AERGO: Distributed Trust at Scale or A Blockchain to Remember

Hello folks and welcome back to another crypto-related article!

It’s been a while since our last review of a blockchain-based project, but sometimes the real life takes over and leaves no (or not enough) room for the fascinating cryptosphere (as I like to call it)…

I still can’t dedicate enough time (definitely not as much as I would like to) to present you the best crypto projects that deserve keeping an eye on, but I just had to talk to you about a fantastic project. It’s simply too genuine and will add soooo much value to this space, that it would have been a shame for you not to be “warned” about it coming. I really have to “warn” you: this is NOT just another project! :)

I know that there are sooo many people out there trying to convince you to buy a specific coin or invest in a specific ICO. It is normal for you to be skeptical when finding/reading a crypto-related article (as this one) and I really think that you have to take everything you find in this space with a grain of salt.

I totally understand you and this is why I do not try to influence you in any way regarding your investments. I still think that it’s my duty to let you know whenever I find a really honest and professional team that tries to develop a game-changing product, though.
Just give this article a chance and I’m sure you won’t be sorry! It’s not going to be that short, because there’s enough to talk about, but I’ll try to be as brief as possible.

DISCLAIMER: This is NOT financial advice!

I know that not all of you are very tech-savvy, so I will try to present the facts in such a way, so that all of you can understand the main idea, while still approaching all the necessary details. Let’s take a look at a wonderful project and I’ll try to briefly explain why I think it’s going to someday become one of the most popular crypto projects!

I present you AERGO, a blockchain to remember!

What is AERGO, after all?

AERGO is a 4th generation blockchain protocol, based on advanced technologies. It aims to provide the companies with an enterprise-ready platform that will offer developer tools, dApp orchestration and deployment framework, in order to facilitate the adoption of blockchain technology.

AERGO is backed by Blocko, the leading blockchain solutions provider of South Korea and aims to become an open-source platform and supporting ecosystem, allowing businesses to achieve distributed trust at scale.

For achieving this, AERGO will focus on some key principles:

• Open-source development
• Open-source software licensing
• Decentralized development approach
• Pragmatic leadership
• Support for developers, integrators and businesses

Is there any problem that needs to be solved?

Well, since I’ve been talking about a new blockchain-based project, you would righteously presume that it offers a product, as a solution to something.
If there’s a solution, there must be a problem, right?
You bet there is!

As a new and still emerging technology, blockchain still has some issues that must be stringently solved!
I will mention just a few:

• scalability (the ability to offer the same performance as the system grows and develops)
• enhanced confidentiality
• distributed governance

Until these issues will be solved, the companies will most probably be reluctant to adopt the blockchain technology, as they obviously require a functional and solid framework before deciding to migrate.

Well, AERGO plans to tackle and successfully solve the abovementioned issues, while making sure in the same time that no compromise regarding the inherent security and immutability will be made.

How does AERGO see the solution?

Here comes the part where we go a little bit more in depth! :)

AERGO plans to provide the companies with the ability to deploy on public/private blockchain networks, as this gives flexibility and higher speed, performance and scalability.

Being designed as a flexible, plugin-based smart contract infrastructure, AERGO will allow the clients to execute smart contract written for AergoSQL (a smart contract that will enable storing and accessing data and SQL-like scripting language) or the Ethereum Virtual Machine.

More than this, the network that AERGO plans to build will be backboned by public and permissioned repositories of Distributed Directories (DD). By Smart Oracles implementation, the smart contracts will consume data with external services (or internal databases) and trigger events.

The AERGO platform will be based on three main architectural functions:

• AERGO Chain

This is a proposed blockchain that aims to mitigate the current issues of the public blockchains. Alongside an SQL-based smart contract plaftorm, it will include some advances features (concurrency control or a distributed version).

• AERGO Hub

The Hub aims to be a blockchain hosting service, acting as a public interface for building/testing/managing independent blockchains that are based on AERGO Chain.

• AERGO Marketplace

The Marketplace (accessible via the AERGO Hub public interface) will enable the sale/purchase of peer-to-peer computing assets (including: algorithms, contents, computing power, storage).

As about the AERGO ecosystem, it targets five key stakeholder groups:

• General community and future end-application users (supporters and enthusiasts)
• Open-source developer community
• Technology providers (blockchain hosts and cloud providers)
• Geographic enablers (regional business partners)
• Platform users

That sounds more than great, right?
Well, in order to implement all these exciting features, you definitely need a highly skilled team for that.
Let’s see if AERGO has what it takes, shall we? :)

How about the TEAM?

I suppose that it’s easy to see how ambitious this project is. Making sure that it gets real is definitely not an easy task, so this is precisely why a strong team is required. As you will see below, the team behind AERGO is really able to deliver.

AERGO Board

The members of the AERGO Board have a strong background, with giant companies like Santander, Deutsche Telekom, Redhat or HSBC.
Phil Zamani, for example, has 20 years of experience in the open source and cloud business, working for Red Hat and being directly involved in the Linux open-source mania .
We will speak more about him later (just make sure you don’t forget this name!). ;)

Committee Heads

Tech Team

Business Team

The other members of the team have a solid background as well, in fields like computer science, computer engineering, economics, finance, marketing and social science.

Advisors

These advisors add plenty of years of experience in fields like secure communications, Artificial Intelligence, Fintech, investing and business administration.

