Professors from seven US institutions of higher education, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley, teamed up to create digital currency, which, they hope, able to reach speeds, which Bitcoin users can only dream, without calling it a threat to its foundations in the form of decentralization. Unit-e, as they call the new virtual currency, a first initiative profit foundation Distributed Technology Research (DTR), created by scientists with the support of venture investors Pantera Capital Management LP for the development of decentralized technologies.
Bitcoin - is the original and first cryptocurrency Network Account Fees, allowing the parties to carry out operations directly, not trusting each other, and without relying on a centralized node. And although the system has gained popularity among developers, anarchists and speculators, mass adoption still remains elusive.
This is largely due to the design of Bitcoin: According to DTR, built-in limitations constrain the performance and scalability, Consequently, reduce the usefulness as a daily payment unit. Scientists are developing a digital money, that, they expect, will be able to process transactions faster, than even Visa.
"Mass user knows, that these networks do not scale, - Joey said Circle (Joey Krug), one of the directors of the investment Pantera Capital, who is also a member of the Board of DTR. — We are on the threshold of something, but, if the technology can be scaled in the relatively near term, it risks add to the list of ideas, who were promising, but it really did not work in practice: sort of 3D-seal, instead of the Internet ".
The problem comes from Bitcoin scalability features of the architecture. Member Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois Pramod Vishwanath (Pramod Viswanath) He noted, that to achieve greater speed and scalability DTR deconstruct blokcheyna technology, which underlies most cryptocurrency, and tried to improve it almost every element. There are also other initiatives in the industry cryptocurrency, designed to improve the characteristics of these new types of digital currency, - eg, Lightning Network или Segregated Witness. Pioneer of virtual currencies, David Chaum (David Chaum) He is also working on a new platform, which will allow to trade digital money faster.
Unit-e success is far from assured. for example, head of the independent Steering Committee Technical Unit-e and associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois Andrew Miller (Andrew Miller) considers, In the long run the best technology must defeat, but in the short term there is a risk, The new currency will not be able to gain sufficient popularity and will simply forgotten.
«Bitcoin showed us, the network, based on the idea of distributed trust, available, but it just does not scale up to the level, which would make cryptocurrency truly global daily money, - tales Pramod Vishwanath. — It was a breakthrough, which is able to change people's lives, but this will not happen, if the technology is not scaled ".
A source:Bloomberg