Meet Analog: The world’s First Proof-of-Time Layer-0 Blockchain

It goes without saying that the next frontier in blockchain evolution is omnichain – providing unlimited scalability and complete interoperability without compromising on privacy and security.

Admittedly, web3 and DeFi are still in their infancy, but their potential growth may be curtailed by the bottlenecks plaguing the entire blockchain industry. Ideally, interoperability should be seamless – without the need for bridges, sidechains, or oracles. And this is where Analog comes in; its omnichain capabilities solves the blockchain trilemma.

What is Analog?

Analog is the world’s first Layer-0 blockchain, powered by the Proof-of-Time consensus mechanism. This means that it is a decentralized omnichain protocol guaranteeing seamless cross-chain interoperability without the need for bridges, oracles, or sidechains. In this case, omnichain means that Analog is compatible with all existing blockchains – it’s best described as the “Blockchain of Blockchains.” All of this is possible because, as a Layer-0 blockchain, Analog can accommodate existing blockchains and allow for entire blockchains to be built on top of it. And with the omnichain Timegraph, Analog complements dApps on existing and new blockchains.

This makes it the ideal chain agnostic interoperable blockchain, and by using cross-chain event data transfer (XCEDT) protocol, Analog collates event data from all dApps and makes them actionable. As it is, Analog has targeted all web3 participants, ranging from dApp developers, blockchain engineers, and average day-to-day users in DeFi and metaverse. By design, Analog eliminates the blockchain trilemma – scalability, security, and privacy – solves the liquidity fragmentation problem, and creates a thriving DeFi ecosystem.

What is event data?

As used in Analog blockchain, event data is any data subscribers want to measure and their associated attributes. These include real-world events such as supply chain tracking data, dApp activities such as buying a token and transferring them between wallets, and complex activities like staking cryptos in various liquidity pools. Ideally, any activity on or off-chain results in events that can be time-stamped and their attributes identified.

Note that a Layer-0 blockchain is usually called the data transfer layer since it integrates blockchain and real-world legacy networks. Analog achieves this using the tesseract time node, which extracts event data from external networks, seamlessly connecting the real world with blockchain.

How does Analog Work?

The beauty of Analog is in its simplicity. But for us to fully understand how it works, let’s first familiarize ourselves with its fundamentals – the proof-of-time (PoT) consensus, the Timechain, Event Data Marketplace, Timegraph, and the time nodes.

Proof-of-Time Consensus

Analog uses the proof-of-time (PoT) consensus mechanism. PoT is a verifiably secure, environmentally sustainable, and highly scalable consensus algorithm used to validate event data on the Analog blockchain. Specifically, it was designed to answer two questions regarding event data. Firstly, is there any proof that an event actually happened? And secondly, how sure can we be sure that the said event actually happened?

To guarantee a truly decentralized ecosystem with validated event data, PoT leverages the ranking score, trust index,  fixed staking, weighted lottery, ranking score, trust index, and verifiable random function (VDF). These aspects address the major shortcomings of PoW blockchains and the interoperability bottlenecks of PoS blockchains.

Unlike PoS blockchains that favor validators with the highest number of tokens, PoT uses fixed staking and ranking score to determine which node proposes and confirms subsequent blocks. And unlike the energy-intensive PoW blockchains that favor miners with the higher computational power, any node can propose and confirm blocks in PoT. It uses the verifiable delay function (VDF) to deter malicious time nodes from faking event data when submitting block proposals.

Consensus in Analog blockchain under Proof-of-Time occurs in two steps – block proposal and block confirmation.

Block Proposal

Block proposal is also called “soft voting.” Here, event data is broadcasted to the network, and the time node that receives it forwards it to “time electors.” Their work is to collate the data, compute the VDF then forward it to the rest of the time nodes.

Block Confirmation

This stage is also called “hard voting.” 1000 time nodes are generated through the VDF-based weighted lottery to participate in confirming the event data. The block is added to the Timechain only if two-thirds of the time nodes accept it.

Timechain

Analog’s ledger can best be described as a Timechain. The validated blocks are found here; they show the event data, the previous block’s hash, and the VDF proof. Analog’s Timechain is the first-ever decentralized and interoperable omnichain protocol. This is made possible using Analog’s Timegraph API, which allows the conversion of real-world events and data into Continuum smart contracts, and vice versa. It also guarantees cross-chain interoperability, making it the backbone on which Omni-dApps can be built. And to safeguard the privacy of the event data, Analog uses zero-knowledge scalable transparent arguments of knowledge (zk-STARKs) to transfer event data between dApps.

What Problems does Analog Solve?

Analog’s main selling point is that as a Layer-0 blockchain, it effectively solves the blockchain trilemma and unlocks liquidity throughout DeFi. Admittedly, a few blockchains have attempted to solve the blockchain trilemma but ended up sacrificing one aspect for another – say decentralization, for interoperability – making them counterintuitive.

