What is Ark? (ARK)

Blockchain technology is all the rage at the moment. So much so that anyone looking for investment for their startup can slap blockchain on it and look that much more interesting to investors. Tech companies and startups have begun the race to disrupt niche industries by applying blockchain to just about anything you can think of, from gaming, streaming video, cellular data, insurance and more.

The problem is finding blockchain developers are few and far between, there is also no industry standard and deploying to a certain blockchain now could hinder future progress depending on support for the network. So how do companies explore blockchain technology effectively, efficiently and mitigate risk?

Well, Stratis is one option, the other is called Ark. Simply put, Ark has created a sandbox ecosystem where businesses and other users can create their own blockchain from a clone of ARK in just a few clicks.

In order make this ecosystem as widely-accessible as possible, the Crew is focusing heavily on providing an improved user experience and incorporating as many other blockchains and coding languages as possible. This gives developers more freedom of choice and ways to explore technology without restrictions.

What is Ark (ARK)?

While it may not sound like it, ARK is still a cryptocurrency at its base. What makes this project interesting is that is also an ecosystem that assists in the mass production of cryptocurrency. The Ark platform has been built on top of a very secure core blockchain. It also incorporates key decentralized technologies and viable use cases have been developed to showcase Ark’s ability.

The platform is geared to be user-friendly to make blockchain technology user adoption high. With time, this ecosystem will be able to adapt to all challenges as it advances. ARK was launched in February of 2017 by 27 members spread across the world. The team members are located all over the world from California to Bulgaria.

The ARK infrastructure is modelled heavily on that of three older projects: Bitshares, Crypti, and Lisk. In fact, some of the ARK developers were previously developers on some of those projects.

A brief introduction to Ark

Why you should pay attention to Ark?

Self-Sustaining

The point of Ark is to make the Ark stage open to customers effectively. This is to a degree that customers don't know that they are utilizing it. The group offers unique administrations that clients comprehend, need, and will purchase with the stage. The ARK group has grown more administrations and stages coming about because of the ARK innovation. This offers disconnected and online surges of income for ARK. This has prompted snappier innovative work for new and fascinating approaches to expand buyer cooperation, increasing the value of ARK, and instructing clients on blockchain innovation. Consolidation of income streams into this undertaking gives more specific administrations to reception by clients.

Privacy

Clients can send ARK exchanges utilizing ARK's Anonymous Network Integration which has discretionary protection. Protection applies to all administrations that have been made for the ARK platform. These administrations can likewise be offered by outsider innovation incorporation organization.

Security

ARK comprehends that security is a noteworthy worry to everybody. This is the reason security and cryptographic principals are joined all through the whole framework. This ensures a safe centre and meets the desires and prerequisites of the clients. ARK constantly attempts inner repeating entrance tests and hazard examination to offer a framework that meets the elevated requirements required for this sort of condition.

Smartbridge

ARK keen extensions connect together exclusive and valuable blockchains to extend the span of the stage. These shrewd scaffolds permit correspondence between blockchains that are approved and spanned. These blockchains consequently pick up a capacity to perform propelled capacities and assignments. With an end goal to interface the blockchains, keen extensions make a bond that is bringing together among different environments. For example, the ARK group will connect Bitcoin, Lisk, and Ethereum as the principal blockchain.

Speed

The centre of ARK has an arrangement that produces quick exchanges, having 8 second piece times. The higher throughput is accessible at whatever point ARK requires it because without bounds scaling that is effectively actualized.

Decentralization

The voting arrangement of ARK is more decentralized than different DPoS agreement models. Voting weight is spread over all votes as opposed to relegating all weight to one vote. Henceforth the whole system can't be assumed control.

What is Ark being used for?

Arks primary use case weighs heavy on managing the current and future disruption and chaos blockchain technology will eventually create. As companies and systems migrate to using blockchain technology, not all systems will be able to speak to one another. Using Ark as your backbone blockchain and building you're in-house system on Ark you will be able to integrate multiple tokens, blockchains and automation and cronjobs directly on the platform. If this sounds like greek to you allow me to give you an example.

If you're a small business owner of lets says a store. You accept consumer blockchain payments from Bitcoin since its the most popular with your customers. You're ordering system runs on Ethereum (for western suppliers) and Qtum (for eastern suppliers) because your suppliers use smart contracts to keep track of stock orders.

You're staff get paid their salaries using Litecoin so instant transfers can be done. All these currencies have their advantages for each situation but are all run on separate blockchains and languages. Having all these systems speak to one platform would be a nightmare to set up on your own, cost you a pretty penny and you would need to maintain it going forward. Using Ark you would be able to integrate your systems seamlessly and also have peace of mind that tech support and updates to improve the network will keep you secure and be running smoothly.

Can you mine Ark?

Since Ark uses ARK uses DPoS (Delegated Proof of Stake) consensus in order to produce blocks to the blockchain, it cannot be mined but you can vote for delegates and stake your coins.

Can you earn Ark?

Staking

The Ark system is designed to run on a permissionless proof-of-stake (PoS) network which means that the token holders will be able to stake their holdings to secure the network and receive Ark in return. To stake your Ark coins and earn you will need to:

1. Purchase some Ark coin from an exchange
2. Set up a native Ark wallet and send your coins from the exchange to your wallet
3. Register your ARK delegate
4. Setup your node
5. Secure your node (optional, but highly recommended-don’t forget to start the node after you are done via ARKcommander)
6. Get votes or upvote for yourself — a great place to start is our Slack and writing a proposal on our forum.

Trading

Ark users can earn digital currency via exchanges. Users can earn tokens through trading on different fiat and cryptocurrencies and take advantage of market fluctuations.

Where can you buy Ark?

Ark is listed on a range of international cryptocurrency exchanges and is actively traded on websites like:

• Binance
• Bit-Z
• Bittrex
• COSS
• Cryptomate
• Cryptopia
• LiteBit.eu
• OKEx
• Upbit

Should you invest in Ark?

Ark definitely has a promising concept and future expansion and forking of blockchain technology will only fuel the potential market for Ark. It is worth noting that in the currency conversion space it does face competition from Stellar Lumens and the incoming Atomic Swops technology. However, in the space of cross blockcahins support for Smart contracts, the Smartbridge protocol does have huge upside potential.

The Ark technology is still in infancy and keeping integration ties with multiple Blockcahins can and will consume a lot of computer power due to a lot of mathematical solutions that are used to validate transactions so keeping their promise of security, ease and speed will get harder over time as they scale.

For more on Ark check out their official website

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Disclaimer: This article should not be taken as, and is not intended to provide any investment advice and is for educational purposes only. As of the time posting the writers may or may not have holdings in some of the coins or tokens they cover. Please conduct your own thorough research before investing in any cryptocurrency as all investments contain risk.

Tags: Cryptocurrency, blockchain