Zilliqa is quite a young cryptocurrency, its network was launched in 2017. Initially, ZIL coins were released on the Ethereum blockchain as ERC-20 standard tokens. A total of 12.6 billion ZIL coins can exist. Smart contracts and dApps are supported in the network. The consensus on the network is achieved through the use of the Proof of Work (PoW) protocol, which implies the need for mining. To participate in the management of the Zilliqa project, gZIL tokens are required. Their total number is limited to 682,550.
How does Zilliqa use the sharding technology?
The main advantage of the Zilliqa cryptocurrency is the practical implementation of the sharding technology. This is the association of crypto nodes into groups called shards. Each shard includes 600 cryptocurrency nodes. In the shard, a consensus is reached using the Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT) algorithm. From the different shards, the ZIL nodes included in the DS committee are randomly selected. When Zilliqa nodes of the DS committee reach a consensus, the state of the block is finally written in the blockchain. This way the blockchain fork is not possible.
How does the PBFT Zilliqa protocol work?
The creation of a new block consists of three stages. In the first stage, Zilliqa nodes are notified when a new block appears. In the second stage, each node provider decides to add a new block to the blockchain. This information is passed to all the other crypto nodes providers. In the third step, all cryptocurrencies nodes are notified that they have received the necessary information. Then, all Zilliqa nodes that are part of the shard give their opinion on adding a new block. Thus, an intruder, even if he has taken control of the whole shard, will not be able to add his transaction.
Why does Zilliqa need staking?
In addition to the Proof of Work (PoW) consensus algorithm, Zilliqa offers financial incentives for ZIL coin holders. Annual revenue of about 6% is available to all ZIL cryptocurrency users. To entrust their coins a user can use one of the seed Zilliqa nodes. A minimum of 10 ZIL coins is required to participate in staking. In the Zilliqa infrastructure seed ZIL nodes are projects that are extremely important for the whole user community of this cryptocurrency. They include digital asset wallets, block explorers, mining pools, and more. Any user can also open his seed node ZIL. To do this Zilliqa node must meet hardware and software requirements. This requires a static, public IP address, 100MB/s upload and download bandwidth, installed x64 Linux, minimum 2.2 Ghz dual-core processor, and SSD with 500 Gb free space. Zilliqa infrastructure also has Lookup ZIL nodes and Staked seed nodes (SSNs). Lookup ZIL nodes are designed to store blockchain data and transfer it to the shards. The blockchain data is available for processing through JSON-RPC requests. Stacked seed nodes (SSNs) is a kind of seed ZIL node designed to serve JSON-RPC requests.
How are dApps and smart contracts implemented in Zilliqa?
Zilliqa network has both dApps and smart contracts written in Scilla language. The word Scilla is short for Smart Contract Intermediate-Level Language. The language Scilla was created from the start, which allowed it to overcome many existing shortcomings of smart contracts. Developers have tools to detect vulnerabilities in smart contracts at the design stage. Both dApps and smart contracts are executed with Scilla Virtual Machine, which compiles and runs the program code. Like in the Ethereum cryptocurrency, gas parameters are used to calculate the complexity of smart contract execution. The cost of the required amount of gas is small and it is known in advance, before starting the contract execution.
