CREDITS – Creating a Fast Future-Proof Blockchain
CREDITS is the platform for creating blockchain and smart contract services that are based on price and speed. Now, despite the popularity of Ethereum, the network has many disadvantages, including its speed and price of transaction. The Ethereum platform is used primarily to issue tokens, ICOs, and to create services with one-time operations that do not require high speed. Whereas the CREDITS platform is perfect for creating products on a blockchain: financial and payment services, the Internet of Things, gambling, banking services such as loans and fundings, accounting of the exchange transactions and many others. CREDITS is capable of conducting transactions in about 0.01 seconds. They are making the platform valid for a wide range of users.
Their goal is to reach the astonishing number of one million transactions per second. CREDITS has successfully completed its pre-ICO by reaching the set hard cap on the 26th of December 2017, raising 4029,12 Ether or 3 million dollars.
CREDITS’ Background
Igor Chugunov, CEO and founder of CREDITS, explained: “We have realized that it is tremendously difficult to build a quick and all-users convenient system based on the blockchain technology used for most of cryptocurrencies. This is why we decided to create our own cryptocurrency system to overcome all the disadvantages of Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies.”
Igor Chugunov took on the challenge and developed the CREDITS concept late in 2016. He received first investments by the end of the year. Venture investors brought $200,000 in their startup. This investment enabled them to start developing the CREDITS platform in January, 2017. They have already created a prototype and MVP, and are now at the stage of working on the full-fledged Alpha-version.
Token Sale and Usage
The CREDITS team told us they think it is necessary for a crypto project to be developing through an ICO, although they admit not everyone will understand this decision. The project has no income, as a matter of fact, some venture funds are even surprised with the fact that the project has no profitability. Igor Chugunov told us: “Well, there is some, but it serves for maintaining the network owners. That is, all commissions are distributed to node owners, those who support the network as other blockchain projects.”
Igor Chugunov clarified the use of the token: “Any use of the platform other than data reading is paid. Users shall pay a certain price in the internal currency (CREDITS). Only with our currency you can create, execute a smart contract and save the information in the blockchain or perform an operation with the CREDITS currency.”
Major Competitors
Igor Chugunov tells us about their competitors and explains where CREDITS is doing better: “Main competitors – Iota, EOS, Ethereum. As soon as this or that technology is used for transactions, the customer pays for mining, i.e. for keeping the platform ‘alive’ and creating new blocks that preserve data. Miners get paid with the so-called ‘Gas’ in the Ethereum network. ‘Gas’ is peculiar kind of fuel charged for the use of electricity. The cost of ‘gas’ is set by the users, and it is expressed in ‘Gwei’, so ‘Gwei’ is the price for ‘Gas’. However, the price determines whether the transaction enters or not the next block.”
“The Ripple platform does not rely on the traditional blockchain but uses a similar principle of no mining. However, it issued coins XRP that were distributed on the market of cryptocurrency. Every participant is charged 0.00001 XRP for a transaction. This is not the commission though but just the way to protect them from spam by transactions. And the sum of money is lost with the lapse of time. The amount of XRP coins decreases on the market and their value consequently grows.”
Fully Autonomous Smart Contracts
Ethereum smart contracts are not fully autonomous. Not everybody knows that Ethereum, who was a pioneer in the smart contracts development, has limited facilities and cannot implement everything a user may want to. For example, you cannot adjust regular debit payments or a fixed debiting date. In this situation, you need to send a command to perform this operation.
Team Formation and Culture
CREDITS is an international team of young and hardworking enthusiasts concentrated on achieving ambitious goals.
CEO Igor Chugunov is a banking specialist and has significant experience in the creation and development of financial and Internet services in banking and credit sphere.
Evgeny Butyayev is a technical director and developer with ten years’ experience in finance. He was studying and upgrading blockchain technologies for a Polish company SRI Infotech during the last three years.
David Kolmachidze is an experienced investor and staff consultant in blockchain projects. He is focused on building partnerships and analysing ICO marketing strategies.
Today the team employs about 30 specialists: developers, programmers, marketers, lawyers.
CREDITS’ Roadmap
In the beta version, it is planned to create Blockchain backup. It means that the system will allow to create a backup of the storage and transfer it to another physical location (computer). This will minimize the time to restore the local wallet and its subsequent synchronization with the network registry.
Pros
The CREDITS platform promotes low commission and the highest possible transaction speed. The network offers a guaranteed low commission of approximately up to 0.001 of the dollar’s value. Clients are not supposed to pay extra for the transaction’s passing to the next block like in the Ethereum.
According to Igor Chugunov: “We have a new technological architecture that includes the following: a completely new blockchain architecture with a consensus algorithm, a system for storing information, with built encryption, the ability to compress data, and no mining.”
Cons
A quote from the interview with the CREDITS team: “A transaction in the CREDITS is done even faster starting from 0.01 seconds and depends on the connection quality between the user’s PC and the network, i.e. on the internet. The platform uses its own hybrid consensus algorithm for the transaction validation.”
Reading this, we are a bit concerned about the blockchain security because they are using a hybrid consensus algorithm. Besides that, not everyone has an optimal internet connection, so we expect the verification time to be slower for most PCs. At last, we are a bit skeptic about the stated number of one million transactions per second. However, the Alpha version will point out if it’s possible.
In Conclusion
CREDITS is a very promising project. I like the fact they are implementing fully autonomous smart contracts enabling developers to perform all operations easily. They are taking a big gamble by adopting a new blockchain’s architecture. It is a positive thing that data is being compressed and that they will develop a possibility for creating a backup of the blockchain state. Considering the prospects, it can become a big thing indeed, if they can truly reach one million transactions per second with a transaction verification time of 0.01 second.