As you might have noticed, the team is large, highly skilled and experienced.
They don't try to aggressively shill themselves (as so many other projects do), because they focus more on delivering, rather than trying to convince people to support a project (that in most cases has actually no viable product yet to offer).
The result of their work speaks for itself and, once the AERGO project will be polished enough, people will understand that value and the ability to really deliver speaks volumes.

Does anyone trust or support this project?

There are many projects with good teams, you might say…

But AERGO is really special, because it doesn’t only have a strong team, but it is also backed by Blocko, a South Korea-based company, that supplied about 80% of this country’s blockchain enterprise solution projects over the last 4 years for over 23 enterprise clients, with over 25 million end points.

This means that we are talking about some years when most of us were not yet interested in blockchain or crypto or we didn’t even think to get the blockchain technology to the enterprise world (yet)!

The team at Blocko has over 50 senior developers and has already proven that it is capable of delivering blockchain, cloud and IT solutions to companies. Some of their clients and partners include (I could list them, but we all know that a picture is worth a thousand words, right? :) ):

It should be pretty obvious that AERGO will not lack the blockchain expertise, as its team will include experts from Blocko, who have already built systems for big enterprises (including Samsung SDS, Hyundai Motors or Korean Stock Exchange).

Can you name a company with more blockchain expertise up to this moment?
Well, IBM comes to my mind, but let’s be honest: even with such a competitor, there’s pleeeenty of room to grow!
Given this fact, AERGO hopes to potentially become the foundation of the so-called Web 3.0.

Moreover, some of the key backers of AERGO include:

Being supported by Blocko, AERGO will focus on creating a product based on the following criteria:

• the best of existing blockchain technologies
• the best and most cost effective techniques for secure serverless cloud delivery
• the best of enterprise software development methods
• best practices proven to work in full-scale enterprise deployments with clients around the world

Even if AERGO does not lack the technological skills to make its ambitious project become a reality, the history shows that this was not always enough. If there is no business plan, the nice story could be over after only a few years.
Let’s see if AERGO has something ready, shall we?

AERGO Business Plan – make it or break it!

In this wonderful article (to be honest, it’s really my best read this month), Phil Zamani (do you still remember this name? :) ) presents his view on how AERGO should look like, what it aims to become and how it can be successful. If you will read it, you’ll soon understand why this project is not just a usual one!

Let me explain why…

As I have already mentioned, Phil Zamani has 20 years of open source and cloud business experience. As he explains in the abovementioned article, he had the chance to see the Linux recipe for success at its best. He understands why and how an open-source project can be successful and has the connections and the know-how to make sure that AERGO gains the market share it deserves (or at least die trying :) ).

If you really read that article, you noticed that Phil makes a parallel between the current state of blockchain technology and the early days of Linux and Red Hat.

As he states, Linux became so popular because:

• it was open-source end-to-end
• its development was centralized, yet maintained
• it took a pragmatic approach to execution
• it was supported by firms with customer know-how that relentlessly drove adoption of the technology

Phil doesn’t only know this from the books. He lived it for 20 years and was part of the process. This is why he is so sure that, by implementing the same approach, he will be able to make AERGO an important name in the blockchain industry. His plan is for AERGO (with the support from Blocko) to emulate for the blockchain technology the success that Red Hat and Linux had during their rise to the current status of open-source giants.

If everything goes according to the plan, I think that AERGO will be miles away by the time its blockchain-based competitors will start to grasp the necessity of a similar approach or will be able to find a successful (even if different) business recipe.

Final thoughts: will it worth it or not?

I don’t know what you guys think after reading all of the above (if any of you really took the time to do it), but this project is the most exciting one that I found since this summer!
This is precisely why I took the time to talk to you about it.

It might not have the same hype as other projects that invest a lot in marketing before the ICO stage and then procrastinate soon after, when it comes to deliver a real product.
But you know what?
This is what a hidden gem looks like!

I’ve been talking to you about other projects in the past and you can now see how successful some of them have already become. You don’t have to take what I say for granted (I might be wrong as well, from time to time...), but just make sure you really analyze the facts before deciding for yourself!
As about me, I am at least sure that I made my part to let you know about this project.
This is my small contribution to the better world of tomorrow!
It’s up to you to decide further!

The cryptosphere is full of projects that have big plans (or at least this is what they claim) and want to change the world. But very few of them have the vision, the team, the expertise and the connections to open the blockchain world to the big companies.
The big industries surely have the money, but they need a trustworthy platform to rely on, a solid and safe framework and the technical support for it, before they would even think of migrating to blockchain technology.

If AERGO project does not meet all the abovementioned criteria, I don't know which one does!
Just mark my words and take another look at what they have accomplished, once the product is ready and fully functional! We'll thank them later for facilitating the mass adoption of the blockchain technology (at least at an enterprise level).

After all, you know how they say:

“If you build it, they will come!” :)

If you don’t trust me now, you’ll still have the chance to make sure later that I really had a point here, when you’ll see AERGO going full-steam on the road to success. Only time will tell when this will happen.
In the end, I think that the best definition of AERGO is precisely how Phil Zamani described it:

“a complex platform made easy”! :)

Until next time, take care and don’t forget: choose wisely and always be a step ahead!

PS: If you are still hungry for more tech details, I strongly encourage you to check the (business or technology) AERGO whitepaper!