The evolution of the Ethereum imitators/innovators has been fascinating. From “killers”, to “second-layer solutions that support them”, it’s a beautiful thing to see. Crypto projects realised that replacing the established crypto giants will not be an easy task.
The majority of “superior technologies” and “blockchain 4.0” talks fell into the realm of scams and vaporware, which led investors to cling on to the old, reliable, but flawed code of Bitcoin and Ethereum.
In order to avoid reinventing the wheel, many crypto-up-and-comers have decided instead to offer solutions that address long-standing problems with privacy, scaling, fungibility, etc. Market leaders were hampered by these issues in the past. TomoChain is one project which has taken the tested and proven Ethereum formula, and enhanced it with features to enable commercial scaling.
What is TomoChain?
TomoChain is marketed as an “innovative” solution to the scalability problem that has plagued Ethereum since its conception. While Ethereum’s PoW algorithms make the network fair and secure, they struggle to handle transaction throughputs above 25 txps. Vitalik Buterin has worked to fix this issue. Solutions like the Casper protocol and Raiden Network, which are in-house solutions, have been developed.
TomoChain is looking to jump in and offer their solution. A scalable blockchain, which will support thousands of transactions every second for the Internet of Value.
Internet of Value is envisioned as a blockchain/Internet-based marketplace of values, digital assets and information that is transparent, secure, programmable, and globally accessible. TomoChain aims to create a horizontally scaled network that offers instant confirmations, near-zero transaction fees and is ideal for both small and large businesses.
TomoChain (mainnet, launched in December 2018) is a blockchain that uses 150 masternodes and an algorithm known as Proof-of Stake Voting.
Holders will have to stake a minimum of 50 000 TOMO tokens in order to become masternode candidates. These candidates are voted on by other coin holders/stakers to decide which of them will be selected to become TomoChain Blockchain validators.
Voting dApps credit their votes; users are listed after depositing tokens. After confirmation, masternodes create blocks using a double validation/round robin consensus model. The masternodes who have finalized the blocks at the end of every epoch are rewarded. The Stakers that voted for these masternodes are also rewarded.
TomoChain also uses technology such as double validation, smart contracts staking, and uniform randomization in order to guarantee chain stability and finality. This will all be part of an effort to build a blockchain with technological solutions such as sharding and EVM parallelization. The blockchain will also include private-chain creation.
Tomochain Consensus Algorithm
The current architecture has several problems that this algorithm should solve:
- Efficiency The low throughput rate of Bitcoin and Ethereum is a major obstacle to the widespread adoption of these crypto-currencies.
- Confirmation Times Bitcoin confirms a transaction in an average of 1 hour because it takes 5 blocks to follow a Bitcoin block. Ethereum has a shorter block time, but the average confirmation still takes around 13 minutes. The long confirmation times are a hindrance to many applications, especially smart contracts.
- Fork generation: This problem consumes a lot of computational time and energy. It also creates vulnerabilities to different kinds of attacks.
To encourage masternodes , the project uses a rewards system. This is used to keep them motivated to perform their validator tasks in an ethical manner.
This rewards system will extend onto the developers and early adopters/contributors to the network, a built-in economic incentive to create valuable content that will help “bootstrap” the social network’s knowledge base until a network effect kicks in. This entire reward system is based around the token of the project, TomoCoin.
TomoChain Token – TOMO
TomoCoin, the TomoChain’s official cryptocurrency, is a digital asset that was created by the TomoChain Blockchain. The tokens were originally ERC20 tokens based on Ethereum, but they have now been switched to the TomoChain blockchain mainnet.
Masternode Council may decide to change the supply in the future. The total supply can be increased by up to 1 million TOMO each year. The remaining amounts will be divided over 8 years after the first sale of TomoCoin.
- 50% – crowdsale investors
- Company and Advisors 15%
- 35% – Rewards engine for masternode/ecosystem building program
TomoCoins are traded under the ticker TOMO. Tokens will drive TomoChain’s economy by stimulating the development of the network and ecosystem. They can also be used to reward ecosystem members and for on-chain governance.
TomoChain is usually traded with BTC and ETH. TomoChain pairs with Bitcoin in trading, and it is available at exchanges such as Hotbit, KuCoin, Vinex Gate.io DDEX and Dex.top. TOMO is not listed in any major exchange, but this shows that it has the potential to grow.
Ecosystem and Products
On top of the architecture, there is an entire ecosystem that includes gaming, open finance, and enterprise applications. You’ll also find:
- Tomo Building: Own a Tomo apartment on the Blockchain or a building as a whole.
