DigiByte
What is DigiByte?
Digibyte cryptocurrency presents the longest blockchain in the world created in 2014 and still running. It was one of the first altcoins which released ICO campaign in order to successfully place the project in motion. In a manner of facts, it claims to be better than its big and well-known relative Bitcoin. That’s because Digibyte’s development is taking care to secure the infrastructure and provide as many as possible features to assist the anonymity and the decentralization of the network itself. The blockchain consists of 3 different layers separating processing from smart contracts and decentralized applications. Features like the cross-chain compatibility are something that is giving extra value to the coin, compared with others. It is a proof-of-work network with a max supply of 21 billion DGB coins.
Advantages
Let’s have a look at the bright side of the project and overview some of the most relevant and useful features coming with the Digibyte cryptocurrency.
- Decentralization – The network is one of the highly decentralized ones thanks to the utilization of multi-algorithm mining which includes Scrypt, SHA256, Qubit, Skein, and Groestl
- Fast transactions – This is a huge benefit of Digibyte coin. The implementation of the DigiSpeed protocol helps to decrease the block time to around 15 secs.
- Security – Thanks to the multi-algorithm approach and the supported Proof of Work consensus the transactions and all activities can are stored on an immutable public ledger.
Disadvantages
Like everything in this world, the coin has 2 sides and, in this section, I will explore those characteristics which fall under the criteria of disadvantages.
- Lack of Popularity – Despite the fact that it is on the market already 5 years it cannot compete with Bitcoin and Litecoin yet. For many people, the project is not yet discovered.
- Lack of Use cases – Different investors are stating that Digibyte is still weak compared with other cryptocurrencies.
- Wallet – The official wallet available on their website is a full node one and it requires storage of the whole Digibyte coin blockchain and as I mentioned, it is the biggest one in the world.
History and evolution
The initiator of the project and the main figure behind the development is called Jared Tate. He created the Digibyte coin with the idea to establish one widely adopted, strongly decentralized and secure cryptocurrency. The first block was mined in January 2014 but the development started in 2013. Pre-mining was available to support the early stages of the project. Jared dedicated his time and effort and not long after the Digibyte foundation started receiving donations in order to keep the project on track. Of course, Mr. Tate was not alone, there is a whole team behind him, but it is quite difficult to acquire more information about the people part of it. As I know there are dedicated members for marketing, community representatives, marketing specialists, and different crypto-oriented professionals. The main goal in the last few years was, and it’s still is, to settle a proper marketing strategy to assist the commercialization of the coin and the overall growth of the network.
DigiByte’s Future
The first official meeting of Digibyte coin was on the 18th of November 2018 in London, UK. They announced that they are testing a new generation of technology resistant to ASIC miners. The Paytomat payment processing app was already integrated by the team and it’s amazing.
DigiByte Blockchain
As a UTXO based p2p network, DGB coin is an innovative blockchain strongly oriented to the overall decentralization and providing high speed, proper network infrastructure, and decent security. The blockchain consists of 3 different layers responsible for different actions.
- App layer – Users can freely utilize application daily.
- Public ledger layer – It increases significantly the level of security of the whole platform.
- Global network layer – This one supports the infrastructure of the network and the operations.
DigiByte Nodes
There are two types of nodes on the Digibyte coin network – Full nodes and Light nodes. Full nodes are the nodes supporting the network with its main activities by providing the whole blockchain as confirmation point for each miner and user on the network. Full nodes validate each and every block and transaction and checking the performance of the miners meanwhile.
Light Nodes are the nodes which verify transactions with the usage of SPV (Simplified payment verification). It gives the opportunity to nodes to verify transactions included in the block but without downloading the whole blockchain on the hard drive.
DigiByte additional features
There are features which I cannot miss to mention in this review, because they bring much value to the coin and especially those related to the speed of the network. The Digibyte cryptocurrency has the fastest block time of all UTXO blockchains worldwide, only 15 seconds. The SegWit implementation gave the opportunity to a few innovations to take place on the Digibyte blockchain such as the amazing cross chain transactions and the single confirmation transactions.
Forks or Tokens based on DigiByte
Digibyte’s roots are related with Bitcoin as many other altcoins on the current market. It was launched in January 2014 from a Bitcoin hardfork. Since its very beginning, the Digibyte community hard-forked changes 3 times and all of them in 2014 with the implementation of 3 features: DigiShield, Multi-algorithm, MultiShield. Apart from those, there are 3 soft forks too which followed after the suggested implementation of SegWit, CSV, and NVersionBips.
How to get DigiByte
Digibyte coin is a minable altcoin and there are several ways of obtaining it, you can either trade it for other altcoins or mine it. All the exchanges offering this cryptocurrency are listed below.
Where to buy DigiByte?
The good thing is that Digybyte coins you can find in almost all of the largest exchanges on the web like Bittrex, Upbit, HitBTC, Bitfinex, Kucoin, and Poloniex. You can find the information simplified and with additional links at the table below.
| Exchange | Cryptocurrencies | Fiat Money | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Bittrex
|
Bitcoin + 2 more | – | Trade now |
|
Poloniex
|
Bitcoin | – | Trade now |
|
Huobi
|
Bitcoin, Ethereum | – | Trade now |
How to Mine DigiByte
With Digibyte cryptocurrency you have the exclusive ability to mine with several different algorithms because it is a multi-algorithm platform. You can choose between Sha256, Skein, Qubit, Scrypt, and Groetl depending on your mining equipment because it supports the usage of ASIC miners. While Skein and Groestl are a great fit for GPU and Qubit is available with many different hardware devices.
The mining process requires strong computing power to mine new blocks and process transactions through the network and its users. The best thing is that the multi-algorithm gives you the opportunity to choose between ASIC, GPU or CPU mining. In addition to that, you will need a suitable Digibyte wallet too.
| Мining Hardware | Hash Rate | Power | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ebang Ebit E11++ | 44.0 TH/S | 1980W | $ 2024 | Buy Now |
| ASICminer 8 Nano 44Th | 44.0 TH/S | 2100W | $ 3900 | buy now |
| Innosilicon A4+ LTCMaster | 620 MH/S | 750W | $ 1500 | buy now |
Wallets for DigiByte
The official Digibyte wallet supports all types of operating systems including those available for mobile devices: Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, and IOS. There are also other wallets offered by 3rd parties as wallet service providers. The Digibyte wallet you can find and download from their official web page.
Alternative wallets
There are many different service providers when we speak about wallets that support DGB coins. You will find a variety of options, some of them available for desktop computers like Exodus and AtomicWallet, mobile ones like Digibyte Edge and Guarda. Regarding the web options, those are Pungo and Guarda again for hardware wallets like Trezor or Ledger. Have a look at the table below, everything is well organized and easy to navigate, do not hesitate to use the quick links if something grabs your attention.
Desktop Wallets
Network Security
As I mentioned in this review of Digibyte, there are many features of the DGB coin oriented to the security factor and the privacy one. Most of all, the network is strongly decentralized and it spread over more than 200,000 servers, nodes, computers, and phones. The multi-algorithms are preventing the centralization and ensuring fair mining process. DigiShield and MultiShield are bringing stability and protection of any attacks on the network.
News and Useful Weblinks
Searching online for relevant information could be a difficult endeavor but in any case, my recommendation is to start with the official information channel like Digibyte page or their Twitter account.