“Decentralized ICO Platform…”
Komodo was originally designed as a cryptocurrency to provide Bitcoin with anonymity. It was a fork of the ZCash protocol, which itself was a fork of Bitcoin.
Today, Komodo seems to have transitioned into providing somewhat of a framework for initial coin offerings (ICO’s) and other “blockchain as a service” operations. More importantly, it’s also seen as a suite of systems which have been combined into a central blockchain offering.
The service is made up of the following components:
Decentralized method of exchanging cryptocurrencies via atomic-swap technology.
Fully decentralized cryptocurrency anonymizer.
New cryptocurrency consensus mechanism, that is as secure as the proof-of-work blockchain to which it attaches itself to (In this case: Bitcoin), but does not require computing power and energy to be wasted.
- Decentralized Fiat Currencies
Bridge between the old centralized and the new decentralized financial infrastructures will help accelerate blockchain adoption.
Of these systems, only BarterDEX is the only one which has had sufficient work performed on it.
It’s basically a way for crypto tokens to be transferred between two or more parties without the need for a central regulator or processor.
Whilst the Komodo system seems to have some support online, the main problem facing developers and users is “What does it actually do?”. In the online tech world, the absolute core necessity for any system is what it actually does in the world – the result it creates for users.
Ethereum created the idea of smart contracts, Bitcoin gave the world “decentralized transactions” – what about Komodo? You have to be very careful with many of these crypto systems – the low barriers to entry and general lack of business acumen in the market have lead them to become increasingly sporadic – and the hype surrounding Bitcoin has lead them to be populated with money.
What is Komodo?
According to their website, the Komodo platform is designed to provide a system through-which ICO’s can be created and distributed. Unfortunately, not much more than that is presently available through their website.
The main problem with Komodo seems to be a lack of core focus. The system has 4 main components (listed above), which basically create a set of different functionality for the system. This would be fine… if there was an underlying business case for all of this, but this is lacking.
As we’ve mentioned numerous times – there are two types of crypto system – currency and platform based services.
Currencies – like Bitcoin etc – are highly volatile because of their dependence on Bitcoin for adoption. Most of them don’t really do anything differently to BTC and thus are not really viable business propositions.
Platforms – such as Ethereum, Ripple and Stellar – are somewhat different. They don’t rely on Bitcoin and are actually able to provide their own value, and thus attract adoption. Consequently, they are much less volatile than the currency systems and are better able to provide specific functionality.
Since Komodo is positioning itself as a platform (it used to be a currency), it really needs to bring some more functionality to the table than the smattering of features that it’s providing at the moment.
Who created it?
The team behind Komodo seem extensive, but you must appreciate that since it’s an open source project, many of the contributors will be unpaid volunteers.
- JL777 (Lead Developer / Founder)
A member in bitcointalk.com forums, NXTforum, bitco.in forum, on his own Steemit site and in the SuperNET slack.
After joining the BitcoinDark community he eventually became its lead developer. The vision was to create a privacy centric cryptocurrency, which now has led to the announcement and development of Komodo.
Why does it exists?
According to their Whitepaper,
“Komodo is to blockchain technology what Linux is to operating systems”…
The Komodo project is an advancement in the causes of the decentralization and open-source movements; we focus on blockchain technology.
Therefore, while The BarterDEX itself is necessary as we work to further the Komodo endeavor, it is also ultimately separate from Komodo.
Were we to design The BarterDEX to be permanently locked to Komodo, it would make Komodo a centralized point of control. This would be contrary to the principles of decentralization and open-source development.
Trajectory
As with many “currencies”, the price of Komodo is somewhat influenced by that of Bitcoin.
The problem with this is that the price can fall as well as climb, as has been evidenced by this system. In an attempt to differentiate, it appears that the creators started to focus on making a more platform type approach, the results of which are yet to be seen.
The most important thing to remember is that whilst this system is meant to provide a series of technical innovations, at its core – the “value proposition” is somewhat lacking and ultimately, heavily reliant on Bitcoin.
As explained numerous times before, the currency side of the crypto world is heavily dependent on the adoption & market potential of Bitcoin – with most other systems ending up as reflections of the main. This is no different with Komodo.
Komodo’s core offering is to create a privacy centric currency for the world. This has already been done with ZCash, but – again – demonstrates the project is a technical play, rather than a core economic proposition (with profit).
