Because the Digitbyte is not a very well-known currency compared to giants such as bitcoin and ether, many are unaware of its history, features, and uses. A deep dive into the Digibyte, however, reveals a fascinating token that challenges the idea of how a cryptocurrency should ideally function.
History and overview
The Digibyte was first launched in 2013 and is the creation of Jared Tate, an American developer who wanted to improve on the Bitcoin Core protocol. The Genesis block of the Digibyte was mined in January 2014 and Tate began dedicating all his efforts towards the project. The project saw a significant boost in the mid-2010s after it was adopted by Dutch shopkeepers. Despite this, Digibyte has not yet seen the level of acceptance as major tokens like bitcoin, even though it was designed to improve on the Bitcoin protocol.
Digibyte has experienced a number of hard forks over the course of its existence. These include the DigiShield hard fork in February 2014 which protected the ecosystem from large mining pools, the MultiShield hard fork which activated DigiShield across the new MultiAlgo platform, and the DigiShield hard fork which increased transaction speeds. As of May 2020, Tate has stepped back from the Digibyte project. This is due to what he called greed that exists within the ecosystem and has corrupted the original Digibyte vision.
Philosophy
Many blockchain ecosystems and cryptocurrencies are founded on one philosophy or the other and Digibyte is no different. In the Genesis block for Digibyte, a headline from an article from USA Today wad featured which touched on privacy and data philosophy within blockchain. It should be noted that the Genesis block for Bitcoin contained a headline that spoke on the bailouts given to large corporations during the 2008 economic crisis. Just as Bitcoin is thus believed to be founded on the principle of creating an alternative to the existing financial systems, Digibyte is thought to be founded on the principle of privacy and responsible data usage.
Inner Workings
In terms of its inner workings, Digibyte is not that much different from major blockchains like Bitcoin. The ecosystem generates blocks which are mined by interested parties in exchange for tokens as rewards. However, it works more efficiently than Bitcoin in this regard. Digibyte works as a UXTO blockchain (in a similar vein to Bitcoin and Litecoin) but has the fastest block generation speed of any such blockchain.
The Digibyte architecture is made of three different layers that operate simultaneously. The first is the Core Protocol Layer which exists at the bottom of the structure and is responsible for the transfer of data across the nodes. This layer is essential to the operation of the blockchain as a whole and is also integral to the Digibyte goal of decentralizing the network over time. The second layer is the Digital Asset and Public Ledger Layer as the Security and Administrative Hub. This layer acts as a storage unit for all the data that passes through the ecosystem. Besides this, it also acts as a host for the security mechanisms for the Digibyte blockchain and the public ledger for all Digibyte transactions.
The final layer is the Application Layer as the Front of the DigiByte Architecture which acts as the most visible part of the ecosystem. This is the interface that users interact with and where transactions are carried out. It will also act as hist for decentralized applications, centralized applications, and smart contracts.
Token Use and Storage
Despite Digibyte’s higher block generation rate, its faster transaction times, and low transaction fees, it is still not as widely used as its contemporaries. This means that there are fewer places that accept its native token as a medium of exchange, though that might change soon thanks to the ecosystem increasing in user numbers. Regardless, tokens can be either mined or purchased from the exchanges that deal in DGB such as Coinbase and HitBTC,. Once acquired, tokens can be stored in compatible wallets.
As of June 2020, Digibyte had a market capitalization of $225 million, with 13,224,792,053 DGB in circulation and a maximum supply of 21,000,000,000 DGB.
Security
The Digibyte ecosystem has put a number of protocols in place to protect users and these have often been initiated through hard forks. The DigiShield hard fork, for example, protects the ecosystem against large mining pools that mine large amounts of tokens at low difficulty. Digibyte also runs five proof-of-work alogrightms which are SHA256, SCrypt, Groestl, Skein, and Qubit.
