What is Elrond? EGLD
Elrond is a direct competitor to other blockchains like Cardano, Ethereum, Solana and more. Like many blockchains, the team behind Elrond states its goal is to “give everyone access to the digital economy.” The purpose of this blockchain is to host decentralized apps and “host the internet economy.” according to their website:
Today we are going to look at what sets ELROND apart from other blockchains.
What are the main characteristics of ELROND?
- Adaptive Sharding
- Secure Proof of Stake
- Ethereum Virtual Machine
ADAPTIVE SHARDING is a type of sharding that responds on demand. In other words, if demand increases, it increases sharding and vice versa. This makes the technology highly efficient and effective from an energy perspective. Elrond is in fact the first negative carbon European Blockchain.
Secure Proof of Stake involves lots of RANDOMNESS. Validators for Nodes are reshuffled into other shards and consensus is done in a way so it is completely unpredictable. At the same time, Selection and Consensus is done in less than four seconds, making it extremely quick.
Ethereum Virtual Machine-Smart contracts written on Ethereum will run on Elrond. Interoperability is a huge thing with Elrond, this enables users from other chains to migrate into the Elrond ecosystem.
What is the COIN on the Elrond Blockchain?
EGLD is the coin used on Elrond; otherwise known as Egold.
Tokenomics-It has an initial supply of 20 million with a max supply around 31.5 million. Those extra 11.5 million are released over 10 years; however, there’s a chance it won’t reach those max supply numbers. Considering the relatively low supply of EGLD, I believe this may contribute to future price increases.
In addition, further putting pressure on supply is the fact you can STAKE Elrond. However, you do need a minimum of one EGLD to stake. Around 12 million EGLD are currently staked (60%), so, less than 10 million available for purchase. Keep in mind, there are also around 2 million on the MAIAR exchange in defi; reducing the available supply even further. Get it while you can!! 🙂
STAKING Elrond
How do you stake Elrond? Staking is done via the Elrond Web Wallet or the MAIAR wallet.
Staking is super easy with EGLD.
Rewards are currently around 12-13%; however, these rewards do decrease annually due to inflation.
Another selling point of the MAIAR wallet is you can import your phone contacts in and quickly send money to friends. At MAIR, the focus is all on simplicity and ease of use. In my opinion, the wallet is on par with Cardano’s, some things are easier and some things are slightly more difficult to use. Really, the only complaint I have is rewards aren’t compounded automatically.
SOME QUICK FACTS:
As of Jan 1st, 2021 there were 93K wallets on the blockchain; there are over ONE MILLION as of Nov 26th, 2021. That’s an insane growth of users.
How decentralized is Elrond? Elrond has 3200 Nodes, mostly located in Europe; however, there are many in the US and Singapore as well. This makes Elrond one of the more decentralized projects.
DEVELOPER ACTIVITY:
Elrond has above average Developer activity as per Github. A number of Commits/Contributions/etc. The last I checked, it was ranked TENTH in activity over the last 12 months.
MY OPINION
I’m not a financial advisor; however, I do believe Elrond is undervalued when compared to projects such as Cardano, Algorand, and more. It should definitely be in the top 15 projects at the moment. It already has a dex, great staking rewards, reasonable inflation, and an incredible team that’s hitting all of its goals. Check it out and as per usual, do your own research, wish you the best!