Scalability

Current blockchains have a maximum number of transactions per second (TPS) that they can handle, which basically caps their scalability. Bitcoin, for example, can only handle about 5 TPS, and Ethereum roughly 12 TPS. In fact, in terms of scalability, Solana is the most promising, with up to 50,000 TPS, while its closest competitor, Stellar only process 3,000 TPS. Ideally, the lower TPS generally has more to do with the blockchain’s consensus mechanism, with proof-of-work (PoW)-powered blockchains being the slowest. Faster blockchains like Solana using sidechains tend to trade off security and complete decentralization for scalability.

Analog’s Proof-of-Time consensus mechanism supports hundreds of millions of interconnected time nodes, resulting in higher throughput. Blocks are confirmed in about 0.4 microseconds, making it about 4700 times faster than Ethereum and 1.5 times faster than Solana.

Analog’s PoT consensus mechanism employs Block Pipelining using Mempool to store unconfirmed blocks. This verifiable delay function minimizes confirmation delays ensuring that massive blocks of event data are confirmed easily and rapidly copied across the network. And it does this without compromising security.

Interoperability

This is perhaps Analog’s biggest accomplishment – it ushers in the Layer-0 omnichain future. There is no way to leverage cross-chain communication between all dApps fully. This inability to share data means that the entire DeFi ecosystem is inefficient, and liquidity is mainly fragmented in different ecosystems.

Before Analog came along, users could transact cross-chain using bridges, oracles, or sidechains. While these provided cross-chain solutions, they are wildly inefficient. With bridges, for example, tokens from one chain must be burned to generate wrapped tokens. They would then need to be converted to the destination chain’s native token at high fees. Unintentionally this results in highly unscalable centralized networks. Oracles and sidechains provided by blockchains such as Polkadot and Cosmos are plagued with this problem.

As a Layer-0 blockchain, Analog ensures omnichain interoperability with an action in one dApp can trigger another action in another dApp on a different chain. And with the tesseract time node, users can collect verifiable real-world event data onto the Analog blockchain, while the Timechain facilitates asset transfer with ‘Event Proofs.’ That means users can transfer assets on different chains without the need for bridges, oracles, or sidechains. This would especially make it easy to create multi-chain order book decentralized exchanges (DEXs), solving the liquidity fragmentation problem.

Note that the Analog network is also upgradable. It plans to implement a universal SDK so that any chain can easily be onboarded onto the network and guarantee that any node can join the network as a tesseract node. And when Analog’s Testnet goes live later in Q2 2022, it will launch a universal wallet for users to access global liquidity and interact with cross-chain dApps easily.

Decentralization and Privacy

PoW blockchains depend on computing power, which means mining power is concentrated on a few entities. The same applies to PoS blockchains which favor large token holders. Analog’s proof-of-time eliminates this quasi-centralization using a fixed stake approach where all time nodes are required to stake equal amounts of Analog. A block must be verified by two-thirds of the self-selected consensus time nodes randomly selected depending on their ranking score.

To attack the Analog network successfully, a malicious actor must attain more than 99% of the ranking score and control more than two-thirds of the randomly selected time nodes. The ranking score, which plays a significant role, is computed from the node’s time relevance, reputability, and average weighted value of its neighboring nodes. This makes it impractical to compromise Analog, unlike other blockchains, which are susceptible to 51% attacks. It also uses a recursive zero-knowledge proof protocol (zk-SNARKs) to safeguard user data privacy.

ANLOG Token

ANLOG is Analog blockchain’s native token, minted as ERC-20 and BEP-20 tokens. They are used to incentivize broadcasters who provide the time data and the time nodes that verify it.

ANLOG can also be used to pay network fees in DEXs or when swapping tokens. And once the Analog Timechain Mainnet goes live, sometime in 2022 Q2, ANLOG  holders can use it for governance and staking.

Tokenomics

A fixed maximum supply of 90.58 million ANLOG were minted. Here’s how it’s distributed:

Uses of Analog

Now that we understand how the Analog blockchain works, it’s easy to see how it can be used in every aspect of our lives, not just in DeFi and metaverse. In DeFi, Analog’s Layer-0 omnichain solves the problem of liquidity fragmentation and cross-chain trading. Outside of DeFi and metaverse, Analog is ideal for the following sectors: education, supply chain, healthcare, construction and maintenance, retail, finance, and government.

Analog’s tesseract node is all made possible, which fetches event data from external chains, seamlessly connecting the real world with blockchain.

The Bottom Line

Admittedly, there are hundreds of competing blockchains, and while this is good for growth and innovation, liquidity tends to be segregated and locked in different ecosystems. And projects that strive to provide interoperability end up compromising on privacy or decentralization. But as a Layer-0 omnichain, Analog ensures seamless cross-chain interoperability for all current and future blockchains.

Its Proof-of-Time consensus mechanism provides a truly decentralized ecosystem, which leverages ranking score, fixed staking, ranking score, trust index, and verifiable random function (VDF). These aspects address the major shortcomings of PoW blockchains and the interoperability bottlenecks of PoS blockchains. It also provides a developer-friendly ecosystem where anyone can use the Timegraph API to convert any real-world event data into continuum smart contracts.

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