In case you have never heard about Flow, it is a fast, decentralized, and developer-friendly blockchain built for NFTs. In today’s article, we are going to talk about what it is and how it works.
In 2017, the Ethereum blockchain was almost brought to a halt due to immense congestion with the launch of one of the first non-fungible token projects called CryptoKitties. Current-gen blockchains obviously couldn’t handle such heavy demand. Plus, NFTs were becoming increasingly popular and something had to be done. So instead of waiting for Ethereum scaling solutions to take their time and mature or finding another blockchain for its decentralized app, developer firm Dapper Labs built a new blockchain on its own called Flow; a new home for its dapps and a blockchain that also other developers could rely on.
Flow was built exclusively for non-fungible tokens (NFT collectibles) and large-scale crypto games. It is made for extensive scaling without the need for sharding techniques in order to provide fast and cost-effective transactions, which is why dapps such as crypto games and NFT marketplaces find it so beneficial.
How does it work?
Considering Flow currently uses a proof of stake (POS) consensus mechanism, validators need to stake a certain number of FLOW tokens in order to participate in the network, but at the same time, it is nothing like other blockchains. One of the many things that makes Flow unique is that it splits validation tasks into four separate types of nodes: and has all four of them validate each transaction to achieve significant improvements in speed and throughput. Flow’s method of splitting up the tasks is an alternative option to sharding, which Dapper believes keeps transactions consistent, isolated, durable, and atomic and makes processing transactions much more efficient than on other blockchains.
Consensus Nodes: Guarantee decentralization
Verifier Nodes: Guarantee correctness
Collector Nodes: Increase efficiency
Execution Nodes: Enable speed and scale
Flow also features upgradable smart contracts, meaning smart contracts can first be deployed in beta and can be fixed or enhanced before being finalized.
Dapper’s popular NFT marketplace NBA Top Shot is already an enormous success for the blockchain, and the news that CryptoKitties will soon be migrating to Flow, it can find much larger audiences in the future and may even become ‘the people’s choice’ blockchain for such creations. Dapper Labs also works with other high-profile partners such as Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), well-known game publisher Ubisoft, gadget giant Samsung, and Warner Music Group.
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