Original author: Daniel Li, CoinVoice
One of the most talked about projects in 2023 is undoubtedly Bitcoin Inscription. As a new force, Bitcoin Inscription has become an important driving force in the current market trends. However, while new projects are emerging rapidly, traditional projects are also taking on new vitality. The price of Kaspa (KAS) has skyrocketed in recent months, reigniting interest in “PoW mining coins.”
As an established blockchain, Kaspa was launched in 2021, at a critical point when the cryptocurrency market turned from a bull market to a bear market. Unlike other cryptocurrencies that plunged nearly 90% during the bear market, Kaspa’s token KSA showed remarkable resilience during the bear market, bucking the trend and surging higher. KSA’s price has increased more than 800 times over the past year, significantly outperforming other cryptocurrencies. As the Bitcoin halving date approaches, it is expected that more miners and funds will pour into the POW mining currency track.
Revitalized POW mechanism
POW mining currency refers to a cryptocurrency based on the Proof of Work consensus mechanism. The workload proof algorithm of POW mining currency requires miners to invest a lot of computing power and electricity consumption to complete the creation and verification process of blocks. This method has been criticized in the past and is considered a waste of energy. With the conversion of Ethereum POW to POS, doubts about POW have reached its peak. However, POW has not been slowly eliminated as expected by the public. Rather, Nirvana is reborn with new vitality, and this phenomenon is also closely related to the necessity of POW.
First, the POW mechanism is known for its security and reliability. By consuming large amounts of computing power and electricity, the POW mechanism ensures the security of the blockchain network. This power-consuming feature makes the POW mechanism highly secure and resistant to malicious attacks and tampering. In the context of the current digital asset market facing various threats and risks, security has become an important indicator of concern for users and investors. Therefore, the security characteristics of the POW mechanism have become one of the important reasons for the rise of new projects.
Secondly, the POW mechanism has stable infrastructure. As the earliest consensus mechanism applied to projects such as Bitcoin, the POW mechanism has been widely verified and applied after years of development and testing. This stability allows the POW mechanism to provide new projects with opportunities to learn from and build on mature infrastructure, reducing the risks of development and deployment. In addition, there has always been a consensus in the industry that the bear market will look at POW, because the output of POW coins requires electricity, has objective value support, and is more stable than POS coins.
In addition, fairness and decentralization are another key features of the POW mechanism. Through competition to select the accounting node for the next block, the POW mechanism ensures that participants have a fair chance to receive rewards. This fairness attracts users and developers who care about community consensus and the value of decentralization. Under the current trend of pursuing more fairness, transparency and decentralization in the encryption field, the POW mechanism has once again received attention as a decentralized consensus mechanism.
In addition, the reason why the POW mechanism can rise again is that in addition to its security, stable infrastructure, fairness and decentralization characteristics, the combination with emerging technologies also brings new opportunities and development space for it. Some new POW projects combine current technology trends, such as artificial intelligence, Internet of Things and other technologies, and propose innovative application scenarios and solutions, attracting the attention of more developers and users.
The POW mechanism has once again become the focus of attention as a time-tested consensus mechanism. Compared with the POS mechanism, POW has advantages in security, stability, fairness and decentralization, which can provide a solid foundation for new projects. Through innovative combinations with emerging technologies, POW is driving blockchain toward a more decentralized and secure direction.
The “POW Mining Coin” craze may become the key to promoting the next round of bull market
Since Ethereum moved from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism in September 2022, the miner community in the Ethereum market has become divided. Since giant whales with large amounts of capital monopolize most nodes, it is difficult for ordinary players to enter the market, resulting in a large amount of computing power being idle. However, it was at this time that new POW mining currency projects represented by Kaspa emerged and became the best place for idle computing power in the market. The influx of a large number of miners created the myth of Kaspa and also set off a craze for POW mining coins.
Bitcoin Inscription, as a key force in the last round of market rise, may not be able to play the same driving role in the upcoming next round of market adjustment period. In particular, the current BRC 20 project has not yet demonstrated the sector-driven wealth effect like DeFi. Bitcoin Inscription’s market capitalization is only $500 million, and transaction liquidity within the ecosystem is also quite limited. In contrast, the POW mechanism requires mining machines. This natural moat makes POW mining coins considered to have longer-term value and potential, and is favored by investors, who believe that they have greater potential to promote a bull market.
According to market value, most of the current new POW mining coins have a market value of less than US$100 million, and KAS, the highest market value among them, is only about US$1.9 billion. Compared with some old POW coins such as BCH and LTC, these new POW mining coins have greater room for upside. For example, the POW mining currency PEPEW, which combines GPU mining, DASH anonymous technology and MEME attributes, has a market value of only US$100,000. Compared with Dogecoin, it still has 100,000 times of growth potential; compared with Pepe Compared with the currency, it has an increase of 5000 times. It can be said that the current POW mining currency is in a golden period with huge potential.
The development of the currency circle is like a cycle, and eventually the mainstream consensus mechanism may return to the POW mechanism. Whether it is the previously popular Bitcoin Inscription or the recently popular POW mining currency, this has been proven that the market demand for the POW mechanism still exists, especially the current new POW mining currency that combines new mining technology and solves some problems. The problem of traditional POW mining coins wasting resources allows POW mining coins to have longer-term and more lasting development potential.
