What Is Ark?
Created in late 2016, Ark coin is a unique ecosystem with amazing functionalities and most of all awesome speed. It is decentralized blockchain providing developers, users, and businesses the optionality to work on different blockchains but together. Of course, the goal is to offer accessible, fast and secure technology incorporated in a miscellaneous manner by different businesses. There is a max supply of 137,942,176 ARK coins while 93,750,000 of them were sold in 2016 as ICO crowdfunding, while 31,250,000 hold by the company and the team of it.
Advantages
It is time to review the positive sides of ARK and its features, let’s have a look:
- Speed – The Ark cryptocurrency has one of the fastest networks currently operating worldwide. With only 8 seconds block time it runs smoothly and efficiently.
- SmartBridges and Encoded Listeners – These two are bringing Ark to another level of greatness by offering the ability to connect independent blockchains.
Disadvantages
Let’s have a look at the other side now and take more attention to the Ark`s disadvantages:
- Roadmap – The lack of timescales in the evolution process is something that could concern you. Currently, a lot of details are missing regarding the timely manner of the expected changes.
- Promotes holding instead of spending – In long terms, this could be a problem because the coin promotes holding the coins instead of spending them which is great for the investors, but it could eventually end up badly.
History and Evolution
The project`s ICO was launched in November 2016, but the coins were available for trading in March 2017. From a legal point of view Ark cryptocurrency is one of the first cryptocurrencies which officially registered themselves, the project is situated in France and it’s obeying the French legal system. Everything around the project is transparent and clear. The Development team consists of 27 specialists of blockchain technology. Many of them previously participated in other projects, for example, the leading programmer of Lisk – Francois Xavier. From a development perspective, they are working on a desktop wallet version to which was expected in 2018. The new design will improve the user’s experience and add additional value to the network by creating pouchDB which will be a local data storage. Also, the new update will allow technologies like Taiwind, VueJS, and Electron to be implemented too.
Ark’s Future
In the face of the development team, we see a group of specialists strongly dedicated to the project with an ambition to lead it to its bright future. The main goals are many but for now, they are looking to expand and pair with other currencies and fiat ones too. From then on when this functionality is operational, they want to be a trusted method of payment for goods and services around the globe. Other ideas are to include additional bonus system for all token holders which sounds amazing and it will be innovative. All they are striving to be is one single system capable of uniting a variety of tools and services with high security and worldwide popularity.
Ark Blockchain
The Ark blockchain presents one decentralized peer-to-peer network with modified Delegated-Proof-Of-Stake consensus. Meaning that the selected 51 delegates are trusted to run the network and in exchange, they receive block rewards. The most amazing functionality is the block time equal to only 8 second which makes Ark cryptocurrency one of the quickest networks on the crypto stage. The total amount of the reward is 2 Ark coins, but as we mentioned the distribution is quite frequent.
Ark Nodes
There are two types of node software used to run ARK Core.
- Relay nodes – They have full API functionality, but they don’t have the availability to acquire transaction fees and to forge ARK blocks. But they serve as a backend of the feature-rich lite clients.
- Forging nodes – They are with reduced API functionalities, but they are capable of forging ARK and obtain transaction fees. Their role is also to decrease the potential DDoS attacks on the ARK network.
There are currently two types of nodes on the Decred network – Light nodes and Full Nodes. Full nodes are the validators of the system. They require a complete download of the blockchain transactional history in order to operate. If there are not enough full nodes on the network, clients will not be able to connect to the network adequately. On the other hand, Light nodes don’t need to download the full blockchain, as they just need the block headers to be operational. They are serviced by the full nodes and use a Simplified Payment Verification (SPV) method to verify transactions.
Additional Features
One of the most noticeable features is the incredible scalability of the network altogether with speed of processing. Functionalities like the SmartBridge helped significantly to unload the non-essential functions to many side-chains.
How To Get Ark Coins?
Ark coins are generated by a process called forging. Similar to staking, it’s energy efficient and doesn’t require any expensive mining equipment, contrary to other popular cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or Ethereum. The alternative method, besides joining the network is to directly buy ARK from exchanges. Learn how in the upcoming section.
Where To Buy Ark Coins?
To supply yourself with some Ark coins you need to exchange them either from an exchange like Binance, Bittrex, Cryptopia, and others through a person-to-person crypto transaction. The only place that you can buy ARK coins with real fiat money is through Upbit but you must have South Korean Wons.
| Exchange | Cryptocurrencies | Fiat Money | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Binance
|
Bitcoin, Ethereum | – | Trade now |
|
Bittrex
|
Bitcoin | – | Trade now |
|
Upbit
|
Bitcoin | KRW | Trade now |
Wallets for Ark
Alternative Wallets
With Ark coin, you have limited options regarding the choice of a wallet but on the other side the pick is not limited from a client point of view, but what do I mean by this? It’s simple if you take a peek at the table below you will see that there are representatives of each type of wallets: mobile, desktop, web and hardware.
Desktop Wallets
Mobile Wallets
Online Wallets
Hardware Wallets
Staking Ark
Ark cryptocurrency presents a bit different version of POS called DPOS which stands for Delegated Proof of Stake. Explained in the most comprehensive manner this means that all coin holders must vote to “delegate” responsibilities to 51 delegates in total for the whole network. Exactly those delegates are playing the important role of maintainers and validators of the network and all transactions on it.
Network Security
The Ark development team is aware that one of the most important factors for all crypto enthusiasts is privacy and security. Both are laying in the very foundation of each crypto conception. The developers are following those principals and they are constantly developing the network of the Ark cryptocurrency in order to meet all demands and expectations of their users. There are high standards backed up with consistent and continuous analyses of each suggestion on the network.
News and Useful Weblinks
It’s always best to keep yourself up to date with the relevant news. To keep a good track of them its best to follow the official channels like their Blog or their Twitter page.