). Visa’s payment network runs around 2000 TPS. Hashgraph is capable of an impressive 100,000 or more transactions per second. At scale, the capacity of the hashgraph network could jump to millions of transactions per second.
Even more important than the impressive speed of Hedera’s Hashgraph, this DLT also boasts the gold standard of security, aBFT, and has been formally proven to be as secure as is mathematically possible.
Clearly Hedera Hashgraph has advantages over other established blockchain technologies, so what does this mean for Savannah or the world at large?
With the power of its superior technology, Hedera is poised to revolutionize many of the businesses that call Savannah their home. Touted as “the trust layer of the internet,” Hedera provides a platform for building amazing solutions to some very serious challenges.
Medical data, supply chain, port logistics, even things like the sale and tracking of art and streaming music all stand to benefit when they can transact in a way that is fast, safe, fair, stable, and cost effective. Never before has this kind of decentralized economy been possible, but the power and magic of cryptography, riding in the saddle of modern technology, changes everything.
Jeremy Fletcher is a writer, musician, philosopher and technology professional. Jeremy and the Hedera Ambassador Program, at the Bull Street Labs, 2222 Bull St., Savannah, meet 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. third Mondays. Contact him at info@ledgerama.com. He is not a Hedera employee; the opinions in this article are his own and are not intended to represent Hedera. The Creative Coast is a non-profit organization supporting local innovators which is made possible by the City of Savannah and the SEDA.
https://www.savannahnow.com/business/20190206/jeremy-fletcher-hashgraphs-speed-secure-data