- Tomo3D: Purchase T3D tokens through TOMO, and receive passive income each time someone purchases or sells tokens on their exchange.
- TomoDome is similar to TomoBuilding
- Bigbom – Smart-contracts for multi advertising models like CPC, CPM, CPA, CPI, etc. Bigbom Eco is a platform that uses smart contracts to ensure the payment between advertisers, publishers and ad-platforms.
- Midas Protocol is a universal crypto wallet that provides a platform for crypto traders.
TomoChain’s ecosystem includes the Trust wallet – a multi-coin secure wallet for Android and iOS that was recently purchased by binance. TomoChain lists projects such as MetaMask and MyEtherWallet, which are both based on Ethereum.
TomoChain has interoperability as it supports all EVM compatible smart-contracts and protocols. They also support atomic token cross-chain transfers. TomoChain has also released or plans to release products of its own:
- TomoScan : Displays blocks, transactions and finality information, as well as smart contracts, DApps, tokens, D-Apps, etc.
- TomoMaster allows users to apply to a Masternode candidate position, to vote on Masternodes as well as show statistics about Masternode performances
- TomoWallet : Store, send and receive TOMO tokens and other tokens on TomoChain securely; allows users to track and vote for rewards
- The decentralized exchange protocol TomoX is a secure, efficient and relayer-masternode protocol.
Advisors and Team
Long Vuong – Founder and CEO, also TomoChain Project Lead. Vuong was the co-founder of NEM (New Economy Movement) blockchain, as well as the previous project leader.
Le Ho, CFO and Co-Founder – Le Ho has over 10 years experience in finance and investment. She is also a CFA Charterholder. Formerly worked as Senior Investment manager at BVIM, and Director of Investment Banking Division for HSC Securities Company.
Son Nguyen is a valuable co-founder and CTO. Son cites the creation of Blockchain Developer Group (which currently has more than 800 members) as being his greatest accomplishment.
Tung Hoang is a co-founder and product manager of Tomo Wallet. Tung has experience as a FullStack Developer & Smart contract Developer.
Tu Nguyen is a Blockchain Lead Engineer and seasoned Cloud Computing expert. Cloud Native Computing Foundation Authorized Developer. Engineer of several open-source cloud computing softwares (kubeless kubeapps kompose kubewatch). Master degree in Distributed Systems.
TomoChain, a Vietnam-based blockchain startup, has a good mix of individuals with the necessary expertise to build and run a high quality blockchain. The team also receives advice from experts like Willis Wee – Founder of Tech in Asia – Roger Lim – General Partner of NEO Global Capital – and Thuc Vi, CEO and Cofounder of Kambria & OhmniLabs.
Partnerships/Investors
TomoChain has a list of investors that includes NEO – the “Chinese Ethereum ”. This is an intriguing investor, to say the least. Both projects aim to create a similar product to Ethereum. The future dynamics of NEO/TomoChain are likely to include joint work as well as expertise/technology-sharing.
Signum Capital (Global Blockchain), Hashe, Coefficient Ventures One Block, Connect Capital Callisto Capital are some of the other names who have invested in Tomo.
TomoChain has already partnered with a few projects as part of its ecosystem. NEM, Devery Binance Wanchain Huobi Kyber ReplyBlock Bitlearn Binkabi BIgbom Vnext Midas Protocol 0chain IoTBlock Tech In Asia, are all projects that are looking to build applications using TomoChain’s infrastructure, or have a close connection to its team. Son Nguyen, Long Vuong and other key Tomo personnel are connected to the Vietnam Blockchain Developers Group.
Road Map
The TomoChain development team is a small group of 40 people who seem to have their full attention on the project at this time. TomoX 0.1 is currently being developed.
- Add Support to Cancel Order
- Orderbook TomoX APIs
- Balance your TomoX
- Use the tomoX matching engine
- TomoX is a decentralized ordering system.
Updates for other products such as TomoScan and TomoMaster are in active development. They should be released around the same time.
What conclusions can be drawn from this information? TomoChain is the new project that will “kill” Ethereum, or take the world of cryptocurrencies to a higher level. Although their vision clearly shows them doing this, at the moment it is difficult to make any predictions.
TomoChain is developing features for their infrastructure. But so are Ethereum, NEO, Zilliqa Cardano EOS and many other Ethereum-clones who are interested in becoming key players on the market. It will take time to see which of these blockchain projects is the most scalable, user-friendly, affordable, and efficient.
