What is Ergo?
The Ergo coin or ERG is the official currency of the Ergo Platform. The latter is a blockchain-based platform that enables its users to develop decentralized applications (dApps).
ERG powers the Ergo Platform. It’s mainly used as a medium of exchange for transaction fees and storage rent.
Ergo coins are divisible. This means that there are smaller units of the coin itself. They’re called nanoErgs.
nanoErgs represent the one-billionth of a single Ergo coin.
The Ergo coin was launched without the help of an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) or pre-mining events.
There are a few ways to acquire ERG. The most obvious way to do this is to buy the coins via a major exchange that carries ERG. Another way to acquire ERG is via mining.
Ergo coins can be mined through the Proof-of-Work (PoW) algorithm. One of the main benefits of this algorithm is that it doesn’t require a highly expensive mining rig. This opens the doors for regular people to mine ERG as almost all commonly used GPUs are capable of doing it.
There is a max cap of 97,739,925 Ergo coins. Moreover, no coins were pre-allocated to the founding team or investors.
Initially, Ergo planned to release all of the Ergo coins in the span of 8 years. However, this token emission schedule was changed via an emission retargeting soft fork. The new end date for releasing the Ergo coins is set to be around 2045.
Since ERG is a cryptocurrency, its price tends to fluctuate. In order to make an informed purchase decision, you can have a more in-depth look at the Ergo price history or the current ERG price on the graph above.
What are the Main Features of Ergo?
Ergo is a smart contract platform.
One of the main goals of this project is to create a trustless environment for financial contract implementation. The target audience of the Ergo Platform is regular people who have little to no knowledge of blockchain technologies.
As discussed in the What is Ergo section, Ergo operates using a custom Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism that’s exclusive to the Ergo Platform. It’s also known as Autolykos.
The reasoning behind choosing PoW is directly related to its high security and safety.
It’s well documented that the Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism consumes a lot of energy. It’s what makes Bitcoin, the project that introduced PoW, so environmentally unfriendly.
This is where Autolykos comes in. Ergo tackles the issue of energy consumption by modifying the original Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism to use up electricity in a more efficient manner.
Autolykos paves the way for Ergo to become “more energy efficient than Bitcoin”.
Some of the other features exclusive to the Ergo blockchain include Sigma Protocols, eUTXO, NIPoPoW, and storage rent.
Sigma Protocols are a crucial element of developing dApps on the Ergo Platform.
UTXO is the backbone of Ergo’s smart contracts. Ergo uses an extended model of UTXO also referred to as eUTXO. It’s a multi-stage model that brings improved privacy, increased scalability, and decreased transaction costs.
NiPoPoW or Non-Interactive Proofs of Proof-of-Work provides users with the ability to run smart contracts on mobile devices in a trustless manner. In addition, it speeds up the verification process of individual transactions.
Storage rent addresses the issue of inactive network participants. Ergo coins who haven’t been interacted with for over 4 years will be charged with modest fees. To put it simply, coins that haven’t been used for this time period will have to pay a type of rent for storing their coins.
Most importantly, the storage rent model ensures that the circulating supply of ERG doesn’t decrease.
Furthermore, Ergo has introduced a new coding language called ErgoScript. Its core functionality is creating advanced financial contracts without compromising its levels of security.
In addition, ErgoScript is behind all Ergo coins. It enables coin holders to modify their parameters such as accessibility, conditions, and terms of use.
Ergo Platform has been audited by Jean-Philipee Aumasson. The audit report is publicly available for anyone to review.
Who Developed Ergo?
The idea behind the Ergo crypto project was born in 2016 and its development began in 2017. The Ergo Platform was officially launched in mid-2019. The company behind the project is registered as Ergo Platform. It’s a blockchain-based company co-founded by a team of entrepreneurs with years of experience in blockchain development.
Some notable members of the founding team include the lead developer Alexander Chepurnoy who has been in the crypto sector for more than 10 years. He has worked with top cryptocurrency projects such as IOHK and NXT. Besides the Ergo Platform, Chepurnoy also co-founded smartcontract.com which later became one of the most known oracle providers in the industry - Chainlink.
If Ergo interests you, make sure to do proper research before diving in. You can start by checking out the Ergo price in the above section.
Ergo has managed to establish some solid partnerships with major players in the crypto industry. This includes Cardano, EMURGO, and Graviton.
