What Is Harmony (ONE)?

If you're interested in discovering new opportunities or crypto use cases, checking out different altcoin projects may be an excellent idea. You may have seen or heard about the Harmony network in crypto media. To assist you in learning more about the project, here is the relevant background information, its essential points, and ways to get involved.

Basics

Founded by Stephen Tse in 2018, Harmony is a blockchain-based platform utilizing the Effective Proof of Stake (EPoS) consensus protocol. Its main net went live in 2019, making it one of the newest post-Ethereum networks designed to address the blockchain trilemma of decentralization, scalability, and security. Harmony's solution lies in sharding and its proprietary EPoS consensus mechanism.

Harmony is a decentralized and secure blockchain platform that enhances scalability, security, and performance. The distributed network operates with high fault tolerance and enables decentralized applications to be deployed on its blockchain infrastructure. 

The native Harmony ONE token can cover transaction fees, governance contributions, and staking programs. You can exchange another cryptocurrency for ONE and store it in VM-compatible wallets such as MetaMask and TrustWallet.

Harmony Blockchain

Harmony's Cross-Chain Finance model is a crucial element of its platform. With the expanding demand for cross-chain and multi-chain capabilities, the blockchain has responded by providing bridging services between ETH, BTC, and other networks.

Harmony succeeded in its 2019 Initial Exchange Offering (IEO). As a part of its larger vision to expand Web3, Harmony uses zero-knowledge proofs and Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) to create secure, trustless transactions.

Harmony Sharding

Sharding is a vital part of Harmony's approach to providing security, scalability, and decentralization. By splitting the network into four shards, each handling different activities, users can be more confident in the safety and scalability of the network. Validation, transactions, block creation, and staking are all managed independently on each shard, enabling the network to operate more efficiently and securely. Overall, sharding is an effective way for Harmony to improve its network's security, scalability, and decentralization.

Harmony benefits from sharding because:

1. A validator only needs a partial record of all transactions on the blockchain.
2. At the start of every Epoch, validators are randomly allocated to the different shards to deter hostile shard takeovers. After the Epoch has concluded, validators will shift to another shard, and leaders rotate accordingly.

The maximum number of validators, BLS Keys, allowed per shard on the Harmony Network is 250. However, the number of shards and validators can be expanded to meet the requirements of the network should the demand for them increase. The Beacon Chain on Shard 0 serves as a bridge between Shards 1, 2, and 3, and all transactions will be completed in approximately two seconds.

Effective Proof of Stake

Proof of Stake and Effective Proof of Stake are similar approaches to validator and delegator models. With EPoS, validators stake the native cryptocurrency of Harmony (ONE) to run a node, which may potentially process transactions through a nomination process. Delegators stake their ONE coins to back the validator; this supports them in getting a portion of future block rewards and transaction fees. Upon getting chosen and linked to a shard, the validator consecutively creates new blocks and shares the rewards earned with their delegators.

EPoS stands out because of its reward distribution. In other types of PoS blockchains, rewards and power is consolidated among a few validators: the more you stake, the more you earn. In contrast, EPoS penalizes validators who have staked too much in a single node and rewards smaller stakes relative to their size. This, in turn, motivates larger validators to spread their staking over multiple nodes, thus ensuring better decentralization and lessening single points of failure.

EPoS is an attractive alternative to Ethereum's gas fees and Bitcoin's scalability issues due to its secure method for authenticating transactions and low transaction fees. EPoS offers a far more economical option than Ethereum and Bitcoin, which rely on Proof of Work.

ONE Token

The native token of the Harmony protocol, ONE, is utilized for:

1. Covering charges for exchanging data across a network.
2. Earn block rewards by delegating or validating via staking.
3. Participating in Harmony's system of open governance.

Validators are rewarded with a total of 441 million ONE every year by Harmony. At the same time, transaction fees are destroyed until the ultimate aim of achieving 'net zero' is realized, thus balancing out the amount of ONE given for block rewards.

Conclusion

As an investor, DeFi DApp user, or staker, you can explore and get involved with Harmony's flourishing ecosystem. Even with its current roadmap stage, you will find plenty of interesting features and activities to engage in.