Taking stock of POW mining coins worthy of attention
The explosion of Kaspa started the boom of POW mining coins, and also attracted a large number of investors to flock to this track. Everyone is looking for the next KAS myth. Let me take stock of the POW mining coins that are expected to grow hundreds of times in the future.
Kaspa
Features: New POW leading coin
Consensus mechanism: PoW+DAG
Kaspa is an innovative decentralized layer-1 blockchain project designed to provide high-speed, scalable and secure blockchain solutions. It uses a proof-of-work mechanism combined with the Phantom GhostDAG protocol to provide users with excellent performance and functionality.
Unlike traditional proof-of-work chains, Kaspa leverages the Phantom GhostDAG protocol to enhance its performance and scalability. This protocol allows orphan blocks created at the same time to coexist and orders them. This innovation of directed acyclic graph (blockDAG) structure changes the single chain model of traditional blockchain and provides higher throughput and scalability. Through the Phantom GhostDAG protocol, Kaspa aims to process one block per second, providing fast transaction confirmations and a highly scalable network.
KAS is the core token of the Kaspa ecosystem, launched in November 2021, with no pre-mining, zero pre-sale, and no token distribution; the maximum supply is 28.7 billion tokens, and its emission plan is steadily reduced every month. ( 1/2)^( 1/12) is reduced in half. KAS has gained 38.55% in the past month and is currently priced at $0.1219.
Spacemesh
Features: The goal is to become the people’s currency, allowing anyone to participate in mining
Consensus mechanism: Proof of Space-Time
Spacemesh is an emerging project based on blockchain technology, aiming to build a highly secure and highly decentralized consensus network. Unlike the traditional Proof of Work (POW) or Proof of Stake (POS) mechanism, Spacemesh introduces an innovative consensus mechanism called Proof of Space-Time.
In Spacemesh, participants participate in the consensus process by allocating storage space to their computers. They created a local storage space called a Spacemesh node to store and verify the blockchain’s transaction data. The size and duration of a participant’s storage space determines their influence in the network and their chances of choosing the next block. To demonstrate their long-term willingness to participate and contribute, participants will need to provide proof of storage space over a period of time. The space-time proof consensus mechanism can identify and prevent the behavior of malicious attackers and improve the security of the network by introducing the time factor.
SMH is the native token of Spacemesh. Spacemesh’s slogan is to become the people’s currency. Therefore, SMH received extremely high attention as soon as it was issued. It soared from US$0.1 when trading opened to a maximum of US$11, with a maximum increase of more than 100 times. . The upper limit of SMH tokens is 2.4 billion, which will be issued within 941 years, of which 2.25 billion (94.75%) will be allocated to Smeshers (Spacemesh miners) without pre-mining. Currently, SMH price is $2.61.
Conflux
Features: Chinese concept public chain
Consensus mechanism: POW+POS
Conflux is a public, permissionless layer-1 blockchain designed to build a borderless trading and technology ecosystem for cryptocurrency projects around the world. As Chinas only compliant, open, and public blockchain, Conflux plays an important role in Chinas changing attitude towards Web3.
The main advantage of Conflux is its unique hybrid consensus mechanism that combines PoW and PoS. This mechanism makes full use of the advantages of both: the PoW mechanism confirms transactions and protects the security of the network through computing power competition, while the PoS mechanism selects block nodes based on the rights and interests of token holders, improving transaction throughput. and resource utilization. This hybrid consensus mechanism brings high scalability and security to Conflux, effectively solving the challenges faced by traditional blockchains.
Conflux Token (CFX) is the native token of the Conflux network. The CFX token was listed on the exchange in November 2020, and its price has fluctuated widely. Although it has experienced some volatility, CFX has gradually increased in value through collaborations with well-known brands and partners, as well as China’s changing attitude towards the crypto industry. CFX has gained over 500% in the past year, with the token currently trading at $0.1747.
Bittensor
Features: Crypto+AI concept project
Consensus mechanism: POW+POS
Bittensor is an artificial intelligence project based on blockchain technology, aiming to promote the innovation and sharing of artificial intelligence technology. The project incentivizes contributors for their efforts by rewarding them in the form of TAO tokens. TAO is Bittensor’s native currency and the core of the project. TAO tokens serve both as a reward token for miners’ contributions and as an access token, unlocking the vast potential of collective intelligence within the system.
Bittensor uses a hybrid consensus mechanism that combines Proof of Work (PoW) and Proof of Stake (PoS). In Bittensor, PoW is combined with artificial intelligence for mining and computing AI models, forming a decentralized large-scale model network. Miners host AI models in Bittensor and provide them to the network. The validator is based on the miner’s"Intelligent contribution"Rank miners. Whenever the network generates a block, 1 TAO reward is generated, and these rewards are evenly distributed to miners and validators through mining and verification.
The TAO token is currently priced at $321.72, having doubled in the past month. Unlike the traditional L1 model that obtains value by selling block space, the value of TAO is linked to the artificial intelligence services it supports. As these AI services become more impactful and useful, demand for TAO tokens will increase.
